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Millions of dollars have disappeared from Afghanistan and the Special Inspector General for ..Reconstruction is placing the blame on the Pentagon’s mismanaged accounting practices for the problem. The SIGAR released the report Friday reporting that only 57% of the $795 million appropriated to CERP from 2002-2013 could be accounted for in terms of who was awarded contracts, and for how much money. The SIGAR report breaks down the $21 billion, by fund, into the highest-costing contracts & their recipients, from 2002 until May 2014. The CERP initiative “enables U.S. commanders in Afghanistan to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction...

The U.S. military faces a challenge recruiting people with the high-tech skills it needs for the future as those who joined after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks leave the service and the U.S. economy creates more jobs, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. Carter, in a speech at his former high school, said the military has to attract about 250,000 people a year just to keep up with those who retire or leave the service to pursue jobs, education and other opportunities in the civilian world. At the same time, only about a third of the 21 million Americans...

The sudden announcement of the charges Bergdahl faces, reinvigorated the sometimes fierce political debate that took place last year after the alleged deserter was secretly traded for five high-level Taliban prisoners from the military detention center at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Marine base. Equally controversial was a legal watchdog group’s announcement that it had already filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in order to have a federal judge force the Obama-appointed commanders to release records regarding the U.S. Army’s review of the disappearance of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl while he was assigned...

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials. With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering apart, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of U.S.-donated small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies. The situation has grown worse since the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa, the capital, last month and withdrew many of its military advisers. In...

House Republicans are considering adding tens of billions of dollars to President Barack Obama’s request for overseas military operations in an effort to get around tight limits on Pentagon spending. The move comes as Republicans are set to unveil their latest budget plan. Obama requested $51 billion for Pentagon operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, but GOP aides said Monday party leaders are weighing figures above $90 billion—enough to surpass Obama’s proposal to spend $38 billion above the limits for the budget year beginning in October. GOP defense hawks have promised not to support any budget that doesn’t at least...

Old and busted: Open-source war planning. New hotness: Strategic incoherence! A week ago, the Pentagon briefed reporters on the plan to retake Mosul from ISIS in April using mainly Iraqi Army troops, down to the timing of the attack and a rough estimate of the numbers and types of troops needed to accomplish the job. Just seven days later, the Department of Defense pushed off the date until autumn … if then. A DoD source told The Daily Beast’s Nancy Youssef that, er, they’ve belatedly discovered that Iraqi troops aren’t ready now, and probably won’t be ready for months: The...

The D.C. Establishment hopes if you drag out disclosure about a scandal long enough, it loses a bit of its “wow factor” along the way. That would seem to be the view of the Obama administration regarding many of its wanton acts of mismanagement.

The Pentagon let slip that one of its training camps to help fight Islamic State terrorists is in Jordan — information the pro-U.S. kingdom had specifically requested be kept private, and the latest gaffe in a series of sensitive leaks coming out of the Department of Defense. In order to hide its flub, which was first announced to reporters during a briefing last week, the Pentagon has scrubbed its public transcripts of any mention of the training camp. Pentagon officials acknowledged Monday that one of its officers, who was briefing reporters on condition of anonymity last week, likely made the...

New Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has chosen former acting Air Force Secretary Eric Fanning to become his chief of staff and the first openly gay man to hold the post. Fanning, currently the Air Force undersecretary, was a key member of the transition team along with Army Maj. Gen. Ron Davis that guided Carter through his Senate confirmation hearings to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. As chief of staff, Fanning will have major sway over Carter's schedule and access to his office. Davis was expected to become military adviser to Carter.

That didn’t take long. Less than a day after the U.S. military announced its Spring offensive against ISIS, seasoned military officers said the plan was unworkable. Skepticism about the U.S. and Iraqi military plans for the next phase of the ISIS war begins inside the Pentagon. Less than 24 hours after U.S. military officials publicly detailed their plans for a spring offensive on ISIS-held Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, many within the Pentagon privately questioned whether that timetable was plausible. They said that they were dubious that their partners in the Iraqi military—the troops supposed to lead the offensive—would be...

U.S. Africa Command records – heavily blacked out – show military gathered forces to support “anti-terrorist” actions in Benghazi day after attack (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Obama administration finally turned over hundreds of pages of documents about the military response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound and other facilities in Benghazi. The documents, which are heavily blacked out (redacted), confirm that the U.S. Military, through its U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) drafted orders for a military response to the attack, specifically “to protect vital naval and national assets.”...

Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, the press secretary of the Pentagon and they guy you always see explaining American military action on television, announced his sudden resignation today, one day after the new Secretary of Defense was sworn into office.

Chaos in Yemen has left the US military unable to monitor the vast arsenal it has spent years providing to its Yemeni counterpart. Yemen is now functionally leaderless after Houthi rebels took over the capital of Sana’a last month, prompting the resignation of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The rebels are said to control the Yemeni military’s arms depots and bases, giving them effective control of US-provided and other heavy weaponry, including tanks and artillery. The unrest has “limited our ability to conduct routine end-use monitoring checks and inspections we would normally perform”, a US defense official told the Guardian....

Although the Pentagon has been required by law to pass an audit every year for almost 20 years, it has been unable to do so. The Pentagon is by far the largest government bureaucracy in the country, with a proposed 2015 budget request of $585 billion. With a budget that large, the Pentagon should be able to tell us how our tax dollars are spent – especially when its leaders keep asking for more money. But a news report in 2013 revealed that the Pentagon had been doctoring its books for years to conceal “epic” amounts of wasteful spending. The...

Spending Pentagon spent $504,816 on Viagra last year By Elizabeth Harrington Published February 09, 2015 Washington Free Beacon The Department of Defense (DoD) spent more than a half a million dollars on the male enhancement drug Viagra last year, according to government contracts. The Pentagon issued 60 contracts worth$504,816 for the drug in 2014. All 60 contracts were awarded to Cardinal Health Inc., a pharmaceutical distribution company based in Dublin, Ohio. Last year DoD also ordered $3,505 worth of Levitra, and $14,540 of Cialis, other popular erectile dysfunction drugs. The contracts were filed under "Troop Support."

The Department of Defense (DoD) spent more than a half a million dollars on the male enhancement drug Viagra last year, according to government contracts. The Pentagon issued 60 contracts worth $504,816 for the drug in 2014. All 60 contracts were awarded to Cardinal Health Inc., a pharmaceutical distribution company based in Dublin, Ohio. Last year DoD also ordered $3,505 worth of Levitra, and $14,540 of Cialis, other popular erectile dysfunction drugs. The contracts were filed under “Troop Support.”

The Islamic State released a barbaric video of the Jordanian pilot that was being held prisoner and was used as bargaining chip, burned alive. Rear Adm. John Kirby held a press conference to address the situation and how the United States plans to respond. -snip “I can’t–there’s no way I could possibly figure out how to justify it in your brain because it’s so twisted,” Kirby said. “These aren’t the acts of a winner. They’re not winning.”

Last Monday retired Lt. Col. Tony Schaffer, citing unnamed military sources, told Bill O’Reilly that the Army was planning to charge Bergdahl with desertion. He claimed that his sources confirmed Bergdahl’s attorney was given a charge sheet. It didn’t take Obama’s spin doctors long to have the Pentagon lying and denying that any charges were filed or any charge sheet presented to Bergdahl’s attorney Eugene Fidell. At the time of writing Mr. Fidell declined to speak to the press. In a surprise move NBC cited an anonymous senior defense official who said that Bergdahl will be charged with desertion very...

ADM John Kirby isn’t fooling anyone by his denials that a decision has been made to move forward on preferring charges of “desertion” against Sad Sack SGT Bowe Bergdahl. The Pentagon spokesman can claim until he’s blue in the face, that such reports – first made by FOX NEWS and NBC, and now confirmed by MilitaryCorruption.com – are “patently false,” but what will he do when his disingenuous remarks come back to bite him? Probably what any good public affairs officer (and paid liar) would. Suck it up and move on. What we now know and can tell you is,...

I am...a fan of the A-10 Warthog. I believe in the mission, and I believe that there is no other weapons platform out there that can do the job the A-10 does, with the same efficiency, effectiveness, and confidence that it provides to our troops on the ground. It’s big, ugly, and slow. It’s also rugged, durable, and extremely deadly. The Air Force likes new toys. Other than the venerable B-52, the A-10 is the oldest plane in the inventory. The F-35 was not built solely for the specific mission of ground support as was the A-10. The F-35 is...