Report faults Pentagon's buying of spare partsJune 10 (Reuters) - A Pentagon agency buys over $7 billion worth of spare parts every year the Defense Department ends up not needing, a practice one U.S. senator decried as an "unbelievable" waste of taxpayer money.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a new report released on Thursday that the Defense Logistics Agency had no use for parts worth $7.1 billion, more than half of the $13.7 billion in equipment stacked in Defense Department warehouses on average from 2006 to 2008.
"The waste of taxpayer dollars is unbelievable," said Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent and Senate Budget Committee member who requested the study."At a time when the country has a $13 trillion national debt and is struggling with huge unmet needs, it is outrageous that the Defense Department continues to waste huge sums of money for spare parts that the military doesn't need."