9 ms·

Pentagon Has No Idea Where $800M Went

264 points by cinquemb 11y ago

zathros 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    > 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 11y ago
      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_.22.24600_Toilet_Seat.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_seat#US_Navy.27s_.22.24...
      - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. I'm assuming you probably can't help me find a sarcasm detector for $640?
        nevdka 11y ago
        That's a secret service project: 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/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/03/th...
      - mikekchar 11y ago
        Not the kind of toilet seat you are talking about, but you can easily spend that kind of money for a home toilet seat: https://www.liftcaregiving.com/shop/products/urinary-tract-infections/clessence-advanced-toilet-seat-and-bidet/ https://www.liftcaregiving.com/shop/products/urinary-tract-i... (Not an endorsement -- I just grabbed it at random from a Google search). I actually do have a similar type of toilet seat (as do most other people in Japan). Some optional extras you can get on toilet seats include a heated seat (highly recommended if you don't have heat in your house) and a fan that vents odours. There are only 2 furnishings in my house that I wouldn't give up. One is the toilet seat and the other is a bath that pours itself and maintains a constant temperature with a recirculating pump. Worth every penny and more.
    - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
      > Lots and lots of (very comfortable) toilet seats If they were made for the military, I can just about guarantee that they weren't at all comfortable no matter how much they cost.
  - viraptor 11y ago
    Nitpick: Can we stick to ",000,000", "M", "e6", or even "kk" if really needed? "mm" are millimeters, or two "m"s - it really doesn't make sense for "million".
    - ryanwaggoner 11y ago
      It's a common and widely accepted abbreviation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million
      - viraptor 11y ago
        I know. It still doesn't make sense when people use k/M for 1,000, M/m/kk/MM/mm for 1,000,000 and B/MM/mm for 1,000,000,000. (sorted by ~popularity) It's even more annoying when someone uses "k" and "mm" in the same post, since the whole idea of "mm" comes from repeating roman "M" (1,000). So why not stick to k/kk (WoW-style) or M/MM (almost-roman style)? At least "k" and "M" are based on some kind of standard.
      - deleted 11y ago
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      - wavefunction 11y ago
        It can't be an abbreviation as that refers to subtractions of letters existing in the word and I only count one 'm' in millions. Yes it's pedantry and yes I understand that 'mm' is in someways a convention but it's a terrible one.
        anamexis 11y ago
        As long as we're being pedantic, abbreviation does not refer strictly to "subtractions of letters existing in the word," it is any shortened form of a word or phrase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation (see especially the section on plural forms) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/abbreviation http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation
- deleted 11y ago
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- pessimizer 11y ago
  > Where did the rest of the $42.5 million go if it only costs $500,000 to construct a CNG plant in Afghanistan? When this question was being investigated, it turned out that the construction was managed by an agency that no longer exists (as of a year ago iirc), and that there were absolutely no records kept and no way to answer how the money was spent for this project, or for $750 million worth of other projects that they managed.
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  Because the CNG station was only one project under the $800M TFBSO program. Quoting slide 2: "Frankly, I find it both shocking and incredible that DOD asserts that it no longer has any knowledge about TFBSO, an $800 million program that reported directly to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and only shut down a little over six months ago."
- jsudhams 11y ago
  Remaining must have gone in bribery which they cannot show on the books or to be show as agent charges :)
kentf 11y ago
Secret Space Program + Black Budget. Deal with it.
- hackaflocka 11y ago
  Exactly. These projects are "in name only" and designed to funnel money to hidden budgets (e.g. to fund CIA operations).
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20... 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.
    - deleted 11y ago
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- jzawodn 11y ago
  Yes. Catherine Austin Fitts lays it out right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8
  - mkohlmyr 11y ago
    She also insinuates that the floods in New Orleans were constructed to wipe out evidence of mortgage fraud around 1:16:55. There were several insinuations of this nature (regarding 9/11 and such) made in passing without (for presumably obvious reasons) any evidence to back it up. She seems like a very competent auditor / investment banker / what have you, but frankly a link like that should be accompanied by a disclaimer. Fill a vat with all the salt you can find in your immediate and surrounding area and bathe in it while watching. That being said I don't doubt her numbers or her experience in government. I just wish she could present it without making me cringe at her delusions every 5 minutes.
sterl 11y ago
SURPRISE!!!
jimrandomh 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > 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 11y ago
    Well actually, it kinda is. The US military budget is around 11x that of France.
    - ars 11y ago
      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.
  - deleted 11y ago
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- drumdance 11y ago
  The military is responsible for shocking amounts of fraud. And because most civilians have zero experience with the military, the most we can do is say "thank you for your service." I bet the perpetrators of this embarrassment still hears that every time they go through an airport. This article is a good overview of how this disconnect has to come to pass: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-trag...
