other recalcitrant nato allies to give support to the russian freak to allow them to refuel. not as we've seen, enough is enough. >> can i say to the honorable gentlemen that went i will of course be raising this issue with our allies and be talking with them about the nature of the response we feel is appropriate to such action taking place. >> thank you. for the statement, the secretary of state for northern ireland. >> we will have more live coverage from the british house of commons wednesdayfor the prime minister's request live from london . you're on c-span2. coming up, the white house briefing with press secretary sarah sanders at 2:30 eastern and until then this morning's washingtonjournal . >> every monday at this time we take a look at a subject

called your money in which we look at federal programs and initiatives and what they've accomplished. this week we are talking about the first rever audit of the pentagon, department of defense and joining us for that discussion, todd harrison with the center for strategic studies, he is their defense budget analysis director. why did you not have an audit up to this time? >> guest: it's a big task and originally the pentagon was not set up in a way pthey can pass according to modern audits and it was not an original requirement. going back to the 50s and 60s, a lot of the financial systems that the department of defense has and it has decided to they were rooted in an era where they were trying to be able to pass an audit so it has been a long, torturous process of trying to update those systems and trying to basically reinvent the process, the financial processes for this massive

organization. dod has about $2.4 trillion in assets so it is a massive organization. if you're going to audit all of that, it's going to take a lot oftime and a lot of money to do it . >> what's the framework then, how would this audit work? >> they are starting in fiscal year 18, their starting and trying to do an actual audit of all the agencies within dod so and agencywide.they will go through it in the first year. it's going to cost about 912 million dollars. this year. through the audit. part ofthat is the cost of the audit , 1200 wonders are fanning out across the department of defense but another part of it is an allocation of money to fix the problems they find. it's fully expected that dod will not pass the on this year. they will find lots of issues

so they will go back and work to correct those, try again next year and the same thing, continue the process year after year. we tried audit, define problems, try again going to keep doing that for years and years until they finally hopefullyone day get to a clean audit.>> what is meant by a clean on ? >> they can meet all the standards that are set for them. a lot of that is just being able to account for property. dod, $2.4 trillion in assets, about $900 billion of it is real property. his real estate, it's buildings. dod has about half 1 million, 500,000 buildings and structures in its inventory. that was a500 military relations . and about 25 million acres of land. and so you got to be able to go through and document all that and to be able to account for it and not to mention, accounting for how it's been budgeted every year

, all the way down to the transaction level so it's a massive undertaking. >> todd harrison will be joining us to talk about this s audit of the dod and was involved. you want asking questions, the democrats, republicans 202-743-8000 one and independence 242-8000 two. to questions or comments at the end of the day. hearing last week, we will place on the topic on and one of the comptroller, was about why there had not been a previous one highlighted. what's with you what he had to say. >>. >> i think the types of answers you will hear is its large, complex, it will take longer and the tenure of the person there. to start, arguments not arguments to wait. there are mechanical things you have to put in place, but if you are not able to answer the sample requirements of the auditor, they can't even

begin and the department having not been set up that way needed time to do that. i say this not to explain it because i recognize in my perspective, we ought to have started. i'm glad at least that in the transition of the ministration, the contracts were set in place thatallowed us to begin now rather than waiting, putting out contracts and not getting the benefit of the audit for a few more years . >> tell us how you even got to the point of an audit taking place . >> it's been years of what, so congress required all government agencies the evil to pass an audit. many years ago. more than .da decade ago. and so dod was rpart of that requirement so they started working to try to be able to pass an audit and they found as the comptroller noted that they couldn't even get to the point of being able to begin an audit. that they have to change some of their internal accounting systems. one example, some of the older accounting systems within dod, they were set up back in the day when it was difficult to process lots of

information in computers and transmitted.we didn't have all high-speed internet access we had today though they were set up so that each military heinstallation, they would keep track of all the different transactions of how money was spent and the receipts and everything. they would then abrogate that information and in send a summary of the higher headquarters. wasn't good enough to pass on it. you can't just have that summary information all gathered together. you need a transaction level dataso you can go back and see how every single item was .up so they're having update their it systems to handle their financial management though that they don't just pass the summary information, that they pass all the detailed transactions that one example of why it's been difficult to do this. in many ways, and it problem and as people who follow the pentagon and follow aggregation spending, the

