New questions about U.S. Defense Department task force in Afghanistan

By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Department of Defense officials in Afghanistan spent nearly $150 million (100 million pounds) on private “villas,” even though they could have saved millions of dollars by staying at bases, a U.S. government watchdog said. In a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter dated Nov. 25, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said employees for the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) were not only provided with furnished houses, but also hired contractors for security and food services. “If TFBSO employees had instead lived at (Defense Department) facilities in Afghanistan, where housing, security, and food service are routinely provided at little or no extra charge to (Defense Department) organizations, it appears the taxpayers would have saved tens of millions of dollars,” Sopko said in the letter. According to SIGAR, the task force was started in Afghanistan in 2009 and between 2010 and 2014 the U.S. Congress appropriated more than $820 million. The task force was shut down earlier this year. SIGAR said it had received more allegations about the task force than any other program in Afghanistan. Sopko said each room in the villas included a flat screen television, DVD player and mini-refrigerator, while food services were required to provide at least two entree options and three side order choices for meals. A Defense Department official said the letter had been received and the department will respond. Paul Brinkley, the task force’s first director, told Reuters that the decision to operate outside of military and diplomatic installations “was elemental to its successes and was clearly sanctioned by Pentagon leadership as well as the Congress.” This is not the first time questions have been raised about the project. Under the same task force the Defense Department spent nearly $43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan. In an email, Sopko told Reuters the Defense Department was restricting access to documents related to the task force, including potentially redacting them. “Our current inquiry into the TFBSO program is the first and only time the Defense Department has ever subjected SIGAR's requests for information to such restrictions and redactions," Sopko said. The Defense Department official said the redaction of information was a “common sense safeguard, not a change in policy.” A U.S. Senate hearing on the task force is expected to take place in the middle of January, according to Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for Senator Kelly Ayotte. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Andrew Hay)