http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/business/11overruns.html?pagewanted=all(free registration or try www.bugmenot.com)
On Sept. 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stood before hundreds of military officers and civilian employees at the Pentagon and delivered a blistering attack on what he saw as the next national security threat: Pentagon bureaucracy.
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The terrorist attacks the next day did more than put Mr. Rumsfeld’s transformation plans in suspension. As new weapons systems were ordered to help fight the war on terror, Pentagon spending after 9/11 jumped by hundreds of billions of dollars. And so did waste.
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Cost overruns have long been a Pentagon staple. But what has alarmed government oversight agencies and Pentagon observers, and spurred Congress to act, is the magnitude of the spending increases. Projects are as much as 50 percent over budget and up to four years late in delivery.
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The G.A.O. found that financial sloppiness went beyond weapon systems. For instance, at a time when the Pentagon was buying new chemical suits for use in Iraq for $200 each, it was also selling them on the Internet for $3 each after some military units misidentified the suits as surplus. And about $1.2 billion in supplies that were shipped to Iraq never arrived — or were never found — because of logistical problems.
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