Funds for MIA Search Reported Unaccounted For

Millions of dollars that the United States pays Vietnam to search for the remains of American servicemen are unaccounted for, and the U.S. government does not track how the money is being spent, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday.

More than a third of the $11.2 million paid to Vietnam in 1995 could not be accounted for in a fund that the Defense Department oversees, the paper reported.

Since 1992, the U.S. government has paid Vietnam $33.6 million for the program to resolve the fate of soldiers who did not return from the Vietnam War.

More than 1,600 Americans are still listed as missing in action in Vietnam.

It is common practice for the Vietnamese government to charge abnormally high labor fees when foreigners hire laborers through the government and to keep large portions of the wages.

But while people in Hanoi familiar with the U.S. fund have long been aware of the government’s practice, there has been no evidence that the money was used for personal gain. Vietnamese officials have repeatedly refused to discuss how the money is spent.

U.S. officials defended the program, saying the United States is paying for a service and getting it.

“How [the money is] disbursed within Vietnam is not our concern,” said Lt. Col. Timothy Bosse, the U.S. MIA commander in Hanoi.

Others say the high fees are a means to an end.

“Someone at a high level thought we could buy the Vietnamese--if we paid enough money, they would give us remains,” said Garnett Bell Jr., the Pentagon’s chief MIA investigator in Hanoi from 1989 through 1991.