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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPentagon's $800 Billion Real Estate Problem The U.S. Military Has No Idea What It Owns
The U.S. Department of Defense owns more than half a million properties worth in excess of $800 billion dollars. The militarys real estate holdings span the globe and, all together, sprawl across 30 million acres.
Pentagon auditors cant explain what half the properties are forand doesnt have a plan for finding out. All this according to a Sept. 8 report from the Government Accountability Office.
The nearly trillion-dollar real estate glut is merely another example of egregious military waste.
Way back in 1997, the GAO identified the Pentagons real estate record-keeping as a high risk problem. The Defense Department could sell unused facilities and save billions.
It just needed to figure out exactly what buildings it owned and how it used them all. But military bureaucrats made only passing attempts to find out. The Defense Department is probably still sitting on billions of dollars worth of properties it has no use for, despite 17 years of GAO goading.
We found in September 2011 that DoD was limited in its ability to reduce excess inventory because DoD did not maintain accurate and complete data regarding the utilization of its facilities, the GAO states in its new report.
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/09/14/the_pentagons_800_billion_real_estate_problem_107438.html
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Here's what 32 million equals to
32 million acres is EXACTLY 50,000, not 51,200, or about 129,500 km². There are 640 acres in a square mile by definition. You can go that math in your head. 320 * 100,000 / 640 = 0.5 * 100,000 = 50,000.
Greece is the closest country by land area at 130,800 sq km.
Alabama is the closest state by land area at 32.48 million acres
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081202115416AAzf6YU
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)And unacceptable. Perhaps if they got busy figuring out just what and where everything (not just real estate) is, they could cut that bloated budget a bit.
SamKnause
(13,043 posts)Has the Pentagon accounted for the MISSING 2.3 TRILLION dollars ?????
The announcement was made the day before 9/11 by Donald Rumsfeld ????