Don't Ask the DOD How Much the War on Terror Costs...

[reprehensor]

'Cuz they just couldn't tell ya.

Literally.

Defense spending is overstated, GAO report says

The Pentagon has no accurate knowledge of the cost of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan or the fight against terrorism, limiting Congress's ability to oversee spending, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report released yesterday.

The Defense Department has reported spending $191 billion to fight terrorism from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks through May 2005, with the annual sum ballooning from $11 billion in fiscal 2002 to a projected $71 billion in fiscal 2005. But the GAO investigation found many inaccuracies totaling billions of dollars.

"Neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details of how appropriated funds are being spent," the report to Congress stated. The GAO said the problem is rooted in long-standing weaknesses in the Pentagon's outmoded financial management system, which is designed to handle small-scale contingencies.

The report said the Pentagon overstated the cost of mobilized Army reservists in fiscal 2004 by as much as $2.1 billion. Because the Army lacked a reliable process to identify the military personnel costs, it plugged in numbers to match the available budget, the report stated. "Effectively, the Army was reporting back to Congress exactly what it had appropriated," the report said.

more at link

[stillcool]

1. Arthur Anderson must be the accountant....

I especially liked this part:
<Because the Army lacked a reliable process to identify the military personnel costs, it plugged in numbers to match the available budget, the report stated. "Effectively, the Army was reporting back to Congress exactly what it had appropriated," the report said.

The probe also found "inadvertent double accounting" by the Navy and Marine Corps from November 2004 to April 2005 amounting to almost $1.8 billion.>

[marbuc]

2. Guess "don't ask, don't tell" extends to accounting as well. eom

[FloridaPat]

3. Could be under orders from *. Remember the second time * asked

for money he refused to tell congress where it was going? Also, maybe a lot of off the books operations too. Killing all those reporters. Buying all those bombs to put under trucks and cars to make it looks like insurgents are bombing civilians. Halliburton has to be a huge black hole over there.