Buck Naked Politics

Report Says State Dept. Failed to Monitor DynCorp's $2.5 Billion Iraq-Related Contract

by Deb Cupples | ABC News tells us:

"Stuart Bowen, the U.S. government's special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said the State Department has exercised 'weak oversight' of DynCorp's contract, failing to watch over the money being spent on the training program."

Dyncorp's contract is reportedly worth $2.5 million.  Click here for a pdf of the inspector's report.

Failure of federal officials to adequately monitor contractors is not a new issue -- and the apparent failure is not restricted to defense contractors.  For numerous examples, see the links below to some older Buck Naked Politics posts:

* Gov. Contractors: Driving up War's Costs

* Defense Dept. Rewarding Bad Contractor Performance?

* How the Defense Dept. Flushes Dollars Down Latrine

* Contractors Offering Bribes to Army Personnel?

* Contractor Fraud: Driving up Health Care Costs

* Insurance Companies Get Away with Over-billing Medicare

* New Orleans Still Suffering after 2 Years and Billions of Tax Dollars

*

Afghanistan Stimulus Plan

by Bill Kavanagh: I'm thinking about Afghanistan this morning. Not so much because I'm a real foreign policy wonk... mostly I'm thinking about it because I read a blog called Here and Far, which my blog-friend Matt Mabe and his girlfriend Molly write. Matt is stationed in Gardez, Afghanistan and Molly is a writer here in the US. Matt is battling not only the Taliban, but also the depressing holiday angst that comes with going without his home, his girlfriend, his family, and the security which comes with waking up in a bed no one is presently trying to shell.

My heart goes out to Matt and to Molly.

More Jobs

posted by Bill: Hey, maybe I'm being too tough about the need for a jobs program, incentives, and more. Maybe people out of work just aren't looking hard enough.

According to McClatchy, Mickey D's is hiring...at Guantamamo Bay. All you need is some restaurant management experience, a valid passport, a willingness to relocate to Cuba (er, or the 45 square miles you'll be living and working in on the island nation), and a love of grease.

Link here for more application info...

(A hat tip to Allen McDuffee for this catch.)

Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.

Dozens of House Members Targeted in Ethics Probes

by Deb Cupples |  From the Department of the Not Surprising, the Washington Post reports:

"House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

"The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer."

Inadvertently placed where all sorts of folks could read it? Hmmmm.  A different Washington Post article has interesting details:

Jon Stewart Ponders 30 GOP Votes Against Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment

HuffPost:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration--a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.

This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue.

Jon Stewart seems surprised.  I'm not.  Between protecting KBR/Halliburton's protection of rapists and protecting women from rape was a no-brainer -- fortunately for KBR/Halliburton.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Senate Passes (68-30) Franken-Proposed Amendment to Prevent KBR/Halliburton from Protecting Themselves Against Sexual Assault Claims

by Damozel | Via Howie Klein: Al Franken proposed an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill passed by the House.

S. Amend. 2566 simply prohibits "the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims." The "certain claims" have to do with sexual assault....

Franken offered the amendment because a KBR employee, Jamie Leigh Jones, age 19, was raped by a bunch of KBR workers in Iraq and then locked up in a crate when she tried reporting them. After she was rescued and returned to America she was informed that she couldn't take KBR to court because there was some fine print in her -- and everyone else's -- contracts that don't permit any such thing. [See the video below.]

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama...of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was the key spokesperson for the GOP against the legislation which he called unfair to Halliburton, one of the biggest Republican Party contributors in history. (More at HuffPost)

Good going for Franken.  It needed to be done, and he did it.

Bill Maher on GOP Fools, War Profiteers, & Our Useless Media

by Damozel |  Thus spake Bill Maher:

"I've got news for you, Mr. President, the people who think you want to kill their Great Aunt Millie aren't going to be swayed by a photo-op on the golf course. They see those photos, they're not thinking you're just like Tiger Woods, they're thinking, "Here comes the Angel of Death, and he's got a nine iron....The only sand trap I want to see you get out of is Afghanistan. ""  (HuffPost)
_________

"Did you know...that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­-- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors."  (HuffPost)

Pentagon Profiles Journalists to Spin Media?

