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Top Pentagon Auditor Tells What The Problems Are

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There have long been reports in both the mainstream and independent media about Pentagon cost over-runs, weapons malfunctions, inappropriate systems, and misplacement of trillions of dollars. One person, Mr. Chuck Spinney, fully documented all of these matters as a Pentagon insider.

We chose this interview, because he wrote from an unprecedented top level of authority from within the Pentagon's internal review process, and also because he went beyond the numbers to explain the causes and the implications for national security, domestic policy and for the Constitution itself. After a brief challenge, his report was accepted by the Pentagon in full, without question. All the points in this interview can be further referenced in the exhaustive documentation of his report. - D. Glicken

Bill Moyers Interviews Chuck Spinney
Reported on the Bill Moyers' TV News Show “NOW” 8/1/03


Charles Spinney

MOYERS: Earlier this summer Chuck Spinney was recognized for his work by POGO, Project On Government Oversight.

MOYERS: (speaking to Spinney) Why did you do it? Why did you spend all this time a voice in the wilderness, and things kept getting worse? Why didn't you quit?

SPINNEY: Well, that's a really good question. It hasn't been a negative experience in any sense of the term. It's been a very, very positive experience. And I have to be honest, I love a good bureaucratic fight. Yes.

MOYERS: Why aren't these military budgets not watched as carefully by the Defense Department as a corporation? Why isn't the Department of Defense being held accountable?

SPINNEY: Well, you raise a very good point. The President is holding education people accountable for standards. He says, "I want to have measures, performance measures for accountability." He also has tried to do the same for foreign aid if you recall. Over in the Pentagon, we're not holding people accountable.

Over in the Pentagon, we're not holding people accountable.

SPINNEY:What you have in Congress are the oversight committees for defense, which are essentially the armed services committee and the defense appropriations subcommittees. In both houses they are so tied in to the Pentagon and the defense contractor base that essentially oversight has been displaced by what some of us call overlook. They're basically watching the money flow out the door and encouraging it to go. And basically, it's in members of the Senate Armed Services Committee's best interest to keep the money flowing. It's in the Pentagon's best interest to keep the money flowing.

MOYERS: Because?

SPINNEY: Because it's the military industrial Congressional complex and this is their way of life. They live on the money flow.

MOYERS: The military industrial Congressional complex?

SPINNEY: Right. Which I believe was a term that Eisenhower considered using in his speech, but he dropped the reference to Congress.

MOYERS: He talked about the military industrial complex. But you say Congress is the driving force here?

SPINNEY: I don't think there's any simple villain that you can point to and say, "If we fix this, everything's gonna change. In my opinion it's the product of a long-term evolution that occurred in the 40 years of Cold War. If you think about it those 40 years were a very unique period in our nation's history. Now what happened was during that period the different players in the military industrial Congressional complex fine-tuned their bureaucratic behavior to exist in that environment. And we developed certain practices in order to generate budgets that were more inwardly focused toward distributing defense pork to our allies around the country.

We literally exaggerated a threat to jack up the budgets.

And one of the most pernicious effects of this trend was the gradual build up of what an anthropologist might call habitual modes of conduct, like an innate response to the threat of inflation. We literally exaggerated a threat to jack up the budgets. Well, those habits became so ingrained in our system that even after the Soviet Union evaporated we still have this acculturated response going on.

MOYERS: The people who are supposed to control it benefit from it?

SPINNEY: Exactly.

MOYERS: Tell me how members of Congress benefit from increasing costs like this, driving weapons systems that the country doesn't need, spending money that puts us deeper and deeper in deficit. How does Congress gain?

SPINNEY: They gain because they get money flowing to their Congressional districts that helps build their power bases.

MOYERS: Give me an example.

SPINNEY: Back in 1990, and this may sound like ancient history but I was there. The Senate Armed Services and the House Armed Services Committee took opposing views on the F-16 fighter. One committee said, "We're gonna terminate production." The other committee member said, "Let's fully fund the Pentagon's request." And of course they were just setting the stage for reducing the Pentagon's request but keeping the program alive. That's the way Washington works.

But as soon as those two positions came out, the Lockheed lobbyists… at that time it was General Dynamics… The General Dynamics lobbyists hit the streets. I had a very good friend who was a Congressional staffer working for Andy Ireland who was a member from a small citrus growing district in Florida. He had almost no defense business in his district. Attached to that letter were two maps. The first map showed the spending for government financed equipment across the United States. So you saw the dollars in each state scattered around the country. The second page was tailored for the person who received the letter.

In this case, Andy Ireland was from Florida so it had a map of Florida and it had each Congressional district and the defense spending going to it . Well, my friend was just outraged by this. He said, "This is just blatant influence peddling. And they're just trying to pressure us." He was ranting and raving. I said, "Wait a minute. If they sent one to you, they sent it to everybody. What you ought to do is call 'em up and say, 'This is really a great display. We can really use it. Could you send us the whole atlas?'" And he said, "Yeah, you're right." He understood immediately.

And within an hour, he had the whole atlas, which then I had in about two or three hours. It was for 45 states. And it had each state with all the money listed by Congressional district, plus of course the national map. And it was down to the dollar. Now this is the Pentagon where we can't account for any of our money. Meanwhile, the contractors know exactly where it's going, or at least they say they do.

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