That's 56 of what type of airplanes out of an inventory of how
many total airplanes?

This just came to my mind. those 56 airplanes could be
those that were accounted by Russian intel agencies
as shot down in Yugoslavia and denied by pentagon.

Quite logical indeed. Pentagon can say what ever they want
to public but not to GAO inspectors.

Classic Petukhov - find a way to hammer any square peg into his "Serb Victory"
hole, no matter how poor the fit.