bandrami 11y ago
Well, 13 years ago the Pentagon mentioned it had lost track of $2.3 trillion, so $800 million seems like an improvement.
- Jgrubb 11y ago
  Exactly. My first thought was "that's all?".
- ossreality 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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."
- sailfast 11y ago
  While it's still a lot of money I felt the same way. As a percentage of their overall budget, that's not a lot of moeny for an institution to lose track of, considering the entire DoD is not audit-ready and hasn't done an audit in many many years.
rhino369 11y ago
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 11y ago
  >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 11y ago
    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.
    - dfc 11y ago
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ap22213 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
    - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
      All that stuff you list is good. But, unfortunately, what too many of today's software engineers are working on are apps that hardly anyone needs. "It's tinder for cats". Stuff like that.
      - deciplex 11y ago
        If nobody really uses the apps eventually the money runs out. Let us know when the US government isn't spending hundreds of billions each year on mil-ind boondoggles.
    - deciplex 11y ago
      Exactly - the work they're doing might be technically complex, but from the point of view of most of the rest of the economy, they may as well be chasing tumbleweeds.
EGreg 11y ago
Yawn. This is nothing. Just a drop in the bucket: http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-reveals-85-trillion-missing http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-reveals-85-trillion... http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118
- jbuzbee 11y ago
  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-2-3-trillion-in-transactions.t165/ https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-pentagon-cannot-track-...
  - Johnny555 11y ago
    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?)
trhway 11y ago
for real amusement : http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-approved-flawed-audit/ http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-approv... "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_study#t=1 http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did... 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! :)
omegaworks 11y ago
Can we just fucking cut them off? Like - be done with it?
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  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
Rumford 11y ago
Imagine what would happen if the Pentagon were held to Sarbanes-Oxley the way private businesses are.
- tantalor 11y ago
  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
Raed667 11y ago
A more accurate title should say "Someone in Pentagon knows exactly where they spend $800M but it is not for public knowledge"
malchow 11y ago
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_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_bud...
- newman314 11y ago
  And it's still $600+ bil. I question the need for that much military spending. And in before, the "because jobs" argument. There are plenty of other opportunities to create jobs other than military spending. Fixing our infrastructure for instance. Also, you aren't accounting for three letter agency spending...
  - newman314 11y ago
    And while I'm on a roll, I wonder why there isn't a bigger fuss made over corporate taxes for large businesses vs. income tax. I don't get to take advantage of the Double Dutch etc. like a corporation would to pay much lower effective taxes. Sure seems like corporate personhood is has all the upside and none of the downside.
    - FD3SA 11y ago
      I struggle to understand why you've been downvoted for this. Perhaps HN has finally become the bastion of neo-oligarchs it purports to train? It's all high and mighty to speak of taxes, but as the esteemed commenter above states, they mostly come from the wage slaves, not the capitaled elite.
      - newman314 11y ago
mrcheewee 11y ago
Maybe it went here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/malaysia-agency-says-money-in-razaks-personal-account-isnt-from-1mdb-1438615126 http://www.wsj.com/articles/malaysia-agency-says-money-in-ra...
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nerdy 11y ago
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 11y ago
  $800MM (800 million dollars) is nearly a billion dollars, not "nearly a trillion".
  - nerdy 11y ago
    My mistake, still an insane amount of missing money.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      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.
- deleted 11y ago
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rebootthesystem 11y ago
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 11y ago
Well obviously. I mean, if they knew then they would have to kill themselves
tek-cyb-org 11y ago
9/10/01 - rumsfeld announces that the pentagon cannot account for 2.3 TRILLION.
- heartbreak 11y ago
  A quick Google search reveals this was not the case.
  - tek-cyb-org 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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 11y ago
        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....?
steveax 11y ago
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
godgod 11y ago
$800 million here. $12 billion here. Any agency that account for the loss of this sum of money should be immediately shut down and this includes the military. This is a gross theft of the peoples money...nothing less.
Allamaprabhu 11y ago
Come to india.We have set standards for corruption.
bunkydoo 11y ago
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 11y ago
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.
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caligarn 11y ago
I'm praying the money ended up under one of my couch pillows.
theklub 11y ago
Kinda wish I had joined the military so I could do 4 years, quit, get a contractor job and make money disappear.

