Pentagon’s bosses thwart accurate audit of DOD’s main accounting office
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/22/209356/pentagons-bosses-thwart-accurate.html
Pentagons bosses thwart accurate audit of DODs main accounting office
By James Rosen and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Washington Bureau
November 22, 2013
WASHINGTON The Pentagons central payroll and accounting office, which pays out tens of billions of dollars a year to U.S. service members and defense contractors worldwide, likes to boast of a decade worth of clean audits by outside firms hired to check its books.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service was created in 1991 by Dick Cheney, then the secretary of defense, to help the governments biggest agency get on top of its spending after President Ronald Reagan had overseen a massive military buildup the previous decade to counter the Soviet Union. Cheney also sought to prevent repeats of the $435 hammers, $37 screws and other embarrassing disclosures of excessive spending.
But more than two decades later after another big military buildup, this time in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks a McClatchy investigation has found troubling signs that the system set up to strengthen accountability for Pentagon spending is broken.
Among the signs of dysfunction, according to interviews with key players, internal emails, memos and other documents obtained by McClatchy, are:
Outside audits by a certified public accounting firm of the Defense Finance and Accounting Services books turned out to be shoddy, according to the Pentagons own accountants, although that same CPA firm had endorsed the agencys previous fiscal records for years.