
Pentagon Has No Idea Where $800M Went - cinquemb
https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special%20projects/SIGAR-16-2-SP.pdf#page=2
======
rhino369
I don't think the title is accurate. The report seems to know exactly where
the the money went. They just don't know why stuff was so expensive.

"Nobody works here anymore" is a classic excuse used in information requests
like this.

These letters the DoD sent back sound exactly like the letters I read every
day as a civil litigator during discovery for cases. The DoD is basically
telling this inspector to fuck off and stop bothering us.

That's not to say the Pentagon has no idea where the money went. They are just
not cooperating with the investigation. The DoD is saying "we fired those
guys, you go find them yourself."

And it sounds like the Special Inspector General has a pretty good idea why
the natural gas station was so expensive. The organization in charge didn't do
a feasibility study. Then spent millions of dollars building a station when it
wasn't a good idea.

Nobody stole the money. They just squandered it on a gas station to nowhere.

Edit: Unsurprisingly both the inspector general and the DoD Deputy Under
Secretary are both trained lawyers. The inspector general was even a civil
litigator up until a few years ago.

~~~
a_bonobo
>Nobody stole the money. They just squandered it on a gas station to nowhere.

The conspiracy theorist in me says the gas station was just a front to funnel
the money somewhere else, somewhere with no governmental oversight.

But that person has no proof, of course.

~~~
rhino369
The DoD already has off the books budget stuff. If it was black budget this
letter would have never happened.

If you want to conspiracy theorize, this fits with the classic gov't
construction grift model. Gov't employee gets a huge bribe. Gov't employee
gives a huge lucrative to the person who bribed them. They waste of a bunch of
money on contractors who don't show up or show up and don't work. Years later
its way over budget and the delivered project sucks. That's classic government
corruption.

One telltale sign is the amount of overhead - 30 million - on a 42 million
dollar project.

~~~
superuser2
Or more optimistically, an unauthorized, unintentional welfare program.

The military industrial complex is not _that_ different in form from the
massive public works jobs program many propose to replace it with, except that
the latter would also have the side effect of good infrastructure.

~~~
markdown
> except that the latter would also have the side effect of good
> infrastructure.

And would happen at home in the open with competitors and political opponents
keeping a watchful eye on things (in their own interest), not in some far off
country hidden away from prying eyes.

~~~
notahacker
but it wouldn't be "unpatriotic" or "weak on defence" for said political
opponents to criticise it...

------
ap22213
Maybe in a past age, deep and wasteful US military budgets actually did
benefit most Americans. But, personally, I haven't see any real return on
investment.

On the other hand, having lived in Northern Virginia over the last decade, I
have noticed a lot more Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the roads. So, at least
someone is benefiting.

~~~
Consultant32452
There are two Lockheed Martin campuses in my city. My city is the "Simulation
Capital of the World" because of big money defense contracts. I can't begin to
imagine the number of good, solid, upper middle class engineering and related
jobs are in my city due to the bloated military budget.

~~~
Frondo
You know what I wish? I wish we could put all those good, solid, upper middle
class engineering jobs to work on our nation's infrastructure, medical device
engineering, next-gen power generation, whatever, _something_ useful to pass
onto future generations--and directly useful, not just the "useful as a side-
effect" that military work sometimes ends up being.

~~~
cmdkeen
Says the man typing on the internet. The amount of tech produced because it
initially had military applications is staggering. Medical advances and next
gen power are both things of massive utility to the military and they plough
large amounts of money into research for it.

They aren't "useful as a side effect" they are useful because no-one else is
willing to spend the amount of money the military is. No-one else spends
hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipping high school drop out employees.

~~~
petersellers
I think the "useful as a side effect" comment stems from the fact that the
money is being spent to develop things that are primarily for military
applications. It just so happens that oftentimes, those
applications/technologies can be applied wholly or partially for public uses
as well. However, if your end goal is to improve civilian life and
infrastructure then development via the military almost certainly isn't the
most efficient mechanism to accomplish that goal.

That's not to say that military doesn't have its uses, but if public benefit
is your main goal then it almost assuredly would be better to create some type
of agency or organization that was explicitly tasked and organized in such a
way to meet those goals.

~~~
toyg
That doesn't happen in the American system simply because there is nothing
your average American respects more than the military. It is politically safer
to give money to the military than to $civilian_project, and it's politically
easier to defend that budget from cuts than any other item. (Which doesn't
mean that cuts to the military budget don't happen, but they happen less
frequently -- and you know when they happen because the media will quickly
raise a stink about it)

------
bandrami
Well, 13 years ago the Pentagon mentioned it had lost track of $2.3 trillion,
so $800 million seems like an improvement.

~~~
ossreality
I had the same memory as you, but after looking it up an hour ago, I'm willing
to write that one off as a bit conspiracy-theorist. It seemed like it was in
the context of upgrading their systems to track this sort of stuff.

Of course, as I type that out it sounds like a load of baloney.

