DOD Pays Billions For Unnamed Contractors

May 22, 2009

The Pentagon spent more than $2.7 billion on “miscellaneous items” in 2008 for which the contractor was listed as “not available” — a rare omission for Defense Department documentation — according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of an independent national database of government contracting data.

The “miscellaneous items” expenditure listing appears to be a catch-all category for Pentagon transactions, according to interviews with defense analysts and a review of Defense Department contracting data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR).

In many cases the transactions also fail to clearly show what the money was spent on. However, defense analysts say the transactions appear to be classified or related to intelligence operations, and the proper congressional overseers have received the names of the contractors and information on the work done.

Altogether, Pentagon miscellaneous-item expenses tallied about $7 billion in 2008, making that the eighth highest Defense Departure expenditure item for the year, the Aerospace DAILY analysis showed. This marks the first time that “miscellaneous items” has cracked the list of top 20 Pentagon expenses this decade.

Not only did the “not available” contractors account for 38 percent of the total amount of money the Pentagon designated for miscellaneous-item expenses, but the unnamed companies also accounted for 85 percent of the 7,590 category transactions.

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It's depressing to look at job postings on the USAJobs website - the great majority of jobs are defense-related.

. . . on the escalated military activity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and from the weapons purchases by Iraq.

benefiting. It's unreal to me that this is acceptable.