Is The Missing $2.3 Trillion Really Missing?
Today, Jerry Mazza's story entitled, "Following Zakheim and Pentagon Trillions to Israel and 9-11" was re-posted on indybay.org.
In that article, Jerry states, "At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books."
On February 20th, 2002, Gerry J. Gilmore of the American Forces Press Service reported that, "DoD financial experts, Zakheim said, are making good progress reconciling the department's "lost" expenditures, trimming them from a prior estimated total of $2.3 trillion to $700 billion. And, he added, the amount continues to drop."
I'm not defending Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's inability to track billions of dollars, nor am I a "Zionist Mole for Larry Silverstein", however, if a "debunker" wanted to use this against us, it wouldn't be hard for them to do so, and make us look like fools.
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Just one problem : Nobody in their right mind believes a single word from the mouth of a member of this administration ..
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"Listen carefully now : DO NOT DESTROY OIL-WELLS" Dubya
However...
Do you have proof that he's lying? If not Peter, than you shouldn't promote the $2.3T figure anymore because any "debunker" could bring this out against you, and discredit what it is you're saying, and everything else you're saying by default.
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Somehow...
I knew this would get voted down.
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And...
Aside from the fact that neither Donald Rumsfeld or the comptroller that was with him the day Cynthia McKinney asked them about the missing trillions couldn't explain themselves, does anyone have any other information that indicates Dov Zahkeim & Co. were lying with this statement? Preferably in the form of documentation. If so, please share.
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It certainly creates ambiguity
That is, I wouldn't consider the 2.3 trillion one of our stronger talking points. I'm not sure where the money went, or how it was lost, or how much is missing, and that's the problem with using this talking point. We need to lead with stronger facts.
Rummy stated that $2.3 trillion was unaccounted for on 9/10,
the next day was 9/11/01!
Furthermore, evidence indicates that Pentagon accountants & auditors who may have been able to trace the missing trillions were killed when the missile and/or explosives blew-up their offices in the Pentagon on 9/11. (You know, the small, renovated wedge that Hani Hanjour allegedly did acrobatics to hit.)
Well...
January 29, 2002
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.
$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.
The most "accurate" number I can find is $1T...
May 18, 2003
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL
A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent.
This even quotes Zakheim...
"We are overhauling our financial management system precisely because people like David Walker are rightly critical of it," said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's chief financial officer and prime architect of the Defense Department's self-styled fiscal transformation.
Who didn't bother to correct them, and say, "It's $700B."
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Check this, from September 2003:
"Among the DoD's financial-management "deficiencies" is the agency's inability to account for $1.1 trillion. Insight pointed out in April of last year that, according to Assistant Inspector General for DoD Auditing David Steensma, "we reported that DoD processed $1.1 trillion in unsupported accounting entries to DoD component financial data used to prepare departmental reports and DoD financial statements for [fiscal year] 2000" [see "Government Fails Fiscal-Fitness Test," May 20, 2002]. That is, when the Clinton administration turned over the Pentagon to the Bush team some $1.1 trillion was missing or unaccounted for."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_2003_Sept_2/ai_106909386
Warning: nasty pop-up ads.
It goes on about this at some length. It's just tracking, not that the money has actually been nicked, although presumably some of it has actually been nicked. Who knows?
I certainly don't.
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On 6/27/2007...
It was reported that "The U.S. government has committed to spend a record-high $1.1 trillion with companies holding government contracts "plagued by waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement," according to a new report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee."
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Excellent Start, Jon!
I encourage you to look into historical expenditures within the US military. You'll find that the amount "missing" was about 8 times the annual US military budget at the time. Which makes it pretty obvious that that this was not some "heist" but that their accounting systems sucked, which was what Rumsfeld planned on overhauling. Read the whole CBS news story that explained this:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
'More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.'
So now we're talking about 25 percent being $2.3 trillion which means that the total spent during the years being talked about is $9.2 trillion. That's about 30 times the annual defense department budget in 2001, which at a guess means that we're talking about all the money spent in the history of this country on the Defense (or War) Department. So 25% of that they couldn't account for (at the time).
But that's what Rummy is claiming happened well before he took over the DoD. Remember in September 2001 he was still operating under the final Clinton budget (which ended 9/30/01). The idea wasn't some bizarre confession that Rumsfeld and company had stolen a bunch of money that they hoped nobody would notice with the headlines the next day. It was that they wanted to make a bunch of accounting changes and get credit for any savings they made along the way.
2.3 TRILLION......
Oh that's nothing......So every man ,woman and child can expect a refund check from the IRS for $8000.00
Thanks!........ Ill write it off.
"American Forces Press Service"
LOL, Yeah, we can trust the Military's word... They only changed their 9/11 alibi like 3 times...