On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech about an “adversary that poses a serious threat to the United States of America.” Describing it as “one of the last bastions of central planning, governs by dictating five year plans,” and that “with brutal consistency it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas.”
The adversary? “The Pentagon bureaucracy — not the people, but the processes.” And he went on to state that the Pentagon could not account for more than $2.3 trillion.
The next day, September 11, “some people did something,” in the immortal words of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D‑Minn.),* and nearly everybody forgot about Rumsfeld’s alarm. The terrorist attacks on 9/11, in New York and at the Pentagon itself, along with a citizen-led resistance on United Flight 93, resulted in 2,977 fatalities, over 25,000 injuries, and substantial long-term health consequences.
The unaccounted-for spending and receipts of the Pentagon and the Department of Housing and Urban Development increased ten-fold in the next 19 years.
* Rep. Omar said these words on March 23, 2019. They were not a hit.