Pentagon cannot account for $1.3 billion sent to US commanders in Afghanistan

The Pentagon is unable to account for $1.3 billion in funds sent to commanders in Afghanistan through the years 2004 to 2014 for reconstruction projects.

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These funds were sent to military commanders in order to bypass bureaucracy to speed up construction of badly needed infrastructure, including roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and water treatment facilities. The $1.3 billion for which there is no account represents about 60 percent of funds allocated to the program. About 70 percent of the $100 billion the US has spent during its 13.5 years in aid to Afghanistan has gone through the Pentagon with the remainder distributed through the US Agency for International Development(USAID) and other civilian departments.

John Sopko, the US special investigator general for Afghan reconstruction (SIGAR), spent a year studying the $2.26 billion spent on the Commander's Emergency Response Program(CERP). Sopko's report said:"In reviewing this data, SIGAR found that the Department of Defense could only provide financial information relating to the disbursement of funds for CERP projects totaling $890 million (40 percent) of the approximately $2.2 billion in obligated funds at that time,"

The report analyzed the expenditures under 20 categories such as, transportation, water and sanitation, health care, education, etc. However, there was an added category called "unknown" that contained 5,163 projects while all the other categories together came only to 4,494 projects. The Pentagon so far has not commented on the SIGAR findings.

US Central Command, the overseer of military operations in Afghanistan as well as many other countries said that some of the money could have been redirected to other more urgent military requirements such as counterinsurgency. In a Feb. 25 email to Sopko's office Central Command said: “Although the (inspector general’s) report is technically accurate, it did not discuss the counterinsurgency strategies in relationship to CERP, In addition (to) the 20 uses of CERP funds, it was also used as a tool for counterinsurgency.”This comment hardly explains why money set aside for emergency reconstruction had to be used for counter insurgency. The bulk of the approximately $800 billion spent on the Afghan war was for military needs. "Counterinsurgency" is just not one of the 20 defined categories under this emergency response program.

Almost half of the funds under the CERP program were spent in just two provinces, Kandahar, and Helmand two areas with the most Taliban activities and bloodiest battles. Almost a third of the funds, $289 million were spent in Kandahar. Since being established in 2008, SIGAR has issued dozens of reports documenting how billions in aid has been lost through waste or corruption. One report found that tens of thousands of surplus AK-47 assault weapons and other weapons shipped to Afghanistan had simply disappeared. Another report found that the US continued to give Afghan security forces a planned $1.4 billion for gasoline purchases even though evidence showed that some of the money had been siphoned off for other unexplained uses.

Costs of US operations against Islamic State already in excess of one billion

According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon has spent up to $1.1 billion in military operations directed against the Islamic State both in Iraq and Syria since operations began back in the middle of June.

The Pentagon previously said that it is spending between $7 and $10 million a day. The AP calculation is based upon this estimate. US Central Command released figures that put the cost of Navy airstrikes and Tomahawk cruise missile launches at $62 million but did not indicate the costs of Air Force strikes. As of the first week of October there had been more than 266 airstrikes in Iraq and 103 in Syria. Commander Bil Urban, a spokesperson, for the Pentagon claimed that there had been 6,600 sorties sorties by the US and allied aircraft at a cost of some $580 million since airstrikes began on August 8. Earlier, the Defense Dept. had claimed an average of around $7 million a day for the air campaign but that has now been upped to $8.1 million as the pace of airstrikes has increased with the total cost of just the air campaign at $580 million.
 Some independent analysts say the Defense Deptarment underestimates costs claiming that the costs are already beyond a billion dollars and may rise to several billion within a year. Todd Harrison from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments claims that the war costs could amount to $2.4 billion to $3.8 billion a year. If the bombing raids are expanded significantly he sees the costs climbing to $4.2 billion to $6..8 billion a year.
 A large part of the costs are the huge number of surveillance flights. The military campaign, with the euphemistic name "Operation Inherent Resolve" involves thousands of spy flights plus aerial refueling operations. Drones used in surveillance cost about $1,000 per hour of operation for ordinary Predator and Reaper drones but the high-altitude Global Hawk drones cost much more at $7,000 an hour. Aircraft such as the E-8-J-STAR cost up to $22,000 per hour to operate.
The operations are not funded through the regular budget but through what is the equivalent of a credit card with no upper spending limit the Overseas Contingency Operations Fund. The fund had about $85 billion for the year ending Sept. 30th but is scheduled to drop to $54 billion this year. However, the fund can always be replenished.
Other countries such as the UK will also contribute to the US-led operation against the Islamic State. Malcolm Chalmers, research director at the Royal United Services Institute said that past experience provides some idea of costs although total cost will depend upon the intensity and length of operation. He estimates that the UK seven month mission in Libya cost about $390 million including the missiles used and flight hours. He said that cost would be in the the "ballpark" for Iraq and Syria strikes assuming that the UK used only air power and the campaign did not last more than a couple of years. The UK has special Brimstone precision missiles at a cost of about $240,000 each. The UK may use Tornado GR4 aircraft that cost around $57,000 per hour to operate. The UK also has Storm Shadow cruise missiles costing $1.3 million each and also Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines that cost around $1.5 million each. The UK has already been using Tomahawk missiles in attacks in Syria.

