Pentagon's Accounting Mess

The Defense Department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems. So why does the Pentagon still have no idea where its money goes?

The basic defense budget for 2007 was $439.3 billion, up 48 percent from 2001, excluding the vast additional sums appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to federal regulators and current and former Pentagon officials, the accounting process is so obsolete and error prone that it's virtually impossible to tell where much of this money ends up. While the department's brass has made a few patchwork improvements, billions are still ... Full Story »

Posted by Beth Wellington

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Review

Peter Halligan
3.6
by Peter Halligan - Oct. 1, 2008

This a great story, it actually gets to a reality that is being hidden and not discussed in any depth. The point that is missing is that it avoids the painful truth, via complacency amongst the voters, that corruption is the outcome whenever improper accounting occurs. This story has the potential to make Watergate look like a crossed line. I look forward to the time when our reporters actually go under cover for the real story within the pentagon which to me sounds very much like, generals get half to shoot off their big guns and half goes to the pentagon backed corporate mafia that siphons their bit off to their buddies and then says, hey "I know I can organise the logistics of a full theatre battlegroup, but please don't ask me to count". Oh, the danger, the thrillof not getting caught and the tax payer getting told of all the scams kickbacks and corruption! Come on reporters, sign up to the pentagon and really blow the lid off this perpetual defrauding of the american people!

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Peter's Rating

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3.6

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