Posted by D. Cupples | From Memeorandum, the Associated Press reported:
"A team of specially trained investigators will hunker down in an Army office north of Detroit
on Monday to begin poring over hundreds of Iraq war contracts in search for rigged awards.
"This team of 10 auditors, criminal investigators and acquisition experts are starting with a sampling of the roughly 6,000 contracts worth $2.8 billion issued by an Army office in Kuwait that service officials have identified as a hub of corruption."
Army officials shouldn't limit the scope to small-time corruption cases, while bigger schemers go free. This isn't a left-field possibility: evidence suggests that State Department investigators were pressured to focus on smaller cases and to not make waves over bigger ones.
Uncovering bribery is important, but false billing and shoddy performance likely cost the taxpayers more -- and corruption goes beyond Kuwait's borders, likely stretching into our own homeland.
In 1863, Congress passed the False Claims Act to combat contractor fraud. Contractors found guilty of fraud can be barred from receiving other contracts, which may be why many contractors settle False Claims Act suits without admitting or denying guilt....
This is a timely topic, given yesterday's House Oversight Committee hearing, at which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified. Rice didn't give many direct answers, but Committee members gave many detail when asking questions about fraud, waste and abuse by contractors and failure of State Department officials to adequately monitor contractors.
That and the Iraq war has brought to light all sorts of contractor waste and fraud. But it's not just defense contractors that have given us taxpayers trouble. See the posts linked below for examples.
* Govt. Contractors: Driving up War's Costs?
* Contractor Fraud: Driving Up Healthcare Costs?
* Insurance Companies Get Away with Over-billing Medicare
* How the Energy Dept. Incinerated Tax Dollars
* Defense Dept. Rewarding Bad Contractor Performance?
* Inspector General Blocked Investigations re: Waste and Fraud?
* State Dept. Staff Threatened for Cooperating with Congress re: Blackwater
* Time for Pentagon to Get Serious About Contractor Fraud
* New Orleans Still Suffering after 2 Years & Billions of Tax Dollars
* How the Defense Dept. Flushes Dollars Down Latrine
* Blackwater Uses Fuzzy Math to Justify Costs
* Blackwater Took Iraqi Airplanes, CEO Misled Congress?
* DynCorp Joins Blackwater as Probe Target, State Dept. Stonewalls
* Probe re: Embassy in Iraq & State Dept. Officials
* Embassy in Iraq: Waste, Bad Planning, and Contractor Fraud?
* Taxpayers Losing Money to Engorged Contractors
it would'nt be a stretch to believe that the "missing weapons" will end up in Pellston,Mi., at the "school" known as sovereign deed(a mitigating emergency rescue business, w/tiered services-the more you pay, the better protection),or the missing Iraqi planes,(pellston has an airport large enough to acommodate said planes, and not much else). sovereign deed is owned by barrett moore, brig. genrl. richard mills, and texas billionaire richard rainwater. sov.deed has been given an unbelievable amount of political assistance, along w/huge taxbreaks, and the local population are not allowed to vote on their presence/have info on what will be going on there/no knowledge of any weaponry stored there,etc. Since sov.deed approached Emmet County comissioners wanting to set up shop,(which means:1sq.mi of land,a private air traffic control tower, a 150,000sqft storage building, private cellular tower, etc.. Please refer to the petoskey news review's website for all articles. when the zoning board met, sov.deed did not fit the board's requirements, the zoning board re-defined sov.deed as a school. very convenient indeed! I urge any readers to investigate this matter, as sov.deed is planning on setting up "schools" all over the U.S.. my Thanks to the writers and staff of your news site!
Posted by: k. | December 07, 2007 at 07:48 PM
it would'nt be a stretch to believe that the "missing weapons" will end up in Pellston,Mi., at the "school" known as sovereign deed(a mitigating emergency rescue business, w/tiered services-the more you pay, the better protection),or the missing Iraqi planes,(pellston has an airport large enough to acommodate said planes, and not much else). sovereign deed is owned by barrett moore, brig. genrl. richard mills, and texas billionaire richard rainwater. sov.deed has been given an unbelievable amount of political assistance, along w/huge taxbreaks, and the local population are not allowed to vote on their presence/have info on what will be going on there/no knowledge of any weaponry stored there,etc. Since sov.deed approached Emmet County comissioners wanting to set up shop,(which means:1sq.mi of land,a private air traffic control tower, a 150,000sqft storage building, private cellular tower, etc.. Please refer to the petoskey news review's website for all articles. when the zoning board met, sov.deed did not fit the board's requirements, the zoning board re-defined sov.deed as a school. very convenient indeed! I urge any readers to investigate this matter, as sov.deed is planning on setting up "schools" all over the U.S.. my Thanks to the writers and staff of your news site!
Posted by: k. | December 07, 2007 at 07:50 PM