~~~
bandrami
Yeah, in fairness he was saying "our accounting system is so antiquated that
we've had to do $2.3 trillion worth of acquisitions in an alternate way that
isn't tracked in it."

------
jimrandomh
After reading the linked document, I can only conclude that the Pentagon did
not, in fact, spend $800M. Instead, it had most of $800M stolen from it by
shady contractors, and buried the details to avoid embarrassment.

This has been happening to the US federal government an awful lot lately. This
is rather disturbing, and appears to be specific to recent times and specific
to the United States.

~~~
patrickaljord
> This is rather disturbing, and appears to be specific to recent times and
> specific to the United States.

Rest assured that as a French, I can confirm this is not specific at all to
the US.

~~~
Bud
Well actually, it kinda is.

The US military budget is around 11x that of France.

~~~
ars
So? It just means the US has 11x the amount of money stolen, not that it's
specific to the US.

And the GDP of the US about 6x that of France, so on that scale the amounts
are roughly equivalent.

------
trhway
for real amusement :

[http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-
approv...](http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-approved-
flawed-audit/)

"The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a 1992 law
that requires annual audits of all government departments. In 2009, Congress
gave the department until 2017 to be audit-ready."

I mean we're talking about $600B/year un-auditable even in principle. Of
course one can't say that DOD is negligent or non-responsive or not taking
necessary actions - after all the DOD did create the "Office of Audit
Readiness" which now manages the plans for achieving that readiness ...
sometime after 2017 according to their recent updates.

for further amusement:

[http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did...](http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did_study#t=1)

I like this one - "lack of ability to maintain documentation to support
transactions." and their plans&promises to buy ERP. That really puts them on
track for audit readiness ... in the next century. And after all of that
you're asking about meager $800M :)

And of course it is hard not to laugh seeing the Congress trying to threaten
the DOD with not letting the DOD buy new toys :

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-
bill/327](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/327)

"For failing to obtain an audit for fiscal years after FY2017, the bill [...]
prohibits DOD from using funds for certain weapons, weapons systems, or
platforms being acquired as a major defense acquisition program."

It is so real and so scary! That should show them real good! :)

------
bunkydoo
I think they probably do know, it's likely just excess spending on internal
programs that probably failed and were later merged with bigger projects in a
sense 'laundering' the money from public scrutiny. I mean just look at the
CIA's mind control program from the 50's to 70's, they probably blew billions
on a program that just got a few people on the government's payroll zonked on
acid, scarred a few for life, and ultimately just led to the giant crowd of
hippies on the white house lawn. Which hey, I say makes it money well spent!
But tough to follow as far as a paper trail is concerned.

------
VSpike
At least it appears that there is actually a filling station to show for the
money. I worked with people that worked in Afghanistan as contractors for the
US and UK governments and they told me that often millions would spent on
building a new school in a remote area, through a chain of sub-contractors,
each creaming off slices of the money both through margins and bribes, and yet
when later someone went to the site to inspect the school, they found no
building at all.

------
tek-cyb-org
9/10/01 - rumsfeld announces that the pentagon cannot account for 2.3
TRILLION.

~~~
heartbreak
A quick Google search reveals this was not the case.

~~~
tek-cyb-org
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhIu5k3mww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhIu5k3mww)

A quick video of Rumsfeld saying it reveals this was the case.

~~~
heartbreak
And the "debunk" sites clearly explain, what he meant by that was that the
Pentagon literally could not _account_ for that amount of money. Not that
trillions of dollars were missing, but that their accounting capabilities were
not sufficient enough to track that large of a sum of money.

As mentioned, the entire US budget was less than 2 trillion dollars in 2001.
That would be an awful lot of money to go missing and no one notice, 9/11 or
not.

~~~
tek-cyb-org
That's exactly what i said in my OP. 9/10/01 - rumsfeld announces that the
pentagon cannot account for 2.3 TRILLION.

and how was the budget 2 trillion if they can't account for 2.3 trillion....?

------
zathros
Where did the rest of the $42.5 million go if it only costs $500,000 to
construct a CNG plant in Afghanistan?

And why is this being touted as the loss of $800 million?

~~~
tspike
They spent $42.5mm on the station. Other comparable stations in the region
cost ~$500k. The title is a little misleading. The Pentagon asserts they
cannot provide information on the gas station project because it was part of a
discontinued program with a total budget of $800mm. Thus, the extrapolation
that they have no idea where _any_ of the total budget went.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> Thus, the extrapolation that they have no idea where any of the total budget
> went.

