Given U.S. military budgets, this seems like a rounding error. Especially as the article claims that this was over a five year period. Four mil a year in procurement fraud is probably a drop in the ocean.
In the real world, most people can't really comprehend the value of $1,000,000.00. One million might as well be one billion might as well be one trillion. At the risk of being cliche, if we did not have the loss of the $4 million per year (of just this one specific thing), what else could that money have been used for instead?
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Not that someone can't regret having to do something they don't see an alternative to, I just wonder how sincere he was.
Please, please read this to get a better understanding for yourself: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
In fact, he was offered and declined a presidential ticket immed. after WW2 to command NATO in Korea. So he wasn't politically-motivated.
One thing you could possibly fault Ike for is that when he criticized the military-industrial complex (MIC), he pulled his punches: he wanted to add Congress (a la MICC) but realized that doing so would make them feel defensive and reduce his support.
The reason Ike talked about the wastefulness of war was that the entire industrial outputs of the USA, Europe and Japan for almost a decade were wasted.
While that may be true, the million won't have contributed to the problem in that case. :p
> At the risk of being cliche, if we did not have the loss of the $4 million per year (of just this one specific thing), what else could that money have been used for instead?
We could have raised the annual salary of active duty personnel by almost three (3) dollars a year each.