Senators will ask the Pentagon next month to answer for millions it spent in Afghanistan on projects like an exorbitantly expensive gas station and private villas for U.S. staff.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold an oversight hearing on Jan. 20 to look into recent allegations that the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations Projects in Afghanistan wasted significant amounts of taxpayer dollars.
Brian McKeon, the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, and John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, are expected to testify.
This month, the organization Sopko leads sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter asking why U.S. personnel were housed in private “villas” in Afghanistan rather than at military or embassy facilities.
The plush villas, which included queen-sized beds, flat screen TVs and 24-hour building security and food service, cost nearly $150 million.
By comparison, it would have cost about $1.8 million in 2014 for a small number of U.S. staff to live at the embassy.
The task force also came under fire in November when a SIGAR report found that it spent $43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan that should have cost about $300,000. In that instance, the Pentagon was unable to provide any answers on why the costs increased so much.
“There are few things in this job that literally make my jaw drop,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said in a press release. “It’s hard to imagine a more outrageous waste of money than building an alternative fuel station in a war-torn country that costs 8,000 percent more than it should and is too dangerous for a watchdog to verify whether it is even operational.”