 Via Memeorandum, Stars and Stripes reports:

"Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as 'positive,' 'neutral' or 'negative.'”

"Moreover, the documents — recent confidential profiles of the work of individual reporters prepared by a Pentagon contractor — indicate that the ratings are intended to help Pentagon image-makers manipulate the types of stories that reporters produce while they are embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

Of course it's not surprising.  See the rest of the story here.

Walter Cronkite

by Bill Kavanagh: The death of Walter Cronkite at 92 leaves Americans contemplating the changes in our media since his heyday as the preeminent television news anchor.  It is hard to imagine that we once looked to a network news broadcast as a digest of the nation’s daily experience, that one voice was ever regarded as, “the way it is.”  We have so many ways to get our news now, but none are so central to the American experience as the CBS Evening News was in Cronkite’s day.

Wasted Tax Dollars: a Few Still-Unresolved News Stories

by Deb Cupples |  Today, I found myself remembering news stories I've come across over the past couple years -- specifically issues that seem to have gone unresolved (or whose resolution has not made major headlines).

Back in August 2007, for example, the Washington Post reported that 190,000 U.S. weapons meant for Iraqi forces were lost while General David Petraeus was leading the effort to arm and train Iraqis (see also GAO ). 

That 190,000 weapons was about one-third of the weapons our nation sent to Iraq to arm Iraqi security forces. That 190,000 weapons, some of which may have made it into the black market or enemy hands -- represent more than one weapon or each U.S. soldier in Iraq.

Defense Contractors Spend 18 Years Fighting Taxpayers after Taking Money but Failing to Complete a Job

by Deb Cupples | 'Talk about a galling sense of entitlement.  The contractors involved in this case include General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas. The Justice Department reports:

"In 1988, the Navy awarded the $4 billion fixed-price contract for development of the A-12, which was to be a stealthy, carrier-based attack aircraft. The program encountered serious technical difficulties, and in 1991, after the Department of Defense refused to approve additional funding for the program, the Navy terminated the contract because it was substantially over budget and behind schedule.

Is Trauma over 9/11 a Valid Defense to the Bush Administration's Legal Violations or Moral Lapses?

by Deb Cupples |  Lately, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney has been talking to the press, seemingly more than the furtive figure did while he was in office.  Reportedly, Mr. Cheney and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been arguing to God and the Media essentially that they might have gone a little over-board with their legal violations (and moral lapses) because of the trauma they faced as government officials facing the 9/11 attacks.

Richard C. Clarke, who was an intelligence coordinator under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton was a government official with national-security-related duties when 9/11 happened.  He was at the White House on 9/11 and presumably suffered all the same traumas that Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney had suffered. Mr. Clarke also had far more national-security experience than many of the then-new Bush Administration officials.

And yet, Mr. Clarke is not convinced that the 9/11-Trauma Defense holds water:

Defense Contractor Involved in Bribery re: Bullet Proof Vest Contract

The Justice Department reports:

"According to the plea agreement filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of  Columbia on Dec. 18, 2007, and unsealed today, Diana Bakir Demilta, a U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. Demilta, the President of Global-Link Distribution LLC, a defense contracting company with operations in the International Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, subverted the competitive bidding process used by the Department of Defense and the Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq for a bullet-proof vest contract by submitting multiple sham bids from about September 2004 until about March 2005.

"In addition, Demilta admitted that she paid at least $60,000 to an unnamed public official to induce that person to influence the award of contracts and to induce expedited payments for contracts awarded to Demilta’s company...."

FBI Agent to Testify About Amateur Torture 'Experts' Today

by Bill Kavanagh:  Look for Ali Soufan, who was the FBI’s agent in charge of debriefing Abu Zubaydah until he discovered a coffin had been brought to Zubaydah’s cell by the CIA, to testify today before Congress about the torture techniques that CIA “experts” employed with high-value Al Qaeda prisoners. 

