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Friday, June 13, 2008

Pouring money down an empty hole
Posted by Jill | 6:27 AM
I wonder when the Obama campaign is going to start framing the issue of military contracting in the context of money taken directly from taxpayers' pockets and stuffed into those of contractors who operate with little to no oversight. As fuel becomes more expensive (and isn't it funny how they KNOW that $4 gasoline will last through 2009 -- and they aren't talking $5 -- you'd think that the oil cabal of producing countries, refiners, and traders would have set that as a price goal), the issue of "Where Do Our Taxes Go" will become more prominent -- and Republicans, of course, will frame it as the fault of "n----- and sp---". They won't call it such, they'll talk about "hard-working Americans" and "those who do their part" and they'll demonize illegal immigrants and Fox will continue to call Michelle Obama her husband's "baby mama" and Floyd Brown will run his ads about how "the n----- candidate is soft on the crimes of the brothers", but we'll all know what they're talking about.

But the lack of oversight is an outrage, and needs to be treated as such:

Double-billing. Bribes. Kickbacks. Military contracts are big targets for serious crimes — and there aren't nearly enough investigators to catch them all.

The Army's contracting budget has exploded since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began — from $46 billion in 2002 to $112 billion in 2007. Yet the number of people who hunt down crooked companies and corrupt officials has stayed about the same, according to Associated Press interviews and research.

Army investigation chiefs told the AP they need a dramatic increase in agents to fight contract fraud.

[snip]

In combat zones, deals can be made quickly, often with foreign companies in countries where bribes are a routine part of doing business. Yet to monitor those billions in contracts, just under 100 civilian agents are assigned to the Army Criminal Investigation Command's procurement fraud office.

Even with more fraud police, there would be no guarantees. Flaws in how the Army awards and manages contracts, especially overseas, also need repairs to curb criminal activity.

"It's sort of like an assembly line for cars and having more checkers at the end of the line when the people aren't building the cars right," said Jacques Gansler, a military acquisition expert. "What we really need to eliminate the abuse is people doing it right in the first place."

95 ongoing investigations
Until that happens, the Army's procurement fraud team faces an increasingly complex workload that requires frequent overseas travel and specialized training to spot foul play in mountains of arcane paperwork.

"There's obviously more going on out there today than there was five years ago, but I have the same number of people," said Wes Kilgore, director of the command's Major Procurement Fraud Unit.


I'm sure that's by design. There are far too many Bush family friends and cronies making too much money to allow the kind of oversight that might stop the money spigot.

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