Pentagon Missing Trillions

CBS Reports Pentagon Missing $2.3 Trillion

"'According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,' Rumsfeld admitted. $2.3 trillion – that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America."

-- CBS, 1/29/02

Dear friends,

One day before the 9/11 attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the above astonishing admission. Besides being reported months later in the CBS report given below, the quote is still posted on this webpage of the Department of Defense website.

And on this page of the PBS website, we learn that this figure came from a report of the Pentagon's inspector general. "Its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends," reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

The timing of this admission just one day before 9/11 kept this story from even making the news at the time. Even when it was finally reported months later, this revelation received scant coverage. Why has this startling news never been given top headlines in large bold print on all of the nation's newspapers? Why to this day is our press hardly mentioning this most vital issue?

Please help to play the role at which the press is so sadly failing by sending this message to your friends and colleagues. With the power of the Internet, we can inform the public of all that is going on the behind the scenes and inspire people to work together for a brighter future. You take care and remember that every one of us makes a difference.

With best wishes,

Fred Burks for WantToKnow.info

Note: Watch the CBS video report of this news. And read other major media reports of unbelievable government and military corruption.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

The War On Waste

(CBS) On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.

Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.

Just last week President Bush announced, "my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending."

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion – that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"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."



Important Note: Don't miss other major media reports of unbelievable government and military corruption.

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