department of defense does not have a good track record at it systems so that's been part of the problem. >> you're going to be 1200 of these auditors that do this, are they going to be independent or are they from the pentagon? >> they are independent auditors that have been hired. they're coming in and doing this independently but of course they will be working alongside dod employees, a lot of dod civilian employees are helping them by providing everything to win the audit and request the information o and a government worker goes and find that information to provide. >> harnesses here to talk about the process. these todd harrison of the center for strategic international study. call is from maryland, gary, go ahead . >> caller: i like to know if you're going to go back to 2001 when n rumsfeld was talking about llthe $2.3 trillion that was missing that no one couldtell him where it was . can you go back that far and find that?

>> guest: the audit is looking at the books today so if there are discrepancies , today that are because of something that and, that would absolutely be part of it. be clear though that when people say thing is missing and it can't be accounted for, that does not mean it has necessarily been wasted. that does not mean it has been thought. it just means they can't find all the proper documentation so is that something they are going to have to work with. we did preliminary results that were released back in december, actually. one particular agency, the defense logistics agency, we saw some of their audit results come out and what they found is there's about ju $1 billion basically unaccounted for. it's not that the money was wasted or used improperly. it was just that they couldn't show, they couldn't fully document all the money had been used so that was a

discrepancy in the audit. have to now go back and fix that and hopefully next time when dothey come back they will beable to pass the audit . >> mrs. auster, democrat line . >> caller: just on the bureau of prisons, i wanted to comment, sessions was talking about uthow they had to build a million-dollar facility to house inmates in all over the country, they have to build these new facilities. >> guest: oscar, i'm not sure if that refers to the defense department audit so if you can relate to that. >> caller: why can't we use these surplus facilities and especially army bases. you have mps and army bases, facilities for army bases, why when they find out they have 500,000 billion facilities, building structures, why can they do an audit to figure out how to assess that and use that for

this thing that sessions is doing instead of wasting taxpayer dollars? >> he raises a good point. so dod itself has said that it has about 19 percent excess accapacity in bases and facilities in the united states. 19 percent excess capacity. most of that is in the army and air force, not the navy and marine corps but army and air force in particular. massive amountsof excess capacity. the problem is political. dod has requested authority from congress to close these bases. they've done it year after year throughout the obama administration . and your year after year, congress has been i've had authority. dod get rid of these excess facilities. can't turn them over to a community, can't turn them over to other parts of government. it can't be used for other purposes until congress gives them that authority. though that is the big issue. i think that's the number one

issue in terms of reform of the pentagon. if you want to save money, we need to close these excess spaces and facilities. >> washington journal highlights. turkey-based, this is the political end of what's going on but it's a f larger issue of we really need all these type li of facilities. >> we've had five rounds of these disclosures in thepast. the last one started in 2005 . base closures in the united states, you need congress to give you permission to do it. closing bases overseas in other countries, you don't need congress's permission so dod has constantly been doing that is that the easy way to trim excess esomebody's overseas so are overseas bases are pretty close to right side. and they can adjust them dynamically as they need to. is just in the continental united states, that's where a lot of the issues are on the

political reason. no member of congress wants to be close to that district. >> brady from huntsville alabama. >> good morning. >> question for you. you're going to audit, a clean on it, is that what i understand? so there's no limitations on this, just a clean audit? >> yes, so that is the intent is that they willkeep auditing. until they get a clean audit but even after that , the audit are going to occur on a regular basis. >> just looking from a business point, i've been doing this since i was 21 years old i'm sure you guys have a much larger scale and much wider than me but your 4.5, you said four point billion, 500 million in the first five years of this audit, you got 1200 employees in 1200 auditors. i think that's we're spending too much money to figure out that we're spending too much

money. how you adjust or 1200 employees at $900 million year when you're looking, there's no international travel, your audit should all be withinthe united states . >> part of it is international because a lot of dod's assets are spread across the world. but you know, to clarify cost of the audit, he's right that over five years at this rate, is going to add up. 912 million is the cost of the audit in fy 18. 367 million of that is the actual audit. 551 million take a little is for the exit that will happen as a result of what they find in on. course, but because they don't know everything they will find in advance. though a lot of it is actually the cost is making the fixes that go along with it. >> as granular as far as how many weapons we have, personnel, etc.

