Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings

March 18, 2008
Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings

The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.

The head of the Pentagon's medical assessments division has told USA Today that he wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War syndrome.

Pentagon disputes bleak GAO Iraq report

August 29, 2007
Pentagon disputes bleak GAO Iraq report
Iraq, the Pentagon has asked that some of the negative assessments be revised.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that after reviewing a draft of the Government Accountability Office report — which has not yet been made public — policy officials "made some factual corrections" and "offered some suggestions on a few of the actual grades" assigned by the GAO.

The government should stop deceptively pretending that war costs are separate from the Pentagon's

February 10, 2007
The government should stop deceptively pretending that war costs are separate from the Pentagon's budget

Here's how the supplemental shell game works. The official defense budget for 2008 comes to $481 billion. That's a 10% increase over last year and a 62% increase over 2001. And it conveniently fails to include a supplemental request of $141.7 billion, which brings the 2008 defense total to $622.7 billion. On top of that, the president requested a 2007 supplemental in the amount of $93.4 billion, bringing this week's entire defense "budget authority request" to $716 billion (the
figure of actual outlays is even higher because it includes billions already committed to the
Pentagon).

So why abuse supplemental appropriations? Because Congress and the president have discovered
that they are an effective way to discreetly increase spending for a long and painful war. As
important, supplemental spending does not count against budget caps or automatically trigger
offsetting cuts. Thus, the Pentagon can have money for the war while keeping space available in
the regular budget for pet projects.

War Planners Prepare For Defeat in Iraq

February 8, 2007
War Planners Prepare For Defeat in Iraq

Feb. 8, 2007 | Deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, policy planners are conducting secret
meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and
when President Bush's escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails, a participant in those
discussions told me. None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the
public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will
succeed. On the contrary, everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but
also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and
incompetence.

Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest

February 6, 2007
Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest

President George Bush is proposing to slash medical care for the poor and elderly to meet the
soaring cost of the Iraq war.

Mr Bush's $2.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes
$100bn extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70bn already allocated by
Congress and $141.7bn next year. He is planning an 11.3% increase for the Pentagon. Spending on the Iraq war is destined to top the total cost of the 13-year war in Vietnam.

Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainee

January 13, 2007
Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainee

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected
of terrorism said in an interview this week that he was dismayed that lawyers at many of the
nation's top firms were representing prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms'
corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

The comments by Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee
affairs, produced an instant torrent of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists and bar
association officials, who said Friday that his comments were repellent and displayed an ignorance
of the duties of lawyers to represent people in legal trouble.

Pentagon sees U.S. war cost in Iraq rising

January 18, 2007
Pentagon sees U.S. war cost in Iraq rising

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The steadily rising Iraq war price tag will reach about $8.4
billion a month this year, Pentagon spokesmen said on Thursday, as heavy replacement costs for
lost, destroyed and aging equipment mount.

The Pentagon has been estimating last year's costs for the increasingly unpopular war at about
$8 billion a month, having increased from a monthly "burn rate" of around $4.4 billion during the
first year of fighting in fiscal 2003.

Defense official says Pentagon hid unspent funds in accounts

January 17, 2007
Defense official says Pentagon hid unspent funds in accounts

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has hidden at least $1.4 billion in other agencies' accounts
instead of returning unspent money to the U.S. Treasury, the Defense Department's internal
watchdog told Congress Wednesday.

Thomas Gimble, the Pentagon's acting inspector general, said Pentagon offices between 2002 and
2005 used the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Interior Department "to 'park' or
'bank' funds that were expiring."

GSA and Interior then spent the money on Pentagon contracts, circumventing the
law, Gimble said.