Soufan claims that Zubaydah confided to him that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, once his “rapport building” technique had begun to pay off—and before the CIA’s own outsourced amateur consultants arrived in Thailand to take over with their torturous methods.  Der Spiegel’s article on the CIA's outsourcing of interrogation and torture to civilian psychologists is available at the link.  Many thanks to David Martin, who pulled this article from the internets.

Murtha's Nephew Got Defense Contracts Without Competition?

 by Damozel | Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha has -- as WaPo puts it -- "significant sway over the Defense Department's spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee." So the stories go on and on. (WaPo)

His nephew says that the award of defense contracts to his company (Murtec) has nothing to do with his being Murtha's nephew (he doesn't "advertise the fact") and he's sorry that the relationship (and his getting the contract with no competition) might have the appearance of impropriety.  Murtha's nephew says his company got the work because they were uniquely qualified to do it.  (WaPo)

Theft of Fuel From Military in Iraq: One Man Guilty, One Indicted

And we wonder why the Iraq war has been so expensive.  The Justice Department reported:

"Lee William Dubois pleaded guilty on Oct. 7, 2008, to participating in a scheme to steal fuel worth approximately $39.6 million from the U.S. Army in Iraq. In his plea, Dubois admitted that he obtained government-issued common access cards for the drivers and escorts of the trucks and also presented false documents to the VBFP [Victory Bulk Fuel Point at "Camp Liberty," Iraq] authorizing his co-conspirators to draw fuel.

"Dubois admitted that he and his co-conspirators stole approximately 10 million gallons of fuel, and that Dubois received at least $450,000 in personal profits from the subsequent sale of the fuel on the black market. Sentencing for Dubois is scheduled for June 18, 2009."

In a related case, Robert Jeffery was indicted a few days ago for conspiracy and theft of government property in connection with a scheme to steal large quantities of fuel from the U.S. Army in Iraq.

Ex-Millitary Employee Guilty of Bribery

by Deb Cupples | More cheery news from the Justice Department:

"A former Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) official pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ga., for his role in a conspiracy to commit bribery involving a multimillion dollar telecommunications contract, and for not reporting the bribes he accepted on his income tax returns....

FBI Special Agent: "For Seven Years I Have Remained Silent"

  by Damozel | Ali Soufan, an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005, says in a "must read" New York Times op-ed:

FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working...

Big Contractor Northrop to Settle Fraud Suit for $325 Million

by Deb Cupples |  On Friday, the Justice Department reported:

"Northrop Grumman Corp., its subsidiary Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems Corp., and its predecessor TRW Inc. (collectively, Northrop) have agreed to settle for $325 million, False Claims Act allegations that Northrop provided and billed the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for defective microelectronic parts, known as Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBTs)...
  
"The government’s investigation in the HBT Action concluded that Northrop and TRW failed to properly test and qualify certain HBTs manufactured by TRW from 1992 to 2002.  As a result, Northrop and TRW integrated into NRO satellite equipment certain defective HBTs.  The investigation further concluded that Northrop and TRW made misrepresentations about, and concealed certain material facts regarding the reliability of the HBTs."

This is not the first time that Northop Grumman, or one of its subsidiaries, has behaved questionably or spent millions settling a Justice Department False Claims Act suit.

Guilty Plea re: Army Officer's Iraq-War-Related Bribery

 by Deb Cupples |  In June 2007, the Washington Post reported:

"Maj. John L. Cockerham, a contracting officer, took up to $9.6 million in bribes from at least eight military contractors, according to court documents, and he expected to get at least another $5.4 million for giving them favorable contracts.

"'This is the largest bribery case that has come out of Iraq to date,'" said Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general."

Mr. Cockerham reportedly took only about $10 million in bribes from contractors, and this is the "largest" Iraq-related bribery case?  If so, then perhaps investigators are barking up the wrong trees (i.e., the very small ones).

Mr. Cockerham pleaded guilty in January 2009.  Two days ago, Mr. Cockerham's sister, Carolyn Blake, pleaded guilty to participating in the money-laundering scheme.  In short, she had received $3 million of the bribes, expecting to ake a 10% commission for helping her brother launder the bribes.