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Nearly 18 billion dollars earmarked for reconstruction in Afghanistan remain unaccounted for, snagged in a "labyrinth" of contract bureaucracy, a sweeping US government audit has shown.

The fiscal 2011 funding bill roundly hailed for its "historic" spending cuts actually raised government spending by more than $3 billion, according to a new report.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded Monday evening, "Total discretionary outlays in 2011 will be $3.2 billion higher as a result of the legislation, CBO estimates—an increase of $7.5 billion for defense programs, partially offset by a net reduction of $4.4 billion in other spending."

According to Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, the Department of Defense spends $20 billion air conditioning tents and temporary structures for the military. That's more than NASA's entire $19 billion annual budget.

Troubled U.S. government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae on Monday asked for 8.4 billion dollars in additional federal aid to cover its huge losses.

Fannie Mae reported earlier Monday that it lost 13.1 billion dollars in the first quarter, or 2.29 dollars a share. It lost 23. 2 billion dollars in the same period a year ago.

The new aid will bring the total bill for rescuing Fannie and its sister company Freddie Mac to 145 billion dollars. The Obama administration has pledged to provide an unlimited amount of funds to Fannie and Freddie to keep them solvent.

According to previously undisclosed estimates, the United States is planning to spend $6 billion annually on supporting Afghanistan’s military and police starting in 2011, an expense which given the weak Afghan economy will probably continue more or less forever.

But the estimate could also be unrealistically low, as the administration spent about $9 billion this year and is planning to spend $11.6 billion next year on this expense.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released its final major audit over the weekend, delivering quite a bottom line: it cannot say how much U.S taxpayers lost while trying to rebuild Iraq, but it was a lot. The U.S. government Iraq relief and reconstruction program had serious internal control weaknesses that put billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of fraud, waste, and abuse. The precise amount lost to fraud and waste may never be known, but SIGIR’s audits and investigations have demonstrated that the amount could be substantial.

A document obtained and witnesses interviewed by Fox News raise new questions over whether there was an effort by the Defense Department to cover up a pre-9/11 military intelligence program known as "Able Danger."

At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report -- or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.

It has emerged that the multi-billion-dollar DCGS-A military computer system that was designed to help the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan simply doesn’t work. DCGS-A is meant to accrue intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and provide real-time battlefield analysis and the current location of high-value targets. According to two former intelligence officers that have worked with the system, however, it has hindered the war effort rather than helped.

An independent review into the handling of last year's swine flu crisis has concluded the £1.2 billion cost was justified.

However, it also said health officials should negotiate get-out clauses in contracts to buy vaccines in future.

When the worst case scenario failed to materialise, the UK ended up with a large drugs bill and 20m surplus vaccine doses.