How the Pentagon Lost Track of $45 Billion Is… Ridiculous

Editor’s Note: We’re are fighting a never ending, nebulous War on Terror. It’s to the point that most Americans do not even know which countries we are offensively (not defensively) bombing or why. Considering the drug wars in Afghanistan are really the US, since our government is over there using our soldiers to help grow and distribute the opium that would get people who possess it thrown in jail here in America, it’s not entirely too hard to guess where at least some of this money went…

Since 2002, Congress has set aside $104 billion specifically to rebuild Afghanistan. Of that, $66 billion went to the Pentagon.

Recently, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction asked the military to account for all that spending. It couldn’t. According to a new report from SIGAR, the Pentagon only knows how it spent a third of its reconstruction budget.

That’s $45 billion dollars the military can’t track and the reason is … ridiculous. According to SIGAR, the Pentagon didn’t check a box on an electronic form when it filed the information in government databases.

It didn’t break any rules when it did this, and has since fixed the oversight that led to the underreporting, but it’s cold comfort for taxpayers who will probably never know how the U.S. military spent that money in Afghanistan.

(Read more at Real Clear Defense.)