A recently made public report from the Pentagon has finally concluded that the U.S. military bases which were utilized as housing for Afghan nationals who were evacuated from Afghanistan due to the blundered pullout from President Joe Biden have inflicted multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to the bases.
This new report was made public in the wake of close to 76,000 Afghan nationals being evacuated over the course of just a few days back in August of 2021 to staging bases located in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Bahrain, and Germany.
Those evacuating were then shipped out to newly set up temporary housing facilities located across a total of eight DOD installations — Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL), New Jersey; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Fort Pickett, Virginia; Fort Lee, Virginia; Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico, Virginia; and Holloman Air Force Base (AFB), New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General expressed that a total of 11 of the installations reported back estimates to reset equipment facilities and consumables to pre-Operation Allies Welcome conditions.
The various costs were broken down into two distinct categories: Equipment/Consumables & Facilities.
The report stated that there was close to $257.48 million in damages to the facilities, which encompasses $174.9 million for Army bases, $3.21 million for Navy bases, $63 million for Air Force bases, and $16.37 million for Marine Corps bases.
A selection of DoD restoration reviewers expressed that $238.04 million in damages were qualified to be paid for via Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) funds.
The report expressed that the rest of the damages afflicted on the facilities and the damages done to consumables and equipment — well over $100 million — would need to be paid for through operation and maintenance or military construction appropriations allocated to each and every one of the various DoD Component.
As an example, officials with the Air Force have claimed that the damages caused by the large number of Afghan nationals were entirely unrepairable as officials spoke out about “tables, chairs, and cots broken by guests and tents and cots ruined by spray paint, human biological matter, and holes.”
The extreme cost to the U.S. taxpayers resulted in noticeable damage to the U.S. military’s preparedness for military operations, explained the Pentagon report.
“DoD installations reported that facilities and equipment were overused, damaged, and remained in various degrees of disrepair, resulting in a costly maintenance effort,” the inspector general discovered. “DoD installations need to restore their facilities and equipment to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations.”
