The Quartermaster Is AWOL

The Pentagon can't account for over a trillion dollars in transactions -- plus 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 missile command launch-units. Insert joke about Iraqi WMDs here.

Comments

[david f]

just apply the middle east policy rule of thumb:

1) make up some stuff about where the items could be

2) then when it's not there, make up another story of where it is (absence of evidence is not evidence of absense -- adhoc backing into proof corrolary)

3) accuse all who disagree of some sort of anti-patriotic crime

4) forget about it until the dems get into power, because they're too dumb to figure out how to misdirect properly. but president HR Clinton will fire more travel workers in the meantime. then it's their fault and their problem. voila.

cheers!
drf

[JAck S.]

Wow, who saw that coming? Goverment is graft. Elitism is becoming the standard of its institutions. What did we really expect?

[Plutarck]

Oh come on - we all know that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are in Syria! Besides, think of how all this increased supply of sand will help the american economy!

[Anonymous]

" Elitism is becoming the standard of its institutions."

not like the good old days (slavery, japense internment, etc)

[Rick Barton]

Since the DOD is part of the government its going to have certain predilections that come with the territory: waste, fraud and abuse(of power). The frequency and magnitude of this kind of disgrace would both decrease if the DOD were constrained to just it's constitutional mandate of defending the USA. Also; Isn't this to be expected of the DOD after the whoppers they concocted to persuade us of the necessity of the Iraq war?

[Plutarck]

Here's a question: since the military is/was involved in the whole "killing Columbia farmers to make protecting our children from themselves easier" stuff, what sort of role does the DOD play in such matters?

[Xmas]

Of course, a streamlined financial system will wind up showing that the DoD was forced by Congress to buy $200 screw drivers from a supplier in West Virgina...

😉

The scary thing isn't that there are 2,200 separate billings systems in the Department of Defense. The scary thing is that each request for a new billing system had to be bidded out to the lowest cost, military contractor and built to specification from a committee of people who know nothing about accounting or computers to run on 20 year old computer equipment. No wonder they can't get any of the systems to talk to each other.

[Charlie]

A trillion here, a trillion there. Before you know it, that could add up to a lot of money!

[Joe]

I see that rather than asking questions of accounting systems, financial statements, or even who discovered the "loss" (was it DoD itself). We've decided to comment on Iraqi Freedom.
So, I will, too. Is it better that Iraqis are free of Saddam Hussin or not? Simple question. Reason's motto used to be "Free Markets, Free Minds." Did Iraq have/allow either? Or is freedom reserved only for the snarky middle class Blogoisie? Isn't the reality of this whole section a way for you boys and girls, so disastrously WRONG about Iraq to feel better about yourselves? Yeah, I thought so.
Now you want to talk about accounting and reform of government accounting, I'm all ears. until, then really who cares?

[JJ]

The non-sequitous, rambling style ... the random claim that Reason used to be better ... the insistence that the case is closed on Iraq, barely a month into the occupation and with much info about the war still under wraps ... the desire to go on and on about Iraq even when everyone else is talking about something else ...

Thanks, Joe, for a perfect parody of so many Hit & Run comments.

[Paranoic]

Oh they know where all that equipment is.... It's all the stuff that's been lost in secret government operations over the years....

[Joe]

Gee JJ, did I hit a nerve? I noticed one or two comments about the SUBJECT and the rest about DOD or Iraq... I'd say I was on the mark and you just don't care for the scrutiny.
Oh and I'm sure things were all better in Germany and Japan a month into their occupation and really mayhap the Iraqi's WOULD have been better off under Saddam?

[Anonymous]

What, are you trying to imply Mr. Walker some moral equivalence between Iraq and the US? Because you are sadly mistaken, sir. Shame on you!

[James Hannon]

Er. Black budget anyone?

[Anonymous]

call it "economic stimulus" heheh.

[Brian]

"Blogoisie"...that is GREAT, Joe! Did you make that up?

Of course, I suppose I'm a (small) part of it, but it's funny nonetheless...

Surely padding things to cover the "black budget" (I think they call that "discresionary funding") accounts for some of this...but $1 trillion??? You could probably assassinate every head of state in the world (I think that would come out to about $3 billion each) for that much and have money to spare...

[Steve]

I don't understand. They were here just a minute ago.

[The Falcon and the Troll man]

NASA probably feels a little bit better right now.

[thoreau]

You know, I routinely hear that the war machine is rusted, creaking, barely adequate, and in need of more money. I hear this from conservative pundits who have never served in uniform, but I also hear this from my Democrat friend who just got out of the army.

Meanwhile, I hear that the US and its allies (or at least the countries that used to be our allies before W pissed them off) account for more than 60% of the world's defense spending. I usually hear this from liberal pundits who have never served in uniform, but I sometimes hear it from columnists who served as defense officials in the Reagan administration.

So something doesn't add up...

[Anonymous]

Yeah, the military is the most commie part of America there is. I don't see why all the lefties are complaining.

Three words: Privitize the military.

[omnibus bill]

What do you expect? It's a federal department with a couple million employees. Even if everybody was totally on the up-and-up (and I know for a fact that not everybody is), there would still be lots and lots of money lost over time - misplaced in the wrong accounts, lost or gained due to changes in accounting methods, lost through mislabeling of accounts; lost when somebody neglects to write off a scrapped piece of equipment.

One thing that's not clear from the article is timeframe. Did we lose the tanks and airplanes yesterday? Over two years? Over 20 years?

[joe]

"Insert joke about Iraqi WMDs here." OK, here goes.

Ahem.

No wonder they can't find the Iraqi unconventional weapons. They were paid for by the Pentagon.

Thank you, I'm here all week.

[Croesus]

"waste, fraud and abuse(of power)"

Those are traits more attributable to the uman condition than simply government bureaucrats.

[Jon H]

It's all at Dick's undisclosed location. It's the shadow defense department.

[Rick Barton]

"waste, fraud and abuse(of power)"

Croesus wrote:
"Those are traits more attributable to the uman condition than simply government bureaucrats."

If thats true than government is the human instituion where they ae most manifest. It is by its nature, coercive and note the greater efficiency of less governmental versus more governmental societies. Or, those parts of societies that are more capitalistic versus more governmental. It isn't even close. And look at the fraud government gets away with: The conspiracy to decieve by the administration concerning the case for attacking Iraq as one sad
and gargantuan example.

[Rick Barton]

"Three words: Privitize the military."

HEAR! HEAR!

[Danny]

Yes, Privitize the Military so Mr. Clinton can steal the rest of the money.