264 points by cinquemb 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > 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 11y ago
    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_.22.24600_Toilet_Seat.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_seat#US_Navy.27s_.22.24...
    - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I'm assuming you probably can't help me find a sarcasm detector for $640?
      - nevdka 11y ago
        That's a secret service project: 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/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/03/th...
    - mikekchar 11y ago
      Not the kind of toilet seat you are talking about, but you can easily spend that kind of money for a home toilet seat: https://www.liftcaregiving.com/shop/products/urinary-tract-infections/clessence-advanced-toilet-seat-and-bidet/ https://www.liftcaregiving.com/shop/products/urinary-tract-i... (Not an endorsement -- I just grabbed it at random from a Google search). I actually do have a similar type of toilet seat (as do most other people in Japan). Some optional extras you can get on toilet seats include a heated seat (highly recommended if you don't have heat in your house) and a fan that vents odours. There are only 2 furnishings in my house that I wouldn't give up. One is the toilet seat and the other is a bath that pours itself and maintains a constant temperature with a recirculating pump. Worth every penny and more.
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    > Lots and lots of (very comfortable) toilet seats If they were made for the military, I can just about guarantee that they weren't at all comfortable no matter how much they cost.
- viraptor 11y ago
  Nitpick: Can we stick to ",000,000", "M", "e6", or even "kk" if really needed? "mm" are millimeters, or two "m"s - it really doesn't make sense for "million".
  - ryanwaggoner 11y ago
    It's a common and widely accepted abbreviation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million
    - viraptor 11y ago
      I know. It still doesn't make sense when people use k/M for 1,000, M/m/kk/MM/mm for 1,000,000 and B/MM/mm for 1,000,000,000. (sorted by ~popularity) It's even more annoying when someone uses "k" and "mm" in the same post, since the whole idea of "mm" comes from repeating roman "M" (1,000). So why not stick to k/kk (WoW-style) or M/MM (almost-roman style)? At least "k" and "M" are based on some kind of standard.
    - deleted 11y ago
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    - wavefunction 11y ago
      It can't be an abbreviation as that refers to subtractions of letters existing in the word and I only count one 'm' in millions. Yes it's pedantry and yes I understand that 'mm' is in someways a convention but it's a terrible one.
      - anamexis 11y ago
        As long as we're being pedantic, abbreviation does not refer strictly to "subtractions of letters existing in the word," it is any shortened form of a word or phrase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation (see especially the section on plural forms) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/abbreviation http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng... http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation
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pessimizer 11y ago
> Where did the rest of the $42.5 million go if it only costs $500,000 to construct a CNG plant in Afghanistan? When this question was being investigated, it turned out that the construction was managed by an agency that no longer exists (as of a year ago iirc), and that there were absolutely no records kept and no way to answer how the money was spent for this project, or for $750 million worth of other projects that they managed.
jonathankoren 11y ago
Because the CNG station was only one project under the $800M TFBSO program. Quoting slide 2: "Frankly, I find it both shocking and incredible that DOD asserts that it no longer has any knowledge about TFBSO, an $800 million program that reported directly to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and only shut down a little over six months ago."
jsudhams 11y ago
Remaining must have gone in bribery which they cannot show on the books or to be show as agent charges :)

kentf 11y ago

Secret Space Program + Black Budget. Deal with it.

hackaflocka 11y ago
Exactly. These projects are "in name only" and designed to funnel money to hidden budgets (e.g. to fund CIA operations).
- jonesb6 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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/2008/10/they_made_a_killing.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/20... 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.
  - deleted 11y ago
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jzawodn 11y ago
Yes. Catherine Austin Fitts lays it out right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8
- mkohlmyr 11y ago
  She also insinuates that the floods in New Orleans were constructed to wipe out evidence of mortgage fraud around 1:16:55. There were several insinuations of this nature (regarding 9/11 and such) made in passing without (for presumably obvious reasons) any evidence to back it up. She seems like a very competent auditor / investment banker / what have you, but frankly a link like that should be accompanied by a disclaimer. Fill a vat with all the salt you can find in your immediate and surrounding area and bathe in it while watching. That being said I don't doubt her numbers or her experience in government. I just wish she could present it without making me cringe at her delusions every 5 minutes.