>> guest: they are supposed to be able to count account for the major equipment soone of the things that auditor would do is go to the air force . show me how many different types of planes you have and show me the numbers and they say okay, i'm going to pick a tail number and show me where that plane is . you say okay, you say you have this plane, go show me. i want to see that you have it and its application you said it is. it's in the condition you said it is so there's a lot of that has to happen . >> so to take a look at the number of staff involved in running the pentagon and we need all those types of levels. >> so i is not really doing that. what is just looking at people that account for things. it doesn't look at efficiency so that's one of the myths i think that is built up around dod not being to pass an audit that all of a sudden if we could do the audit we would get more efficient and find all these different states and there's not a little leprechaun at the end of this audit with a pot of

gold. you don't expect to find. it's going to cost you a lot of money to do this but it's a matter of accountability, to be to show the taxpayers that this is how your money is being spent according to how congresssays . >> todd harrison is a gift from csi to talk about this defense department on it. ifyou want to ask questions, 202-748-8000 four democrats , 8041 for republicans, independents 8002. tell us about what you do for the organization. >> guest: we are an independent nonprofit bipartisan think tank. we focus on national security issues. my part of csi has, i'm the director of our dispensed budget analysis so we look at all aspects of us defense spending. i am also the director of the aerospace security project where we focus on airpower and state security.

>> when you heard about this audit, what was the first thing that came to mind as far as potential problems. >> my first thought of the audit is always that it's a massive undertaking. i'm glad i'm not the one that has to do it. but it really needs to be done and i think it's ultimately a matter of public accountability. and also, back to the cost of it for a second, put it in perspective. spending at about $900 million a year on the auditing, that's on a budget that's almost $700 billion. so this much less then one percent. overall pentagon spending.i think it's a good use of money just to make sure that we are spending it properly and give people confidence that it's being spent properly. >> from virginia beach, democrats line, julie, your next . >> i have a question. when my father use to be an

auditor for military command which was affiliated with dod and he used to have to go down and audit purses, which is the guy you give money to, my question is that they wanted him to sign off on the books that the cash was missing and my father refused to and got blacklisted. what my question is, how many people are signing off and they're so worried about their jobs that they're going to end up taking some of the blame for something that might have not done because they are worried about their jobs. >> so that's part of the process is independent auditors process are supposed to sign off that they have verified,everything is proper . a good auditor will not sign off. they can't verify that. that's what's happened. so far, the auditors have said we can't sign off on all thesethings, you can make all

these excuses but we will come back and try it again so if it's working properly and people are doing their job as auditors, they will be put in that position . especially because they are independent auditors. they're not working directly for the department of defense or the government. there independent, their job is tobe independent. >> . >> i thought, my name is matthew russell, i work for punishment, weight and handle some of his audit issues but i wanted to call and thank you for talking about this issue. it's important but two points. one is that you can talk about the culture shift that's required in the dod. all the way down to captain and major levels that have the document transactions now whereas they didn't have to before which is a major culture shift that requires a fundamental change from the top down. the other thing, you mentioned the holiday earlier, 800 million or the 800 million they found, if you can expand on that and talk about how that's proved that the audit is working. it's not that they didn't know where the money is but

now they can account for it and the results are actually coming through and they can document that now. and as far as those realities of the things that we see now. >> representative, lasers on the armed services committee. what's working on this audit? >> dla specifically? >> the audit specifically. >> that needs to happen. the land is special on on this in 2012 so he's been very engaged in this issue for several years in trying to dod for audit and it's kind of going back again to my first comment, is one of the largest leasing is the leadership, secretary hannah played a valuable role in kind of a, we're going to do this now, not going to keep them off like we did in the 90s so mister connelly, it's kind of pushed on the house sideto get this done and will continue to play that role. >> . >> it raises great points. first of all, when an audit finds, that is the audit

doing its job. so that, when you find something that needs to be fixed, nice progress because now you know what you need to fix and you can move on to audit again and find something else you need to fix so every time you find problems, that progress. and i think he's exactly right, there has to be a culture shift and we're already seeing that happen. the people have to start thinking differently about how they keep records within dod. it is a big cultural issue. you have to do that all the way down at the lowest level of your organization. your junior level managers your own trees, your captains across services, they have to have that mindset of everything i do, i got to record your transactions. i've got to make sure i am documenting this properly that takes a long time to in june of culture of financial accountability across the military but it is happening and i are making progress.

