The Pentagon spent $150 million on luxury accommodation and private security for a handful of staff in Afghanistan instead of using government housing on military bases, which would have saved taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, according to an inspector general's report released Thursday.
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko has asked Defense Secretary Ash Carter to explain why he allowed the now-defunct Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) to spend about 20 percent of its budget on private housing and security guards in Afghanistan.
"SIGAR's preliminary review indicates that TFBSO leadership rented specially furnish, privately owned 'villas' and hired contractors to provide 24-hour building security, food services, and bodyguards for TFBSO staff and visitors traveling in the country," Sopko wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Carter, which was published this week by SIGAR. "The contractors lived in TFBSO facilities, arranged transportation, and provided security details when TFBSO personnel traveled outside their compounds."
Task force personnel were provided with queen-sized beds in certain rooms, a flat screen TV in each room that was 27 inches or larger, a DVD player in each room, a mini refrigerator in each room, and an "investor villa" that had "upgraded furniture" and "western-style hotel accommodations," reported USA Today.
Food service of at least three stars was also required, "with each meal containing at least two entrée choices and three side order choices, as well as three course meals for 'Special Events.'"
Other required amenities included "light snacks and water/tea/coffee/sodas available 24hrs," on-site laundry, business equipment, housekeeping, groundskeeping, cultural advisors and translators, and secure, low-profile transportation.
Sopko said it "is unclear what benefit the US received" from the expenditures, and that they appear to have been made without first conducting a cost-benefit analysis.
"If TFBSO employees had instead lived at (Department of Defense) facilities in Afghanistan, where housing, security, and food service are routinely provided at little or no extra charge to DoD organizations, it appears the taxpayers would have saved tens of millions of dollars," Sopko wrote.
The task force explained that the villas were designed to entice private companies into the war-torn country, saying that they were required to show that foreigners could work inside Afghanistan without help from the U.S. military, according to The Washington Times.
"Our goal was to get businesses running and to encourage private investors and corporations from outside of Afghanistan to engage in the country either as trading partners or as investors," said Paul Brinkley, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and TFBSO's first director. "Wherever possible, we avoided depending on the military. We were part of their mission . . . but we avoided living on military bases whenever possible. The goal was to show private companies that they could set up operations in Afghanistan themselves without needing military support."
The inspector general found in November that the same task force had spent $43 million for a natural gas filling station that should have cost just $500,000, as HNGN previously reported.
"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity," Sopko told NBC News. "There may be fraud. There may be corruption. But I cannot currently find out more about this because of the lack of cooperation."
