For your Monday amusement: Pentagon Official: DoD will be audit ready by end of September by Eric White.
From the post:
In today’s Federal Newscast, the Defense Department’s Comptroller David Norquist said the department has been properly preparing for its deadline for audit readiness.
The Pentagon’s top financial official said DoD will meet its deadline to be “audit ready” by the end of September. DoD has been working toward the deadline for the better part of seven years, and as the department pointed out in its most recent audit readiness update, most federal agencies haven’t earned clean opinions until they’ve been under full-scale audits for several years. But newly-confirmed comptroller David Norquist said now’s the time to start. He said the department has already contracted with several outside accounting firms to perform the audits, both for the Defense Department’s various components and an overarching audit of the entire department.
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I’m reminded of the alleged letter by the Duke of Wellington to Whitehall:
Gentlemen,
Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters.
We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.
Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as the the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.
This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty’s Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both:
1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance.
2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.
Your most obedient servant,
Wellington
The primary function of any military organization is suppression of the currently designated “enemy.”
Congress should direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to auditing the DoD.
Instead of chasing fictional terrorists, DHS staff would be chasing known to exist dollars and alleged expenses.