sterl 11y ago

SURPRISE!!!

jimrandomh 11y ago

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 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  Well actually, it kinda is. The US military budget is around 11x that of France.
  - ars 11y ago
    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.
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drumdance 11y ago
The military is responsible for shocking amounts of fraud. And because most civilians have zero experience with the military, the most we can do is say "thank you for your service." I bet the perpetrators of this embarrassment still hears that every time they go through an airport. This article is a good overview of how this disconnect has to come to pass: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-trag...

bandrami 11y ago

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

Jgrubb 11y ago
Exactly. My first thought was "that's all?".
ossreality 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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."
sailfast 11y ago
While it's still a lot of money I felt the same way. As a percentage of their overall budget, that's not a lot of moeny for an institution to lose track of, considering the entire DoD is not audit-ready and hasn't done an audit in many many years.

rhino369 11y ago

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 11y ago
>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 11y ago
  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.
  - dfc 11y ago

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ap22213 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    All that stuff you list is good. But, unfortunately, what too many of today's software engineers are working on are apps that hardly anyone needs. "It's tinder for cats". Stuff like that.
    - deciplex 11y ago
      If nobody really uses the apps eventually the money runs out. Let us know when the US government isn't spending hundreds of billions each year on mil-ind boondoggles.
  - deciplex 11y ago
    Exactly - the work they're doing might be technically complex, but from the point of view of most of the rest of the economy, they may as well be chasing tumbleweeds.

EGreg 11y ago

Yawn. This is nothing. Just a drop in the bucket: http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-reveals-85-trillion-missing http://crooksandliars.com/2015/06/report-reveals-85-trillion... http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9AH0LQ20131118

jbuzbee 11y ago
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-2-3-trillion-in-transactions.t165/ https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-pentagon-cannot-track-...
- Johnny555 11y ago
  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?)

trhway 11y ago

for real amusement : http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-approved-flawed-audit/ http://ww2.cfo.com/auditing/2015/05/pentagon-watchdog-approv... "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_study#t=1 http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/dod_financial_management/why_did... 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! :)

omegaworks 11y ago

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

BuckRogers 11y ago
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

Rumford 11y ago

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

tantalor 11y ago
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

Raed667 11y ago

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

malchow 11y ago

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_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_bud...

newman314 11y ago
And it's still $600+ bil. I question the need for that much military spending. And in before, the "because jobs" argument. There are plenty of other opportunities to create jobs other than military spending. Fixing our infrastructure for instance. Also, you aren't accounting for three letter agency spending...
- newman314 11y ago
  And while I'm on a roll, I wonder why there isn't a bigger fuss made over corporate taxes for large businesses vs. income tax. I don't get to take advantage of the Double Dutch etc. like a corporation would to pay much lower effective taxes. Sure seems like corporate personhood is has all the upside and none of the downside.
  - FD3SA 11y ago
    I struggle to understand why you've been downvoted for this. Perhaps HN has finally become the bastion of neo-oligarchs it purports to train? It's all high and mighty to speak of taxes, but as the esteemed commenter above states, they mostly come from the wage slaves, not the capitaled elite.
    - newman314 11y ago

mrcheewee 11y ago

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

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nerdy 11y ago

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 11y ago
$800MM (800 million dollars) is nearly a billion dollars, not "nearly a trillion".
- nerdy 11y ago
  My mistake, still an insane amount of missing money.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    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.
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rebootthesystem 11y ago

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 11y ago

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

tek-cyb-org 11y ago

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

heartbreak 11y ago
A quick Google search reveals this was not the case.
- tek-cyb-org 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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....?

steveax 11y ago

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

godgod 11y ago

$800 million here. $12 billion here. Any agency that account for the loss of this sum of money should be immediately shut down and this includes the military. This is a gross theft of the peoples money...nothing less.

Allamaprabhu 11y ago

Come to india.We have set standards for corruption.

bunkydoo 11y ago

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 11y ago

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.

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caligarn 11y ago

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

theklub 11y ago

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