'These contracts show the shadowy 'camo economy' at work in Afghanistan,' said the author of a new CostsOfWar report on $108 billion in military contracting over the past two decades.
Military contracting"obscures where and how taxpayer money flows," and"makes it difficult to know how many people are employed, injured, and killed," said the Costs of War Project report's author.
Inadequate oversight, coupled with the issue of sub-contracting, results in a system in which the U.S. government pays contractors who then leave a trail of spending that is nearly impossible to follow. The contractors examined by Peltier were paid for construction, lodging, office supplies, refrigeration equipment, transportation, waste disposal, and weapons maintenance in the war-torn country. They operated various facilities—such as dining and troop housing—and were contracted for accounting, fuel, food, guard, and surveillance services., the analysis states,"contractors provided all types of goods and services that were essential to the U.S.
The analysis cites reports by the DOD Inspector General and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction . In one case involving insufficient voucher reviews for a major contract from 2015 to 2017, the new report notes,"one-fifth of them had questionable or undocumented expenses, totaling over $536 million."
SIGAR, in its quarterly report to Congress this past January,"conservatively estimated nearly 30% of U.S. appropriations for Afghanistan reconstruction from 2009 to 2019 was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse." The Pentagon was responsible for the bulk of that spending. "I would recommend the DOD reduce its contracting overall and return to providing more services in-house," Peltier added, referencing"services like weapons maintenance and security, but also things like food services and lodging, in order to have more command in fulfilling its own needs and reduce the use of contracts and the opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse."
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