As U.S.-Funded Wars Rage in Israel and Ukraine, Pentagon Watchdog Warns of Military Failures

As calls grow in Congress to condition aid to Israel and halt funding to Ukraine altogether, the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General issued a report that details widespread failures in the Pentagon’s operations. 

In a semiannual report to Congress, the watchdog found a breakdown in the process to provide care for sexual assault survivors, damaged artillery earmarked for Ukraine, and continued failures to monitor the Defense Department’s single most expensive program, the scandal-ridden F-35 fighter jet. Taken together, the inspector general’s findings paint a picture of a sprawling military-industrial complex that, while providing billions in aid to foreign militaries, has failed to solve long-standing issues that result in extreme levels of taxpayer waste. 

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“While we constantly hear from DOD officials and politicians backed by major weapons manufacturers that an ever increasing military budget is essential for our national security, the inspector general’s office consistently demonstrates that this is not the case,” Erik Sperling, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Just Foreign Policy told The Intercept. “Whether failing to ensure adequate oversight on the weapons we have spent billions sending to Ukraine, or the failed fighter jets we finance and send to Israel, our increased defense spending comes at a tremendous and wasteful cost to the American taxpayer and to the innocent civilians on the receiving end of our weapons.”

In October, President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve $75 billion in combined security assistance for Israel and Ukraine. The request would add to the $44 billion in security assistance already pledged to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, and the tens of billions of dollars in security assistance delivered to Israel over the past five years. Over the summer, Israel finalized a deal to purchase 25 new F-35s, financed with $3 billion in defense aid from the United States. 

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Just last month, the Department of Defense failed its sixth straight audit, underscoring the lack of oversight of the funds that Congress forks over to the armed forces every year. Among the rationales for its failure, the Pentagon unconvincingly offered that there is “progress sort of beneath the surface of a pass-fail,” and that “we keep getting better and better at it.” The Pentagon has also flubbed its oversight of the money it sends to U.S. allies; in June, the military found that an accounting error overstated the cost of Ukrainian defense aid by $6.2 billion.

In July, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to force the Department of Defense to clean up its act by proposing that any part of the agency that fails to complete a clean audit be forced to return 1 percent of its budget. 

“From buying $14,000 toilet seats to losing track of warehouses full of spare parts, the Department of Defense has been plagued by wasteful spending for decades,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a statement at the time. “Every dollar the Pentagon squanders is a dollar not used to support service members, bolster national security or strengthen military readiness.”

Under the Inspector General Act, agency oversight officials are required to send reports to Congress every year summarizing their activities and findings. The most recent Defense Department report covers the period from April through September and was published on November 30. It includes summaries of investigations, updates on compliance with oversight actions, and unresolved issues still plaguing the department. 

It contains over a dozen advisories and evaluations regarding programs supporting the war in Ukraine, many of which remain classified. 

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Among those issues made public, the inspector general found that heavy artillery howitzer cannons and dozens of Hummers destined for Ukraine required significant repairs and had not been properly maintained. The report noted that the contractors paid by the government had failed to provide upkeep on critical military equipment that could have just as easily been used by the U.S. military. 

The inspector general also found that Pentagon officials did not always explain the payments they made when terminating contractors’ projects, potentially overpaying contractors to the tune of $22 million. 

Most egregiously, the Defense Department failed to report inventory for its $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet program — an issue that dates back to the program’s launch in 2006. 

According to the report, “the DoD OIG has identified the F-35 JSF program as a material weakness impacting the DoD’s ability to achieve a clean audit opinion.” Despite its price tag, this weapons system often fails to function and was recently found to be less efficient than its predecessor for providing close air support in combat. 

Beyond financial breakdowns, the inspector general also reported that the Defense Department’s protocols for protecting its employees are not routinely followed. The Pentagon’s medical treatment facilities failed to consistently triage and record care administered to survivors of sexual assault, with the lack of documentation creating barriers for access to medical care after an assault. 

According to the report, holes in the Defense Department’s documentation process could lead to sexual assault victims not being prioritized for emergency care, receiving a forensic exam to document their assault, or being given access to a victim advocate. The finding comes after sexual assault reports have risen across multiple divisions of the military.

In the report’s introduction, Inspector General Robert Storch hinted at part of the problem of reining in the Department Defense: recalcitrance on the part of the officials being audited. 

“During this period, we encountered difficulties with timely responses from the DoD, specifically regarding provision of information and security reviews of our reports,” Storch wrote. By way of example, he added, “A Navy command initially refused to provide requested records to DoD OIG evaluators based on its misunderstanding of the DoD OIG’s jurisdiction and authority to have access to all information available to the DoD.”