The Pentagon cannot account for $2.3 TRILLION!!!

[ivan_astikov]

http://benfrank.net/patriots/news/national/pentagon_missing_trillions

I know this is old news, but what progress has been made into accounting for these phenomenal losses? Events the following day would have led to that story being put on the back burner, but what has been done since?

[gonzomax]

When GAO accountants got pushy they were fired. Whistleblowers were fired and left unprotected. It was covered up.

[sweeteviljesus]

Where did the blogger linked to get that information? Given that 2.3 trillion is in the same order of magnitude as the yearly budget of the entire gov’t, that should have been headline news.

Thanks,
Rob

[SmackFu]

It’s funny how it got turned into “the Pentagon lost the money”. And that this story is apprently only cited on wackjob web pages.

Rumsfeld Speech

U.S. Department of Defense

The technology revolution has transformed organizations across the private sector, but not ours, not fully, not yet. We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.

DoD source report:
http://www.dodig.mil/Audit/reports/fy00/00-091.pdf

We also identified $6.9 trillion in accounting entries to financial data used to prepare financial statements for the Army, Navy, and Air Force General Funds; the Army, Navy, and Air Force Working Capital Funds; Other Defense Organizations-General Funds; and Other Defense Organizations-Working Capital Funds. For the accounting entries, $2.3 trillion was not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine their validity, $2 trillion was not reviewed because of time constraints, and $2.6 trillion were supported.

[ivan_astikov]

@SmackFu

It’s funny how it got turned into “the Pentagon lost the money”. And that this story is apprently only cited on wackjob web pages.

Rumsfeld Speech
U.S. Department of Defense

What do you mean? Rumsfield doesn’t seem to make a big objection to the claim in that speech? Are you saying the statement is being twisted to represent something it doesn’t really say?

[SmackFu]

I’m saying “we do not have a proper audit trail” is not the same as “it was stolen”.

[friedo]

@ivan_astikov

What do you mean? Rumsfield doesn’t seem to make a big objection to the claim in that speech? Are you saying the statement is being twisted to represent something it doesn’t really say?

The speech says they don’t have adequate accounting on the $2.3 trillion, not that they lost it.

Imagine your company buys a fancy new Xerox machine for $10,000. The boss approves the purchase, allocates money for the budget, puts it on his corporate AmEx, and the friendly Xerox people dutifully show up with your brand new whizbang copier.

Then you lose the receipt. Everybody knows what you spent the $10,000 on, but without the receipt, you don’t have a proper audit trail. The $10,000 was not lost or misplaced, it’s just not properly accounted.

The Pentagon’s accounting is significantly more complex, of course, but saying X amount of money did not meet audit trail specifications is not the same as saying that amount of money was lost.

[ivan_astikov]

@SmackFu

I’m saying “we do not have a proper audit trail” is not the same as “it was stolen”.

Nobody has said “it was stolen”, besides you. $2.3 TRILLION…doesn’t seem like much when you say it fast, does it?