Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon was missing 2.3 trillion dollars

Claim

The U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted the day before the attack that the Pentagon was missing 2.3 trillion dollars⁰.

Background

The claim is based on a quote from Donald Rumsfeld from September 10, 2001:

“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”

The claim supports the conspiracy theory that the terror attack against the Pentagon was supposedly a so-called false flag operation. Rumsfeld had knowledge that the terror attack would take place the next day, knowing that the news of the missing trillions would be buried in the massive media cover of the attack. The hijacked Flight 77 was intended to impact the Pentagon at the exact spot where the documents that would reveal the fraud would be. The impact and the subsequent damage and fires were then to destroy the evidence. The claim is also used to explain where the money to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan came from.

Facts

This article uses the American “trillion”, or 10¹². In Europe, “trillion” is 10¹⁸. The quote is taken out of context. Rumsfeld is not talking about a missing 2.3 trillion dollars from the Pentagon budget. The whole speech is available on the Internet, and when read in full it, is soon clear that Rumsfeld is talking about the problems of an opaque bureaucratic system which makes book-keeping difficult and hinders a clear budgetary overview. Rumsfeld is criticizing the red tape:

The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them.¹

Logic

It is illogical to admit a fraud, even if the news came the day before the attack drowning it in the flow of news about the attack. The money would still be missing, and at some point the public would discover that it was. Amounts of that size do not disappear just like that. If the intention was to destroy documents that could be used as evidence of the fraud, the terror attack would be the exact opposite of a false flag operation. Such an operation is intended to make the enemy – in this case the political opponent Bill Clinton – look like the guilty one. But since the problem was known two years before, when Clinton was president, it would be self-contradicting to plan and carry out a terror attack intended to destroy the evidence pointing to Clinton.

In fiscal 1999, a defense audit found that about $2.3 trillion of balances, transactions and adjustments were inadequately documented. These “unsupported” transactions do not mean the department ultimately cannot account for them, she advised, but that tracking down needed documents would take a long time. Auditors, she said, might have to go to different computer systems, to different locations or access different databases to get information.²

Finally, it is extremely careless to try to destroy evidence that point to yourself by planning and carrying out an immensely complicated plan:

• Organize a fake hijacking
• Swap the plane with a missile
• Get rid of the plane along with the crew and passengers
• Make sure that the missile hits the exact right spot
• Make sure that the fires are so destructive that all evidence is lost
• Make sure to cover up the whole operation by blaming others

The simple plan is usually the best:

• File the evidence
• Ship the evidence for destruction at a later time “by unfortunate mistake”

Conclusion

The claim is therefore:

• False
• Undocumented
• Illogical
• Self-contradicting

Sources

0. Rumsfeld Buries Admission of Missing 2+ Trillion Dollars in 9/10/01 Press Conference, 911Research.wtc7.net

   “…den side af Pentagon hvor nogle stakler sad og forsøgte at finde de 1,3 trillioner dollars som Rumsfeld d. 10 havde meddelt var ….væk” Brian Fløe, stifter af i11time.dk

   Jamen, det *kan* da ikke være AA11 der ramte Pentagon d 11/9-01.., TV2 blog

   “Rumsfeld havde indrømmet, at Pentagon kunne ikke finde 2,3 trillion dollers, dagen før 911, og netop det stede, hvor eksplosion sket, var der dokumenter.” Akira Oishi, i11time.dk

   Løbeseddel —- dit forslag, i11time.dk
1. DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff—Bureaucracy to Battlefield, Donald Rumsfeld, Pentagon, d. 10. september 2001.
2. Reforming Financial Management System Can Save Big, Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service

Q & A