One
day before the 9/11 attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
made the above astonishing admission. Besides being reported months
later in the CBS report given below, the quote is still posted at http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20010910-secdef.html on the Department of Defense website. And on PBS at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june01/dollars_2-12.html we learn that this figure came from a report of the Pentagon's
inspector general. "Its own auditors admit the military cannot account
for 25 percent of what it spends," reports CBS News Correspondent Vince
Gonzales.
The timing of this admission just one day before 9/11 kept this story
from even making the news at the time. Even when it was finally reported
months later, this revelation received scant coverage...
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050310pentagontrillionslost
And in fact others go further, pointing to the fact that
"accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts" were killed in the
Pentagon attack, and suggesting this, along with the destruction of
information, was a possible motive for the attack.
Summarising, then, the argument appears to run something like this.
Huge sums of defence budget money have gone missing.
Simply admitting this was not an option.
However, those pulling off the 9/11 "inside job" decided that if
they crashed into just the right spot of the Pentagon, then they could
kill many of those who might uncover the problem or tell the public
about it, and perhaps also destroy vital documentary evidence.
What's more, it gave the opportunity for Rumsfeld to inform the
public on September 10th, and have his bombshell ignored courtesy of the
attacks on the very next day.
Makes sense? To some, apparently, based on the sites and forum
posts we've seen, but if you take a closer look at the information
they've left out then a very different picture emerges.
The first problem with some reports on this issue comes in how
they describe the money. In extreme cases it's treated almost as though
it's been "stolen", while other sites ambiguously say it's "missing".
911Research above are more accurate in saying it could not be accounted
for, or tracked. Here's where Rumsfeld spoke about this on 9/10, with a
little more context (our emphasis):
The
adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the
people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems...
In this building, despite this era of scarce resources taxed by
mounting threats, money disappears into duplicative duties and bloated
bureaucracy—not because of greed, but gridlock. Innovation is
stifled—not by ill intent but by institutional inertia.
Just as we must transform America's military capability to meet
changing threats, we must transform the way the Department works and
what it works on...
Our challenge is to transform not just the way we deter and defend, but the way we conduct our daily business...
The men and women of this department, civilian and military, are
our allies, not our enemies. They too are fed up with bureaucracy, they
too live with frustrations. I hear it every day. And I'll bet a dollar
to a dime that they too want to fix it. In fact, I bet they even know
how to fix it, and if asked, will get about the task of fixing it. And
I'm asking.
They know the taxpayers deserve better. Every dollar we spend was
entrusted to us by a taxpayer who earned it by creating something of
value with sweat and skill -- a cashier in Chicago, a waitress in San
Francisco. An average American family works an entire year to generate
$6,000 in income taxes. Here we spill many times that amount every hour
by duplication and by inattention.
That's wrong. It's wrong because national defense depends on
public trust, and trust, in turn, hinges on respect for the hardworking
people of America and the tax dollars they earn. We need to protect them
and their efforts.
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....
[plenty more here, please go read the whole thing]
http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20010910-secdef.html
