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Link: 1 Trillion Missing - DoD Waste Under Fire
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$1 Trillion Missing : Military Waste
Under Fire
By Tom Abate
San Francisco
Chronicle Staff Writer
See full story
here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL&type=printable
or here …
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8888.htm
The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.
The Pentagon's unenviable reputation for waste will top the congressional agenda this week, when the House and Senate are expected to begin floor debate on a Bush administration proposal to make sweeping changes in how the Pentagon spends money, manages contracts and treats civilian employees.
The Bush proposal, called the Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act, arrives at a time when the nonpartisan General Accounting Office has raised the volume of its perennial complaints about the financial woes at Defense, which recently failed its seventh audit in as many years.
"Overhauling DOD's financial management operations
represent a challenge that goes far beyond financial
accounting to the very fiber of (its) . . . business
operations and culture," GAO chief David Walker told
lawmakers in March.
WHAT HAPPENED TO $1
TRILLION?
Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.
…
See full story
here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL&type=printable
or here …
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8888.htm
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