Have they Found the $2.3 Trillion Rumsfeld Stole Yet?

As usual, the Truthers miss the true story. While getting all up in arms over the fake claim that Donald Rumsfeld claimed that $2.3 trillion was stolen, they missed the real scandal of just how bad Pentagon accounting practices are. As someone who works in both IT and finance, I can at least take satisfaction in the fact that none of my projects has ever blown $6 billion and still not done the job.

The DOD has already promised to clean up its accounting practices for public scrutiny by 2017, and has pledged an estimated $300 million annually to do just that. They will likely need an additional $1 billion to meet that goal, CPI reports, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is allegedly poised to announce a speeding-up of the auditing process, which might raise the cost of reigning in spending even more.

The CPI report states: "Experts say the Pentagon's accounting has never been reliable. A lengthy effort by the military services to implement new financial systems at a cost so far of more than $6 billion has itself been plagued by overruns and delays, senior defense officials say."

Just last month, the Government Accountability Office said in a report that although the services can now fully track incoming appropriations, they still cannot demonstrate their funds are being spent as they should.