Report: Military wasted money on Afghan incinerators

by Ray Locker, USA Today
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WASHINGTON — When it comes to military spending, $5.4 million isn’t much money, but a report released Monday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction shows the wasted money on incinerators for a base in Afghanistan goes beyond accounting.

It meant U.S. troops were put at risk.

The report said the Army Corps of Engineers needs to conduct an investigation to determine whether the acceptance of an incinerator to be used at Forward Operating Base Sharana in Afghanistan and the payment of $5.4 million to the contractor requires any action against the corps’ contracting officers.

Instead of being able to use the new incinerators, troops at FOB Sharana had to burn solid waste in open-air burn pits, a health hazard the new incinerators were meant to stop. The Pentagon’s Central Command issued an order in 2011 to stop using the open-air pits, but inspectors found such pits still in operation at Sharana in May.

As USA TODAY’s Kelly Kennedy has reported repeatedly, burn pits have caused health problems for thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the government’s record of stopping the pits and caring for veterans harmed by them has been marked by fits, starts and wasted money.