How many overseas bases does the U.S. have and at what cost?

The Pentagon estimates that each year it spends $22.1 billion to maintain its bases and troops around the world. However, the actual costs even on conservative estimates is about $170 billion annually.

The totals could be even higher. Estimates of maintaining U.S. bases abroad since the start of the war on terror in 2001 range from $1.8 trillion to $2.1 trillion.
] The Pentagon must each year produce an "Overseas Cost Summary" that calculates the total price on overseas military activities. This includes costs of construction, repairs and maintenance. There are about one million U.S. military and Defence Department personnel and families abroad. This calculation for the 2012 fiscal year ending September 30 documented $22.1 billion in spending.
 But that is only part of the story. Congress conveniently ordered the Pentagon not to include the more than $118 billion spent in 2012 on wars in Afghanistan and other places throughout the globe. Even if you added this amount in, it does not come close to economist's Anita Danc's estimate of about $250 billion. Even without including war spending, Danc's estimate comes to about $ 140 billion, not even close to the Pentagon figures. 

David Vine who teaches at American University in Washington D.C. who has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian, attempted to find out himself the cost of the more than 1,000 U.S. military bases outside of the United States and is currently completing a book on the subject.
 Vine talked to budget experts, and both current and former Pentagon officials, among many others in his attempt to gather relevant data. Many interviewed said that Vine's task was hopeless because of the huge number of bases involved, the secrecy of Pentagon budgets and the often fictional nature of Pentagon figures. The Department of Defence Vine notes is the only federal budget yet to pass a financial audit. Vine points out myriad missing parts of the puzzle in the Pentagon Overseas Cost Summary but I will just give a sample to keep this article of manageable length. I recommend the entire article at Al Jazeera.
Vine found that at least 18 countries and foreign territories on the Pentagon's own list of overseas basses somehow are not named in the OCS report. For example Kosovo and Bosnia. Another Pentagon report lists costs of $313.8 million there in 2012. That other Pentagon report also shows that the OCS report underestimated costs for bases in Honduras and Guanatanamo Bay by about a third. But there are even more omissions.
 The U.S. has a number of overseas territories that are often host to U.S military bases including Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, etc. While these bases are domestic in that they are within the U.S. at the same time they are overseas. There are many bases on these territories, estimated to cost about $3 billion a year. A partial list of U.S. bases both in the U.S. and globally can be found here. The number of bases is difficult to determine exactly and depends on what is defined as a base but the total of of foreign bases likely is in excess of one thousand. The issue is discussed on some of the appended videos. The U.S. has by far the largest military expenditures of any country on the globe. Some of the details of the military budget can be found here.:

"The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of global arms spending. The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the $106 billion of the military budget of China, and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined"

Bush won't ban Permanent Bases: Pushes for Iraq Oil Law

Whether there are permanent bases or not is a rather academic matter since the current bases are likely to be there indefinitely. Some are obviously set up in such a fashion as to be there for quite some while. The huge U.S. embassy complex is not about to be closed unless there is a violent overthrow of the U.S. backed government.
The Oil Law has been languishing in parliament for a year now pending some agreement between the Kurds and other parties. The Kurds have gone off on their own signing their own agreements with third parties much to the annoyance of the central government.


