If there’s one important subject Americans — irrespective of their political beliefs — tend to agree on, it’s that our nation absolutely needs its military to be the best in the world, and so the armed forces, while subject to civilian oversight, are treated with virtually universal respect. That’s as it should be.

But that doesn’t mean our military should be exempt from ordinary scrutiny. The Pentagon, after all, is populated by individuals with the same human strengths and weaknesses we all share, and therefore the behavior of some of these individuals may sometimes go astray and require correction.

It’s now been disclosed that the Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars — hundreds of billions! — to defense contractors who have been involved in criminal or civil fraud. Worse, in some cases companies were paid after they were convicted, a new Defense Department report disclosed.

According to the report, at least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments and, in some of the cases, convicted of criminal fraud too. Many of these convictions resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments, yet the Defense Department’s contracting officers assigned $4.9 billion worth of work to these companies even after the fraud was uncovered, the report continued.

By themselves, these disclosures should cause public outrage. But there’s another element: The contractors identified in the Pentagon’s report include such familiar brands as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney and IBM. Even the Yale University medical school is cited in the report. What’s going on here?

The new report says that at least $682 million was paid in error to 30 companies that had been convicted of criminal fraud, including $29.6 million to Herley Industries, an electronics manufacturer, and $66 million to AEY Inc., a military surplus and sporting goods firm.

To be fair, in identifying cases of fraud, the report cites only 120 of the 235,000 contractors that are paid by the Defense Department. That’s a fairly small proportion. Even so, the dollar amounts are large enough to justify public anger at the sloppy way the Pentagon conducts its — our nation’s — business. If our government’s going to spend all that money on behalf of military preparedness, at least the people should get their money’s worth.

According to The Associated Press, the Pentagon blames “its own sloppy bookkeeping, missing records and inadequate training of acquisition officials.” Furthermore, the military brass concede that the numbers in the report, covering 2007 through 2009, probably are incomplete because the Defense Department cannot accurately track individual contractors or how much is actually spent. Also, the report tracks only fraud cases that exceed $1 million.

The United States military surely has the world’s best weapons and the best-trained officers and enlisted personnel, yet, incredibly, the people responsible for the management of this vital aspect of our national security concede they are unable to keep track of the money (the citizens’ money, remember) they spend to provide our defense? Who’s minding the store?

This important report was generated as a result of Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders demanding a Pentagon accounting of fraud. Good for Sanders.

“Major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Sanders commented. “It is clear that the current approach is not working and we need far more vigorous enforcement to protect taxpayers from massive fraud.”

By all means, let’s revere our military. But let’s also demand ordinary accountability. That’s our money the military is spending.

The National Debt

As of noon Friday, the national debt was about $14,110,942,000,000, or $45,227 in debt per person, $237,379 per taxpayer. Federal spending, as of Friday noon, had topped out at about $3,480,513,700,000. To see the current calculated debt, go to usdebtclock.org.