{"id":108,"date":"2003-10-31T02:50:46","date_gmt":"2003-10-31T07:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2003\/10\/give_and_take\/"},"modified":"2003-10-31T02:50:46","modified_gmt":"2003-10-31T07:50:46","slug":"give_and_take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/10\/give_and_take\/","title":{"rendered":"Give and Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

A just-released report by The Center for Public Integrity entitled “Windfalls of War<\/a>” examines the give and take relationship between politically-connected corporations and the U.S. government war machine: corporations contribute campaign funds to office seekers (most notably the Bush\/Cheney ticket) and in return get lucrative government contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq:<\/p>\n

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush\ufffda little over $500,000\ufffdthan to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This stems not only from the money link between contractors and politicians, but is also due to the revolving door between the public and private sector:<\/p>\n

Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties, or at the highest levels of the military.
\n. . .
\nThe Center’s investigation focused on the three agencies that awarded most of the Iraq and Afghanistan contracts in 2002 and 2003\ufffdthe Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. It found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former high-ranking government officials or individuals with close ties to those agencies or Congress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On its face, this raises plenty of suspicions. But it gets even worse. The contract-awarding process has been so disorganized that apparently no one knows what’s going on:<\/p>\n

The results of the Center’s six-month investigation provide the most comprehensive list to date of American contractors in the two nations that were attacked in Washington’s war on terror. Based on the findings, it did not appear that any one government agency knew the total number of contractors or what they were doing. Congressional sources said they hoped such a full picture would emerge from the General Accounting Office, which has begun investigating the postwar contracting process amid allegations of fraud and cronyism.
\n. . .
\nBecause of inconsistent and scarce information, the total value of contracts awarded for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan may be greater than what is publicly known. The Center found that there was no uniformity across the government in how contract values were reported. For example, the amount listed for an individual contract either represented only what had been paid to date on a multiyear contract, or a minimum and maximum dollar range of the contract, or, in some instances, a single figure, without any specification as to whether it represented a first payment, a first-year total, or a multiyear total. In some instances, the Center could determine nothing about what a particular contract cost or entailed because neither the company nor the government agency responsible for it would divulge that information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This all reeks the stench of tax dollar waste. Accordingly, General Accounting Office investigations are underway:<\/p>\n

GAO sources told the Center that the agency is conducting two separate probes of contracts awarded for work in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first covers all civilian contracts for Iraq reconstruction involving appropriated funds and stemmed from requests by two Democratic congressmen, who complained of cronyism in the contracting process. That report is expected to be completed in late 2003 or early 2004. A second probe involves a handful of multibillion-dollar, multiyear military contracts that cover work in both countries. The primary focus of that probe will be the Army’s LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) contract held by Kellogg, Brown & Root and one held by Johnson Controls Co., which created Readiness Management Support LC to manage AFCAP, the Air Force Contract Augmentation Program. GAO officials estimate the second probe will take about a year to complete.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given the political connections in play here, one might rightly be skeptical that these will get to the bottom of this matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A just-released report by The Center for Public Integrity entitled “Windfalls of War” examines the give and take relationship between politically-connected corporations and the U.S. government war machine: corporations contribute campaign funds to office seekers (most notably the Bush\/Cheney ticket) and in return get lucrative government contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq: More than 70 American […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}