Wm. D. Hartung: How Not to Audit the Pentagon

Why has waste at the Pentagon been so hard to rein in? The answer is, in a sense, not complicated: the military-industrial complex profits from waste. Closer scrutiny of waste could mean not just cheaper spare parts, but serious questions about whether cash cows like the F-35 are needed at all. An accurate head count of the hundreds of thousands of private contractors employed by the Pentagon would reveal that a large proportion of them are doing work that is either duplicative or unnecessary.

James Rosen: Pentagon can’t account for $1 billion in Afghan reconstruction aid

Rosen: The comment didn’t explain why money set aside for reconstruction needs would need to be used to pay for counterinsurgency, which has been a core part of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan since the October 2001 invasion following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The bulk of the Afghanistan war’s $800 billion price tag for the United States has gone to battlefield needs.

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