The DLA runs the Defense National Stockpile Center (DNSC) which stores 42 "strategic and critical materials" -- from zinc, lead, cobalt, chromium, and mercury (more than 9.7 million pounds of it in 2005) to precious metals such as platinum, palladium, and even industrial diamonds -- at 20 locations across the U.S. With a stockpile valued at over $1.5 billion and $5.7 billion in sales of excess commodities since 1993, the DNSC claims that there is "no private sector company in the world that sells this wide range of commodities and materials."
All told, the Department of Defense owns up to having "[o]ver $1 trillion in assets [and] $1.6 trillion in liabilities." This is, no doubt, a gross underestimate given the DoD's historic penchant for flawed book-keeping and the fact that, according to a study by its own inspector general, it cannot even account for at least $1 trillion dollars in money spent -- or perhaps, according to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as much as $2.3 trillion. Cooking the books and stashing cash is fitting enough for an American organization, in the age of Enron, that thinks of itself not just as a government agency but, in its own words, as "America's oldest company, largest company, busiest company and most successful company." In fact, on its website, the DoD makes the point that it easily bests Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, and General Motors in terms of budget and staff.
It's Got the Whole World in Its Hands
In addition to assembling a dizzying array of assets, from tungsten to tubas -- in 2005 alone, it spent more than $6 million on sheet music, musical instruments, and accessories -- the Pentagon owns a great deal of housing: 300,000 units worldwide. By its own admission, it is also a slumlord par excellence -- with an inventory of "180,000 inadequate family housing units." According to the Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Installations & Environment):
Approximately 33 percent of all [military] families live on-base, in housing that is often dilapidated, too small, lacking in modern facilities -- almost 49 percent (or 83,000 units) are substandard.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense's own home, the Pentagon, bests the Sultan of Brunei's Istana Nurul Iman palace, the largest private residence in the world -- 3,705,793 to 2,152,782 square feet of occupiable space. The DoD likes to boast that the Pentagon is "virtually a city in itself" -- with 30 miles of access highways, 200 acres of lawn space. It includes a five-acre center courtyard, 17.5 miles of corridors, 16 parking lots (with an estimated 8,770 parking spaces), seven snack bars, two cafeterias, one dining room, a post office, "credit union, travel agency, dental offices, ticket offices, blood donor center, housing referral office, and 30 other retail shops and services," a chapel, a heliport, and numerous libraries. Moreover, says the DoD, the Pentagon consumed a huge portion of its natural environment, its concrete reportedly contains "680,000 tons of sand and gravel from the nearby Potomac River."
In value, the Pentagon's other properties are almost as impressive. The combined worth of the world's two most expensive homes, the $138 million 103-room "Updown Court" in Windlesham, Surrey in the United Kingdom and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan's $135 million Aspen ski lodge don't even come close to the price tag on Ascension Auxiliary Airfield, located on a small island off the coast of St. Helena (the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile and death). It has an estimated replacement value of over $337 million. Other high-priced facilities include Camp Ederle in Italy at $544 million; Incirlik Air Base in Turkey at almost $1.2 billion; and Thule Air Base in Greenland at $2.8 billion; while the U.S. Naval Air Station in Keflavik, Iceland is appraised at $3.4 billion and the various military facilities in Guam are valued at more than $11 billion.
Still, to begin to grasp the Pentagon's global immensity, it helps to look, again, at its land holdings -- all 120,191 square kilometers which are almost exactly the size of North Korea (120,538 square kilometers). These holdings are larger than any of the following nations: Liberia, Bulgaria, Guatemala, South Korea, Hungary, Portugal, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, Denmark, Georgia, or Austria. The 7,518 square kilometers of 20 micro-states -- the Vatican, Monaco, Nauru, Tuvalu, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Maldives, Malta, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Seychelles, Andorra, Bahrain, Saint Lucia, Singapore, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati and Tonga -- combined pales in comparison to the 9,307 square kilometers of just one military base, White Sands Missile Range.
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http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174818/ ... l_landlord
Senate set to approve record Pentagon budget
Cox News Service
WASHINGTON | By Friday, the Senate is expected to authorize a record-breaking $648 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Even adjusted for inflation, the Pentagon budget for the coming year would be the largest tab for national defense since the end of World War II.
Driving the increase is the continuing war in Iraq, where more than 3,610 U.S. troops have been killed and 26,700 wounded, according to Pentagon figures.
Adding the cost of continuing the fight and long-term costs, such as taking care of wounded and disabled veterans and the toll exacted on the U.S. economy, the total cost of the war could reach well beyond $2 trillion, according to a study last year by two scholars at Harvard and Columbia universities.
A June analysis by the Congressional Research Service put the cost of the war through 2008 at $567 billion.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/194233.html
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