The US Department of Defense has once again failed its audit, failing to account for 61% of its assets.

This was announced by the financial controller of the Pentagon, Mike McChord.

“The result of the fifth annual large-scale financial audit of the Department of Defense is a general refusal to issue an audit opinion.

It was exactly the same last year, and, you know, it didn't come as a surprise.

The waiver of opinion was indeed expected, but we also retain all of last year's positive opinions, covering approximately 39% of our assets,” McChord said.

According to him, in the course of the audit, 27 conclusions of various types were made in total.

“Nine of them, that is, about a third of all audits conducted, are unconditionally positive opinions on approximately 40% of our assets, one is a modified one, and the rest is a non-issuance of an opinion.

This is essentially the same picture as last year,” McChord stated.

According to The Hill, 1.6 thousand auditors took part in the audit.

They looked at the Defense Department's $3.5 trillion in assets and its $3.7 trillion in liabilities.

These assets include 19.7 thousand aircraft, more than 290 ships, equipment and weapons, as well as buildings, roads and fences at more than 4.8 thousand objects around the world.

  • Mike McChord

  • AP

  • © Andrew Harnik

At the same time, the Pentagon did not consider the results of the audit a failure.

“I would not say that we failed (check. -

RT

).

For us, this process is very important, it helps us to become better.

(But. -

RT

) this is not happening as fast as we would like, ”McChord believes.

Military audit

It is worth noting that the audit in all US government agencies has been going on since the early 1990s.

At the Pentagon, the first check was carried out in December 2017.

This attempt, like all subsequent ones, failed.  

Thus, in the course of such audits, serious problems with financial reporting were identified.

For example, during one of the inspections, the military department could not say how many contractors and subcontractors it has.

And in 2018, it turned out that the Pentagon did not have documents for construction projects worth more than $800 million.

  • US military

  • Gettyimages.ru

  • © Artur Widak

NPR radio also reported on a case in which an audit of Pentagon assets uncovered a warehouse of aircraft parts that had not been used for more than a decade.

This situation in the finances of the military department regularly draws criticism from the American establishment.

So, in 2021, several senators, led by Democrat Bernie Sanders, introduced a bill aimed at improving the effectiveness of Pentagon asset audits.

In particular, as conceived by the authors of the document, Pentagon units that did not pass the audit were supposed to return 1% of their budget back to the US Treasury.

As Sanders stated at the time, the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex have been suffering for decades from a huge amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement, which is unacceptable.

According to lawmakers, the Pentagon's failure to successfully conduct an independent audit is the main reason the US Department of Defense has been associated with financial abuse for years.

However, the bill was never adopted at that time.

Expensive projects

However, despite the uncertain situation in the finances of the Pentagon, the United States for many years ranked first in the world in military spending.

Thus, in 2021, the Pentagon's budget was $801 billion, which actually equaled the combined military budget of the ten countries next in the ranking after the United States, including China, Russia, India, France, Britain and Germany.

At the same time, as experts note, the Pentagon's projects, which take a significant amount of taxpayers' money, often cause criticism in the expert community.

  • Zumwalt and F-35 Lightning II

  • Gettyimages.ru

So it was, for example, with the program to create the fifth generation fighter F-35 Lightning II.

According to Bloomberg, the creation of these machines has become the most expensive military project in history.

In September of this year, it became known that the cost of developing and purchasing the F-35 increased again, amounting to $412 billion. At the same time, if you take into account their subsequent maintenance, the total estimate is about $1.3 trillion.

At the same time, the aircraft itself causes a lot of criticism from experts because of the constant technical problems that arise during its operation.

Among them are the destruction of the fuselage, loss of control in flight and constant failures of electronic equipment.

Another similar Pentagon project is the destroyer Zumwalt.

For its creation, the military department allocated $ 22.4 billion, of which $ 13.2 billion was spent on the construction of the first three prototypes.

Initially, it was planned to build 32 ships, but due to rising costs for the program, the military department had to limit itself to three.

In addition, the destroyer project raises many questions among analysts.

In particular, a number of American experts believe that the three ships built will not find practical application and will only become an expensive demonstration of US military technologies.

"Something to hide"

As Americanist political scientist Dmitry Drobnitsky recalls, the US law enforcement agencies have always had problems with financial reporting.

  • US military supplies to Ukraine

  • AP

  • © Alex Brandon

“In the Pentagon, there have been big problems with this since the time of preparations for entering World War II ... In the Ground Forces, for example, there is not even a transparent accounting of the land that belongs to them.

In addition, a lot of things go through the budget line of the Department of Defense that are not directly related to the US Armed Forces.

For example, a significant part of aid to Ukraine.

They can't account for it at all.

There are many such examples.

Moreover, some of them can be explained by the secrecy and objective working conditions of the law enforcement agency, some by a mess, but there is, of course, a significant corruption component, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.

HSE Professor Dmitry Evstafiev also believes that failed audits may indicate embezzlement in the military department.

“The US military has something to hide.

There are huge thefts of material and technical means, civilian equipment, dual-use equipment, and fuel reserves.

This is a very problematic story, ”the analyst said in an interview with RT.

He admits that such problems can be used by American politicians in the event of an aggravation of the inter-party struggle.

“From time to time, scandals related to the controversial financial activities of the Pentagon pop up in the media, but they have always been extinguished.

However, in the context of the political struggle between the Democratic and Republican parties, this topic can be greatly inflated, ”says Evstafiev.

In turn, Dmitry Drobnitsky doubts that under the current conditions the Pentagon will be able to pass the audit in the foreseeable future.

“Attempts to pass an audit are a desire to justify themselves to the public.

But in reality, the Pentagon will never pass an audit according to the standards that exist today, ”Drobnitsky is sure.

At the same time, the analyst notes that American voters are generally sympathetic to high defense spending.

However, this attitude may change if spending on dubious purposes from the point of view of American interests is revealed.

“Sooner or later, the question may arise: why are we sending money, relatively speaking, to some Ukraine, when we have a crisis in our country, gasoline becomes more expensive.

After all, at worst, it is better for soldiers to raise their salaries.

When money starts to go to dubious purposes, it causes irritation.

And judging by some signs, in 2023 we will see some movement in the United States in this direction, ”concluded the analyst.