WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs officials have ordered a halt to all document shredding after a routine check found unprocessed benefits applications tossed into disposal piles at four regional offices.

In a conference call with veterans groups Thursday, VA officials said the department’s inspector general found five unprocessed documents waiting to be shredded in the Detroit regional office.

Three more were found in the St. Louis office, two more in Waco, Texas. Officials said more were found in a Florida regional office but could not specify how many.

Leaders at the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. called the revelation a "disgraceful management failure" and called for better enforcement of the department’s own paperwork safeguards.

"With almost 850,000 VA claims in the backlog, the question that begs to be asked and answered is how many veterans had their disability and compensation claims disappear down a paper shredder," VFW national commander Glen Gardner said in a statement.

The department has 56 regional offices handling benefits claims for disability pay, pensions, tuition assistance, home loans and other financial issues. The VA would not specify what types of documents were found in the shred piles.

In a statement Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake acknowledged the misplaced paperwork could have affected some veterans’ eligibility for the financial aid.

"It is unacceptable that documents important to a veteran’s claim for benefits should be misplaced or destroyed," he said.

VA undersecretary for benefits Patrick Dunne on Thursday ordered the regional offices to suspend all document shredding until a broader investigation into the problem is completed.

Peake promised any employees found improperly disposing of documents would be held accountable and said regional directors will now have to certify that no original copies of key documents are being destroyed in their offices.

Under department rules, original copies of military discharge orders, marriage and death certificates, and other essential paperwork are returned to veterans or families after benefits processors can verify them.

Duplicate copies of those papers are destroyed after the claims are processed to protect veterans’ privacy.

Rick Weidman, director of government relations for the Vietnam Veterans of America, said his group has complained to the VA for years about mishandling of documents at the regional offices.

"I wish we could say we’re surprised by this, but the only real surprise is that they admitted it," he said. "We told (Dunne’s) predecessors about this, but nothing has really happened.

"We can keep holding hearings and filing lawsuits, but I don’t know what it’s going to take to get them to obey the law."