This is patently false. We know where the money went. Toilet seats. Lots and
lots of (very comfortable) toilet seats[1].

[1]
[http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut](http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut)

~~~
michaelhoffman
The infamous "toilet seats" were actually what people would usually think of
as a whole toilet without the plumbing parts. And they were specialized pieces
that had to fit in a very specific place on a combat aircraft and meet lots of
exacting specifications.

Saying the military paid $640 for the same kind of toilet seat you might put
on your toilet at home is more than a little misleading.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_seat#US_Navy.27s_.22.24...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_seat#US_Navy.27s_.22.24600_Toilet_Seat.22)

~~~
7Figures2Commas
Thanks for the clarification. I'm assuming you probably can't help me find a
sarcasm detector for $640?

~~~
nevdka
That's a secret service project:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2014/06/03/th...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2014/06/03/the-secret-service-wants-software-that-detects-social-media-
sarcasm-yeah-sure-it-will-work/)

------
kentf
Secret Space Program + Black Budget. Deal with it.

~~~
hackaflocka
Exactly. These projects are "in name only" and designed to funnel money to
hidden budgets (e.g. to fund CIA operations).

~~~
jonesb6
If certain individuals can launder money in such a way, what's stopping them
lining their own pockets? Almost by definition they have no oversight...

~~~
bediger4000
Absolutely nothing, and it's been happening since the CIA was founded. An
example of profiting off secret doings:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html)

That's not a direct "money laundering" caper, but it's still an example that
"high minded public servants" and other deep state folks can see their way
clear to making a profit from a coup.

------
Rumford
Imagine what would happen if the Pentagon were held to Sarbanes-Oxley the way
private businesses are.

~~~
tantalor
_Congress has been much more lenient on the Defense Department than on
publicly traded corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a response to
the Enron Corp and other turn-of-the-century accounting scandals, imposes
criminal penalties on corporate managers who certify false financial reports.
"The concept of Sarbanes-Oxley is completely foreign" to the Pentagon, says
Mike Young, a former Air Force logistics officer who for years has been a
consultant on, and written about, Defense Department logistics._

[http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118)

------
malchow
I understand folks getting upset because of either ~$800m worth of DoD
incompetence or ~$800m of intelligence 'black budget' funds diversion.

But folks should not forget that the entire DoD spend in the 2015 federal
budget was a mere $620.5b.

Compare that to Social Security + Medicare + Welfare. Those totaled $1,918.5b.
That's 3x the entire Defense budget. That's where taxes are going.[1]

At least DoD has to field tanks and submarines and carriers. The other guys?
They move money around for a living. Be more worried about the size and
propensity for graft there.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_bud...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_budget)

~~~
tstactplsignore
That's 1,918 billion spent on supporting families on every street, literally
saving tens of thousands of lives of every day folk every year, ensuring safe
retirement for millions, putting money back into the economy, and putting
people back on their feet versus a "mere" 620 billion spent on a needlessly
large program which kills civilians around the world and becomes a tool to be
used in geopolitical engagments that arguably make our citizens more unsafe.
That mere 620 billion is more than the next 7 largest millitaries spend
combined.

I'm not saying these programs are perfect (single payer and basic income would
probably save lives and money), or that there is no need for millitary
spending, but it's scary how out of touch you are to be incapable of realizing
why people would be upset with 620 billion going towards killing people and
not with 1,918 billion going towards saving and empowering them. Cutting
defense spending in half, as unthinkable as that is in the current dominant
neoconservative political climate, could free up money for rebuilding
infrastructure, doubling the budgets of NSF, NIH, DOE, and NASA, and so on.

~~~
malchow
Actually, the main objective of the DoD is preserving a general liberal-
democratic post-war order, one which persists only because of a balletic
balancing of forces. You may have policy or ideological disagreements with
particular episodes or theaters, but to condemn the DoD as "620 billion going
towards killing people" is. . . dumb. Or unconsidered, to be more charitable.

And there's evidence that these welfare programs you seem to like are far more
inhumane than they are helpful. Remember: it isn't manna from heaven. It's
money from income earners. (Not "the rich," remember: it's work that is taxed,
not wealth.) And economies have overcome many revolutions, from iron to
industrial, without these programs. Do you have a principled reason why the
information age is any different?

~~~
FD3SA
> And economies have overcome many revolutions, from iron to industrial,
> without these programs. Do you have a principled reason why the information
> age is any different?

I truly hope you are a billionaire, because once your Randian utopia comes to
fruition, you will need private armies to protect you against their
Blackwaters and Pinkertons. Because they'll come for your assets. Count on it.