>> host: we have a viewer who asked what percentage of agencies are passing their audit and are there any records regarding these audits available to the public? >> i focus on defense issues in particular. i'm not familiar with what other government agencies are doing in terms of their audit now. i can say this, that the current comptrollers for dod, is really in the drivers seat with all of this. the comptroller we work with. he came from the department of homeland security where he pushed through, pushback department to get through its audit and it took about 10 years. but it took about 10 years to get the department of homeland security through a clean audit. when they do pass a clean audit, those results are going to be publicly available. it will beredirected where their sensitive classified information . that is partof the accountability to thepublic . >> , in humble texas, your next . >> when you look at the

report on the energy that came out on c-span3, who spent the money and where, you have contractors over there buying in. and buying a lamborghini, and anybody could read it. i'm pretty sure you read it. >> i think the caller is referring to, there have been reports by the special inspector general for afghanistanreconstruction . and they have found over the years , lapses in how money for afghanistan has been contracted, how it's been used. and a lot of what the inspector general has found is that we've used money ineffectively. and it's not, you know, that someone potentially set out to go and do something fraudulently or with money. it's just that the way it's been used has not been effective. and so that is what is documented and i would encourage people if they're

interested go and read the special inspector general's report on afghanistan's we build this program several times to talk about these reports and if you go to our website, you can find all of those exit hearings including testimonies given before congress on how money is spent in afghanistan. the website is c-span.org. let's go to sean in hawaii. >> here in la, we do, once this audit is fast, will affect where, but states that part of the 700 in the future, and in fact, more corporately? >> thank you. >> an audit itself does not change how the money is being spent. it doesn't change how it allocated. that is still up to the department of defense and the congress when they set the

budget every year so an audit is not going to change that. an audit will show if the money was spent as it was . >> when the head of the pentagon openly said, what you do with it? >> i think the value is you can look at the results of the audit, especially where there are areas where you have efficiencies where you didn't have and then you can go back and direct the workforce to fix those problems. and you know, if you find discrepancies, that money was used for one purpose and it was not intended for that. and you got a hold people accountable for that. so i think that ultimately, what this is going to do is give the comptroller and secretary of defense a tool with which to hold the pentagon and their workforce more accountable for doing what they are supposed to do robert in their indiana, hi. >> good morning, gentlemen. so says the department of defense does like most people believe that i do, a lot of

things that are secret missions, how do you account for that? >> so there are large parts of the pentagon budget that are classified so you would need accountants, auditors that have the proper security clearances to go in and audit those accounts. so you start narrowing the pool of people and auditors that you can draw upon when you do this but dod can give, they always do and quite often give contractors proper security clearances they can come in and look at those program details. it's doable. now, the result of those audits, the details are of course not to be made public but that will still be classified is still possible to audit the classified secret accounts the one we have a viewer who asked who got the contract for the auditing.

>> guest: is known, i don't remember offhand who got it. i imagine it's probably more than one company. it's such a large effort but yes, that would be publicly available. >> host: misery, this is k, independent line before thanks for taking my call. i guess you may have heard or a lot of people have, i think they are the three swedes or three norwegians, a funny song about the united states is in augmentation and incarcerating its own citizens and i think we are also first in sales of weapons which makesus the warmongers of the world . i think military spending like public schools and other public expenses in the united states has really become our racket. i know this is a small example like a teacher here

wanted a clock for her room and ended up, this is years ago, and it up with two slips , to clocks, not one and i know they purchase a tv that couldn't get through the doors. i don't know where that ended up. >> guest: a separate issue from the audit is what we are spending in the military and i think with what the public is expressing is a feeling she has that maybe we are spending too much on the military, especially relative to other parts of government . to look at the numbers , in the discretionary part of the federal budget so that's the part that congress has to appropriate every year, a little over half of it goes to defense. if you look at the entire

federal budget which includes mandatoryspending programs and interest on the national debt, the pentagon is about 50 percent of the overall federal budget . so the pentagon budget is growing now, especially because of the budget deal that congress arrived at earlier this year . it is growing, but other parts of government are growing as well. one interesting fact is that within a few years, sometime in the 2020s, we are likely to pass the point where we spend more on interest on the national debtthan we do on defense . that's because our debt is growing rapidly and it's interest rates go up as they are predicted to in the coming years, then the cost of our debt is going to be up in our budget. so i look back and as far back as i've been able to see that will be the first time that we spend more on interest on the debt than we do on defense. so just some facts about where we are in terms of our budget and spending.