Bush Won't Ban Permanent Bases : Pushes For Iraqi Oil Law
by Aaron Glantz
Global Research, February 2, 2008
IPS - 2008-01-29
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 29 (IPS) - President George W. Bush signed a 696-billion-dollar Pentagon spending bill immediately before his State of the Union address Monday night, which funds all Defence Department programmes not directly tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, expands health care for injured veterans and gives U.S. soldiers a pay raise.The bill is a mixed bag for peace activists, since Bush added a so-called "signing statement" saying he would ignore provisions that ban permanent military bases in Iraq and forbid the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Congress tucked many contentious policies into the spending bill, knowing President Bush would have to sign it to keep the military from grinding to a halt. Among them is a Wounded Warrior bill designed to improve the quality of medical care for U.S. veterans. Washington's answer to the scandal surrounding poor care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, it was championed by politicians and presidential hopefuls across the political spectrum from Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. "This is a tremendous victory for veterans, so that we do not leave any more behind to fall through the cracks," said Paul Sullivan, director of the group Veterans for Common Sense. The Pentagon reports more than 68,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, injured, or stricken ill in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics have treated over 260,000 patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. On top of that, the VA has reported nearly 250,000 disability claims from veterans of the two wars. Studies show as many as half of the 1.6 million soldiers sent to fight in Iraq will return with post-traumatic stress disorder and a fifth are returning with traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs. Sullivan says the most important aspect of the legislation President Bush signed Monday is a provision guaranteeing every veteran free VA health care for five years after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. "Right now, veterans only receive two years of free health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and due to the long delays at the VA, those two years often expire before the veteran can receive treatment from a doctor," he told IPS. "In some cases, when a veteran has traumatic brain injury or a psychological condition related to the war, it may be six months or two or even three years until the condition gets serious enough for the veteran to even want to go to the VA for health care. Now, with this five years of free health care from the VA, our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans can rest a little more assured that when they show up at the VA they will be treated right away with high quality VA doctors," he said. President Bush didn't approve the entire bill, though -- he used a signing statement to say he wouldn't follow four provisions of the act, which he said "could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations." Those provisions would have mandated increased Congressional oversight of military contractors, banned construction of permanent military bases in Iraq and forbade the use of U.S. troops to exercise United States control of Iraq's oil resources. Antonia Juhasz of the group Oil Change International told IPS the issues of oil and permanent military bases are related. "We've got the Bush administration pushing aggressively for an (Iraqi) law that would give oil companies 20- to 25-year contracts for oil in Iraq and if they were to be at work for an extended length of time, they would need security," she said. "If the U.S. military is going to stay in Iraq for 20 or 35 years, they're going to need bases," she added. Juhasz said President Bush's signing statements show the futility of the Democrat's main approach to the war issue -- which is to continue approving funds for the war while simultaneously trying to extract concessions from the administration. A Congressional Budget Office report released last week showed the Democratic Congress appropriated more money for the Iraq war in 2007 than Republican Congresses did in years past. "The bottom line has to be in the willingness to give the money," she said. "The budget for the war this year has reached 170 billion dollars for just the next year. That is an astounding amount of money. The increase in spending on the war is largely caused by the surge and of course the power of the purse is the only power that the Democrats have." Some observers are looking forward to January 2009, when George Bush's eight years in office will come to an end. But James Paul of the Global Policy Forum says there's plenty the Democrats can do this year to slow or stop the conflict. "If this is something that counts, then surely they have a pretty strong mandate," he said. "I suspect there are problems that will go beyond January 2009 and this issue is not going to go away any time soon -- even if George Bush is out of office," he added.
Global Research Articles by Aaron Glantz