Posted 5-8-08

Army OKs $248M to Repair Barracks

(NewsRoom) -- The U.S. Army has authorized spending $248 million to rehabilitate some of its barracks following inspections of some 148,000 rooms at bases around the world over the past two weeks.

"We ordered a look at literally every single room," said Army Secretary Pete Geren Wednesday at Ft. Bragg, N.C. "We didn't find any looming danger to their health and safety."

Nevertheless, Army leaders say housing and barracks conditions are deplorable, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decades to upgrade them.

In 1994 the Army approved a plan to tear down its oldest structures and replace them with new modern facilities. The completion date for that plan was this year but the date has been pushed back until 2013 to make financial room for other pressing needs related to the Global War on Terror.

Some Army facilities still in use were built to house World War II and Korean War soldiers.