Don't believe me? Look at Russia. See what happens when oligarchs challenge
the supreme oligarch? Their assets get "nationalized", and they are
imprisoned. That's best case. The less significant ones catch odd diseases
strangely similar to polonium poisoning...

~~~
pandaman
I am sorry, but the leap from "Randian utopia" to Russia is quite hard to
follow. Could you explain what do both have in common? Russia is, likely, the
most regulated economy in the world (e.g. from the recent news
[http://www.topnews.ru/news_id_83651.html](http://www.topnews.ru/news_id_83651.html)
, the government banned a supermarket chain from selling loose candy, tea,
nuts etc. where else something like this could possibly happen?) with giant
welfare programs and a big chunk of the population employed in the government.
I only read digests of Rand's books but they left an impression that a
"Randian utopia" would not have any of these things.

------
omegaworks
Can we just fucking cut them off? Like - be done with it?

~~~
BuckRogers
I wish it were that simple too. It's sad it isn't. For one, can you imagine
the PR campaign about how you hate America, the troops, freedom, the flag and
everything it stands for?

I don't have any proof, but my guess as to why Kennedy was assassinated was
because of his refusal to go into Cuba[0] and Vietnam[1]. I always saw him as
the last 'real' President, the rest don't dare to seriously challenge the
military-industrial complex. The message was clear enough with just a cursory
investigation into his Presidency. I'd love to hear what high level, insider
circles say and have said about it.

I've always convinced myself that if Bush didn't go into Iraq, he would've
mysteriously met the same fate. Of course, he wasn't quite as insightful as
JFK (to say the least), so there wasn't much chance he would put up a fight.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Southeast_Asia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Southeast_Asia)

------
nerdy
I heard about the $43MM gas station (similar gas stations were built for a
half million). At the scale of government $40 million is a significant
miscalculation but not scandalous. To know the bloat goes beyond that to a
staggering $800MM, nearly a trillion dollars, is very troubling.

~~~
ghayes
$800MM (800 million dollars) is nearly a billion dollars, not "nearly a
trillion".

~~~
nerdy
My mistake, still an insane amount of missing money.

~~~
mikeash
I don't know, on the scale of the Federal budget, losing $800 million is about
on the same level as losing some change in the couch.

------
mrcheewee
Maybe it went here: [http://www.wsj.com/articles/malaysia-agency-says-money-
in-ra...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/malaysia-agency-says-money-in-razaks-
personal-account-isnt-from-1mdb-1438615126)

------
steveax
Brings to mind Smedley Butler's War is a Racket [1]

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)

------
Raed667
A more accurate title should say "Someone in Pentagon knows exactly where they
spend $800M but it is not for public knowledge"

------
theklub
Kinda wish I had joined the military so I could do 4 years, quit, get a
contractor job and make money disappear.

------
rebootthesystem
This isn't the problem. Sick as it may be, burning $800MM is a rounding error.
The problem is in that EVERYTHING in government is horrendously wasteful. The
results we are getting for the taxes we pay and the money we borrow are
equivalent to pennies on the dollar. THAT, is the problem.

------
lucisferre
Well obviously. I mean, if they knew then they would have to kill themselves

------
caligarn
I'm praying the money ended up under one of my couch pillows.

------
Allamaprabhu
Come to india.We have set standards for corruption.

------
sterl
SURPRISE!!!

------
EGreg
Yawn. This is nothing. Just a drop in the bucket:

[http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-
reveals-85-trillion...](http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-
reveals-85-trillion-missing)

[http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118)

~~~
jbuzbee
Hyperbole. In actuality, the money isn't "missing", it's just not feasible to
track down and total up every expenditure from the top all the way down to the
money spent to fill a pothole in some remote military base. For example,

[https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-pentagon-cannot-
track-...](https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-pentagon-cannot-
track-2-3-trillion-in-transactions.t165/)

~~~
Johnny555
I don't see how that's significantly different than "missing".

If I can't feasibly track down the $100 bill you lent me last week, then it's
"missing" even if I know I did something with it sometime and I have a pretty
good idea that it's at my house. Or at work. Or maybe in my car. Or maybe I
buried in the sand in Iraq. Or maybe I spent it on a pizza party. Who knows?
All I know is that I did something with it and it's somewhere.

It's perfectly feasible for the military to track every expenditure from the
top all the way down - the Army has the largest budget in the military, but
even their budget is only about half that of Walmart, yet Walmart can very
accurately track where their money goes. The military already has a very
accurate supplier tracking system that tracks the manufacturing of every part
used in every piece of military equipment, so it's not like they have no
experience running databases or keeping track of paperwork.

If the military doesn't know where trillions of dollars went, how does it know
that it even needs those trillions and that the money wasn't just wasted on
frivolous items (like contractor kickbacks?)

