Rumsfeld admitted to $2.3 trillion missing on September 10, 2001 (the day before 9/11)

[Unknown Beatle]

The Pentagon Corruption - Nothing's Being Done

Yet all the talk on The Hill is about cutting so-called "entitlements".

[MotherPetrie]

1. BushCo criminals are safe from Obamadmin. Old and sick people? Not so much.

[forestpath]

6. +1

[Blue Owl]

2. Time to implement Paul Ryan's "Pentagon Voucher" program

n/t

[Mnemosyne]

3. K&R nt

[Historic NY]

4. I'd imagine that 2.3 trillion is more like 4 trillion with a "T" today

[Iliyah]

5. 9 billion in cash

was given to contractors and Iraqis in Iraqi.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

8. And how much was simply lost track of?

Plane loads of shrink wrapped hundred dollar bills that went missing, never to be seen again.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. This video is 10 years old.

It keeps getting recycled by the 9/11 twoofers. Rumsfeld was making the case for a new accounting system for the pentagon, and using the biggest number he could come up with, because he wanted to scare the shit out of congress and get the money for the accounting packages. (worked)

The money isn't 'missing', it was just the two accounting systems they used couldn't account for all the money at that given time. They did reconcile the books yearly, and they did balance, and the money is tracked. They got the accounting system they were asking for millions to acquire and implement. This is no longer an issue.

http://www.911myths.com/html/rumsfeld__9_11_and__2_3_trilli.html



"Waste drains resources from training and tanks, from infrastructure and intelligence, from helicopters and housing. Outdated systems crush ideas that could save a life. Redundant processes prevent us from adapting to evolving threats with the speed and agility that today's world demands.

Above all, the shift from bureaucracy to the battlefield is a matter of national security. In this period of limited funds, we need every nickel, every good idea, every innovation, every effort to help modernize and transform the U.S. military....

The technology revolution has transformed organizations across the private sector, but not ours, not fully, not yet. We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.

We maintain 20 to 25 percent more base infrastructure than we need to support our forces, at an annual waste to taxpayers of some $3 billion to $4 billion. Fully half of our resources go to infrastructure and overhead, and in addition to draining resources from warfighting, these costly and outdated systems, procedures and programs stifle innovation as well. A new idea must often survive the gauntlet of some 17 levels of bureaucracy to make it from a line officer's to my desk. I have too much respect for a line officer to believe that we need 17 layers between us...."

Little different from the 'whoops we lost it' narrative, when you see the full context of the speech, huh?

Edit: If you want to save some cash, kill the F35 and shit like that.

[Unknown Beatle]

9. Yeah, you're right.

It's not like Rumsfeld lies about anything. I mean, the bush administration was all about honesty and transparency.

When the military was lacking armor in their vehicles, Rumsfeld said, "You go to war with the army you have---not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Oh yeah? What about all the money in the bloated pentagon? Nah! Let's leave our soldiers exposed to IEDs instead.

I see what you mean, though, no whoops here, the full context changes things. Rumsfeld was telling the truth. And the people running the pentagon, they're paragons of truth, honesty and the American way. Yep, no missing money at the pentagon, move along.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. That 2.3tn number was arrived at by the former Presidential Admin and CBO.

You realize Bush and Rumsfeld took office in January 20, 2001, right? That 2.3tn came out of a report in mid-1999. SecDef was William Cohen, under President Bill Clinton. And they knew THEN that the money wasn't 'gone', it was just an accounting blind spot that accumulates over several years of budgeting, seeing as how the pentagon's budget was much less than 2.3tn per year.

So, Rumsfeld and Co. are actually completely irrelevant to this issue. (It had also been brought up numerous times by both Cohen and Rumsfeld prior to 9/11) Dirtbag though he, and Bush may be. The issue existed well before they took office.*

Rumsfeld had lots of faults, from reckless hubris that got our troops killed, up to and including pretty much genocide against at the very least, the Iraqi people, but time-travelling doesn't seem to be one of them.


*In fairness, even though Clinton appointed him, Cohen was a Republican, so if you want to believe in wheels within wheels of conspiracy, I suppose you could pretend that Cohen funneled the money out and set Rumsfeld up to knock the cover-up out of the park.

[Unknown Beatle]

11. You make a good point.

Actually, you're right. I always thought that Bush/Cheney were planing a scam and their minions were sent out to declare missing money when they were the ones that were going to steal it. Does that make sense?

[AtheistCrusader]

12. I won't say it's impossible for that to be true

but the evidence doesn't appear to support it, from what I can see.

Lack of whistleblowers would also be a point against it, I would think. We're talking about more money than the national yearly GDP of all but 7 nations on the entire planet. What would they do with it? How would they spend it? The logistics of it boggles the mind. It would be a little bit like stealing the moon. Where would you put it? What would you do with it?

[Unknown Beatle]

16. Yes, it is impossible

to steal that much money. I stand corrected. I did some research on this and it's already being debunked.

It is better to be corrected on a subject, any subject, than to go around thinking something false is true.

[Recursion]

13. Sigh. This again.

For all of his fuckups, this was actually one of Rumsfeld's good sides. He continued the Clinton administration's work on rationalizing the Pentagon budgeting and acquisition process. There was no missing 2 trillion dollars; there was the fact that year-by-year budgeting that's not aligned with decades-long acquisition leads to the fact that 2.3 trillion over the course of those decades wasn't being accurately tracked in year-to-year budgets, and he wanted Congress to update the accounting system so it would be.

I hate Rumsfeld, but some of his reforms were good ideas.

[zappaman]

14. This debunked nonsense again?

[HereSince1628]

15. Sometimes you fight yer war without weapons you didn't know you'd need to know you needed

Sometimes you go to war without weapons you knew you'd need but no one could figure out how to make work without spending billions more dollars on development

But YOU ALWAYS GO TO WAR without weapons that made the Fat Cats of the MIC trillions of dollars in profits!

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Exactly.

The nature of the insurgency, with sniping via .30 cal rifles that could penetrate the Hummer, that was SUPPOSED to be proof up to .50 cal BMG, roadside bombs, these things were pretty foreseeable, and they didn't build the army to that spec. They built our offensive and defensive hardware and doctrines to fight the cold war, and we're STILL DOING IT.