>> from alan, another color from hawaii,independent line . >> caller: i'm going to throw two items at you, if you can give me time, i know you probably won't but first, my father was a general contractor for the air force and the air force shut him down because he was complying with the contract but they were giving him airplanes, they told him to take the parts off and put them back. then they reinterpreted and they were sending him airplanes that didn't have any parts and they told him to replace the parts which he couldn't do because manufacturers that it would take years to make the parts and he was trying to sue them to show that they gave him an airbase in florida, they basically took it away from him and all his subcontractors were yanked away. the second part was i shared an office with a guy who was a submersible divers in the hawaii and he was a guy who was an explorer and all these things with massive projects. he kept telling me that they would never be able to audit

the economics of it because with so many multi-administration processes, the auditors would be stymied. >> guest: to the idea of contractors that work for the department of defense, the accounting goes to them to. >> guest: when contractors are doing work for the department of defense, that's part of what you will have to look at is what have we got from them, if they are deliverable. did we get those deliverables? how's it all accounted for? >> host: one more call, sheila from maryland, republican line. >> caller: i have a couple questions for mister harrison, i believe that's his name. what is the starting point? at what year do you start the audit and you mentionedthat a big part of the problem was it , was when you talk about $550 million or figures, does

that include integrating new computer systems? it would seem to methat would be a wise use . what is the starting point of your audit, what year and are you also for these fixes, $550 million, you could integrate any computer systems. >> guest: i believe the starting point is they are looking at current this goal year. that's what they're trying to audit. so part of the fixes is changes to i.t. systems, changes to financial management systems, how they keep records so that is part of it. there have been a series of efforts going back for years to try to upgrade a lot of these financial systems. so that's been an ongoing process. it takes several years for these programs to work their way through so you actually have these systems on line working and fully populated

with information. that's been a long, ongoing process but that will continue throughout the audit . and i would caution people to expect as the year goes by and more and more results from the first agencywide audit start to come out, you're going to hear more and more deficiencies, more and more problems and that's a sign that it's working. that's a sign they are finding what they need to fix. we're not air force because the fixes need to be made. that's what a lot of the process is is making those fixes as we go but that's how we get one day hopefully, it's not 10 years like it was at homeland security. >> you have to wait for the audit to be completed in order for a support to be presented and with that report you make to the public . >> what they said is that november 15 of every year is when they plan to release the results of the audit of the previous year so they will keep doing that, november 15 of every year. i imagine, the result will

probablyleak out before then. this is washington . so if there's something in there someone doesn't like or a shocking, it's probably going to come out earlier than that but at least by november of every year we will be able to see the results of the audit and what needs to happen during the next year to try to get closer todd harrison is with the center for strategic and international studies. he's talking about the audit of the pentagon, the first ever for your moneysegment this week . thanks for your time. >> guest: thank you. >> this is a live picture from the white house briefing room where we are expecting white house rest secretary tara sanders to answer reporters questions. we are running a little bit late and will have it live for you here on c-span2 once it gets underway.

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>> we are still a few minutes away with the white house press briefing with a number of items we could hear questions about the special election takes place tomorrow in pennsylvania, president trump held a rally there recently and a rally with the upcoming summit with reanimator kim jung-un and the stormy daniels matter the russian spy in the u.k. last week all of those we could hear could come up during the briefing that is expected to start in just a moment. live on c-span2.

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>> good afternoon. sorry for the delay the white house rolled out the school safety plan this morning every student should be able to feel safe and secure at their school. no parent should have to worry if their child comes on at the and of the day. with that in mind the president's plan plan focuses on the following areas,