I did a google on "trillion defense rumsfeld"
It's more Enron-itis, but greater by orders of magnitude. It starts with limited hangout, then increases, since no one dares tell the taxpayer how they've been robbed by the clubby Beltway:
On Sept 1st, 2001 it was $1.1 trillion:
govexec.com
"The Defense inspector general recently identified $1.1 trillion in financial statements that lacked adequate audit data or documentation"
By Jan 29, 2002 it was $2.3 trillion
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted. "
cbsnews.com
Where is it?
"..."We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency's balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.
"The director looked at me and said 'Why do you care about this stuff?' It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job," said Minnery.
He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.
"They have to cover it up," he said. "That's where the corruption comes in. They have to cover up the fact that they can't do the job."
The Pentagon's Inspector General "partially substantiated" several of Minnery's allegations but could not prove officials tried "to manipulate the financial statements."
Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse.
"Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year," he said.
Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy's 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976.
In his opinion, "With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers." |
