Bush Warns Democrats To Stop Him Before He Creates Accounting Nightmare That Will Never Be Accounted For

WASHINGTON - President Bush sternly pressed Democrats to approve money to fund the Iraq war "without strings and without delay" before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, something congressional leaders have already indicated they will not do…

Bush said this will push the Pentagon toward an accounting nightmare and affect the military's ability to do its job protecting the country.

"The American people expect us to work together to support our troops. That's what they want," Bush said Thursday after spending two hours meeting at the Pentagon with military leaders. "They do not want the government to create needless uncertainty for those defending our country and uncertainty for their families. They do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq just as they're seeing clear signs of success."

Goddam right! The American people have troops in the field. Those troops need to be funded. Their lives depend on it. Congress needs to send Bush a bill funding those troops, and Bush needs to sign it. And no political wrangling should get in the way. Why the hell hasn't Congress sent Bush a bill funding those troops so Bush can sign it?

The House has passed a $50 billion bill that would keep war operations afloat for several more months, but set a goal of bringing most troops home by December 2008. After Bush threatened to veto the measure, Senate Republicans have blocked it. In turn, Democratic leaders say they won't send Bush a war spending bill this year at all.

Oh. So the Democratically controlled House passed a bill funding the troops. But, because of a political dispute, Bush threatened to veto it. And then Republicans in the Senate, because of a political dispute, blocked the funding of American troops in the field.

And now Bush is sternly pressing Democrats to stop holding up the funding of our troops because of political disputes.

I guess he wants Nancy Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table so we can remove the biggest obstacle to funding our troops. Though, Democrats can't do anything about the obstructionist Senate Republicans until 2008.

In response, Pentagon officials began saying the military will have to take drastic steps next month if it doesn't get the money soon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered the Army and Marine Corps to begin planning for a series of expected cutbacks, including civilian layoffs, termination of contracts and reduced operations at bases.

Bush reiterated that theme at the Pentagon, backed by Vice President Dick Cheney and military leaders.

"Congress limits how much money can be moved from one account to the other," Bush said. "Secretary Gates has already notified Congress that he will transfer money from accounts to fund other activities of the military services to pay for current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — and no more money can be moved."

That's a good point! No, that's a great point! Democrats who have voted to fund our troops had better "work together" with Bush and the Republicans who have blocked funding for our troops or else the Pentagon is going to have an "accounting nightmare"! If the Democrats don't "work together" with Republicans by giving the Republicans everything they want, the Pentagon will not be able to shift money from one account to another.

Because Congress won't let the Pentagon do that--just shift money around from account to account without any kind of accountability. And the Pentagon wouldn't even think about doing that because it's so meticulous about its accounting and keeping Congress appraised of just what exactly the Department of Defense is doing with the four hundred billion dollars a year Americans give it.

The last thing the Pentagon wants or needs is some accounting nightmare caused by Congress!

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.

Oops!

But that was years ago. I'm sure the CEO styled management Dream Team of the Bush Administration fixed that!

WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be-released audit will show that at least $8.8 billion in Iraqi money that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, FOX News has confirmed.

D'oh!

(02-16) 04:00 PST Washington -- More than $10 billion of the money paid to military contractors for Iraq reconstruction and troop support was either excessive or unsupported by documents, including $2.7 billion for contracts held by Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries, Congress was told Thursday.

What?

Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse…

And the Defense Department, with a $460 billion budget this fiscal year, has never even come close to passing. Because that department makes up at least 20 percent of all federal spending, the entire federal government also has failed its audits since the congressional mandate took effect…

Robert Dacey, chief accountant for the Government Accountability Office, characterized the financial affairs of the two departments as “a pretty consistent mess…”

At last count, accounting at the Defense Department is performed in 4,000 different business systems, Jonas said. And in its most recent audit, the department acknowledged that it had more than $270 million worth of unsupported accounting entries.

Jonas noted that there also have been what she called “significant successes.” In 2001, the Pentagon had hundreds of inoperable accounting systems and no data standards. This year, she said, it received a clean audit opinion on $215 billion, or 15 percent, of its assets and $967 billion, or 49 percent, of its liabilities.

That's right. Fifteen percent of the DOD's assets and nearly half of it's liabilities have been properly accounted for.

And President Deficit N. Bankruptcy wants to argue that strict Congressional oversight of the Department of Defense is a bunch of red tape in the way of our troops receiving the funding he threatened to veto if Republicans didn't block it.

I almost wish Bush could re-select himself for another four years. It would be horrible. The cost to our country in money, prestige, and progress would be inestimable.

But, after four more years of this cretin, not only would the despicable, immoral, and perverted modern Republican party be ground out of existence, but Americans might finally, fifty years after they were told by an honest to God military hero on live television, realize that they are getting ripped off, year in and year out, by the very people they put unquestioning trust in.

And they might also realize, once again, why the people who founded this country put all that shit in the Constitution about never trusting your gubment.

Comments

[Kit E]

Exactly. We're all trying so hard to avoid the (apparently largerly apocryphal) poor treatment of the troops by the public after Vietnam that we've become worshipful of all things military. Which means things like this accounting info never get any press because (1) the press is largely owned by corporations with large defense industry connections, and (2) to say anything means that the winger gasbags will hunt you down like a rabid dog for being that sin of all sins, unpatriotic.

It's time to stop worshiping war like some kind of mom/apple pie/manly soldier idol that represents the only thing this country apparently stands for: war, and more of it.

Citizens need to decide if they want to police the world or have a functioning social security and Medicare system, because at the rate this war folly is killing the dollar, we aren't going to be able to have both.

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