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Even with countless media outlets available these days, a Sunday New York Times cover story could always be counted on to send a jolt through the television news cycle.

But apparently that’s no longer the case. Indeed, reporter David Barstow’s 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon’s military analyst program — whereby ex-military talking heads, often with direct ties to contractors, parroted Defense Department talking points on the air — has been noticeably absent from television airwaves since the story broke on April 20.

On Tuesday, Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin “urging an investigation of the Pentagon’s propaganda program” to determine if the networks or analysts violated federal law.

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, applauded their efforts. “President Eisenhower warned against the excesses of a military-industrial complex,” Copps said in a statement. “I’d like to think that hasn’t morphed into a military-industrial-media complex, but reports of spinning the news through a program of favored insiders don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”

DeLauro said by phone that the Pentagon’s program was “created in order to give military analysts access in exchange for positive coverage of the Iraq war.”

The FCC request follows DeLauro’s April 24 letters to five of the most powerful network executives: NBC News President Steve Capus, ABC News President David Westin, CBS News President Sean McManus, FOX News chief executive Roger Ailes and CNN News Group President Jim Walton.

Only ABC and CNN have responded so far, according to DeLauro, who is not the only member of Congress calling attention to the Times story.

Both Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) have written to the Government Accountability Office, seeking an investigation into whether the Pentagon aided in connecting military analysts with contractors.

“I decided to push this issue hard because ever since The New York Times exposé appeared, the silence has been deafening,” Kerry said in statement to Politico.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10204.html

The inspector general for the Defense Department said yesterday that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $15 billion worth of goods and services ranging from trucks, bottled water and mattresses to rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that were bought from contractors in the Iraq reconstruction effort.

The Pentagon did not have the proper documentation, including receipts, vouchers, signatures, invoices or other paperwork, for $7.8 billion that American and Iraqi contractors were paid for phones, folders, paint, blankets, Nissan trucks, laundry services and other items, according to a 69-page audit released to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

An earlier audit by the inspector general found deficiencies in accounting for $5.2 billion of U.S. payments to buy weapons, trucks, generators and other equipment for Iraq's security forces. In addition, the Defense Department spent $1.8 billion of seized Iraqi assets with "absolutely no accountability," according to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who chairs the oversight committee. The Pentagon also kept poor records on $135 million that it paid to its partners in the multinational military force in Iraq, auditors said.

The Army disagreed with some of the auditors' findings, saying that it is difficult to maintain an adequate paper trail in a war zone and that it has improved its record-keeping and accountability efforts. Robert L. Wilkie, assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, declined an invitation to testify before from Waxman's committee.

Of the $7.8 billion in payments detailed in the audit released yesterday, about $1.4 billion did not meet the most minimal requirements for documentation, making it highly possible that waste, fraud or abuse had occurred, according to auditors. In one case, there is a copy of a $5.6 million check from the U.S. Treasury paid to an Iraqi contractor but no documents saying what was purchased. In another, a South Carolina contractor was paid $11 million, according to a voucher, but auditors said they could not tell what goods or services were received.

"Without a receiving report and invoice, we don't know what we paid for," said Mary Ugone, the Defense Department's deputy inspector general for auditing. She said internal controls and paper trails were inadequate and that the Army's "finance personnel were not adequately trained" in overseeing the billions of dollars paid.

Auditors referred more than two dozen vouchers, totaling $35 million, to criminal investigators at the Pentagon.

Waxman said the poorly documented expenditures of seized Iraqi assets included a $320 million cash payment for employing 1,000 people that was handed over to the Iraqi Finance Ministry with "little more than a signature in exchange."

"Investigators looked at 53 payment vouchers and couldn't find even one that adequately explained where the money went," Waxman said.

The money paid to military coalition partners, including Britain, Poland and South Korea, was intended to help local reconstruction and humanitarian projects. Auditors said that none of the files reviewed "contained sufficient supporting documentation to provide reasonable assurance that these funds were used for their intended purpose." In one case, the Defense Department made an $8 million payment to Polish forces with minimal documentation, according to the audit.

An audit report issued in November found that $5.2 billion of U.S. payments to buy weapons, trucks, generators and other equipment to support Iraqi security forces had major deficiencies in how items were accounted for, saying that the Defense Department did not know "what equipment is due in, due out, issued and on hand." The inspector general found that the Defense Department could not account for 12,712 of 13,508 weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers for Iraqi forces.

"When we turned them over to the Iraqis, they weren't properly accounted for," said Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Defense Department's inspector general, saying serial numbers were not consistently recorded. "The paper trail is not complete."

The November audit also described how the Pentagon paid $32 million for the construction of an Iraqi military facility in Anbar province that was never built. Defense Department officials told staff members of the oversight committee that "this is embarrassing" because "not a spade of dirt was turned."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/
05/22/AR2008052203751_pf.html

Now these are rather stunning facts, and the numbers are astronomical.
Loss of control over weapons, a base invoiced and paid for - but never built ?
Payments for things that you have no proof of ?
15 BILLION dollars spent, with nothing concrete and provable to show for it ?
Why aren't these stories out there on every newspaper and TV screen ?

did u ever get a chance to answer my question collingwood?How is what is happening with OUR pentagon affecting u directly or even as a canadian in general?

Wow...you think the Pentagon is behind these missing posts???

THE NEARLY UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS OF PENTAGON CORRUPTION, By Bob Chapman

A former high-ranking member of the CIA, now retired, who was a career employee, contacted us this week. Due to our reporting on Halliburton and their corruption we were given 46 pages of testimony on how Halliburton, the CIA, the Pentagon and Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have been stealing billions of dollars. What we were presented will shortly be presented to Congressman Waxman's Oversight and Reform Committee in the House. These pages of step-by-step criminal procedure are only part of a larger body of evidence being presented to Congress. What is presented is astounding in the scope of the crime and the billions of dollars being stolen by these criminals.

http://carolynbaker.net/static/index.html

I collected intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan for the CIA until Aug. 2004 when I was outed by Cheney for refusing to make propaganda that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. My official title within the CIA was Special Operations Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence. Since I set up the Remote Viewing Defense protocols for the Pentagon, I was given a title of Remote Viewing Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a rank of a 2-star general in the US military. That rank was largely a bogus ploy by the Pentagon to get more of my time from the CIA and force me to attend a Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting once a month. I did so from Oct. 2003 to July 2004.

On orders of my boss, DCI George Tenet, on Aug. 2001 I collected a moving van full of Pentagon documents showing Defense Contractor kickbacks to Pentagon officials. I removed them from the Pentagon and they were driven to the CIA. It took me about 10 days of time to get the Pentagon people to turn those documents over to me en masse. The ethical intelligence methods I used to do so are beyond the scope of this text. Alas, the CIA's intention turned out not to be to expose and correct the corruption, but to cover it up---as judged by later events.

- Ibid