[CPEO-MEF] GLOBAL, CLOSURE: Marines stripping Afghanistan bases

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[I've seen no reports of environmental cleanup. - LS]

Marine pullout offers preview of what U.S. leaves behind for Afghan troops

By Tim Craig 
Washington Post
November 11, 2014

KABUL - When U.S. Marines withdrew from Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan’s Helmand province last month, they faced a task that was something like cleaning out a stuffy attic covering 10 square miles. In a series of multibillion-dollar decisions, the Marines and Pentagon planners decided what stayed, what went and what got tossed into the trash or burned.

The Marines decided to leave 420,000 bottles of water, which if lined up end to end would stretch for more than 50 miles. They incinerated about 10,000 MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) that might have been used to feed Afghan troops but were nearing their expiration date.

More than 7,500 computers were destroyed or removed. But the television sets remained. What about the 1.6 million pounds of ammunition stored on the base? Afghan soldiers taking over will be lucky to find even a single live bullet.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/marine-pullout-offers-preview-of-what-us-leaves-behind-for-afghan-troops/2014/11/10/e1e53c00-636c-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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