Who's running this war, anyway?
This is nuts. I knew we had contractors in Iraq, but I had no idea there were this many.
Do you think maybe when Bush cited 36 as the number of coalition partners in his Groundhog Day speech the other night, he was counting private contractors? We actually have more of them in Iraq than we have troops, and at a staggering cost.
I suppose it's not yet decided if the Iraqis are going to kick Blackwater out over Sunday's incident in which 8 Iraqi civilians were allegedly killed by Blackwater security personnel, or if Condi can talk Maliki into keeping them there. After all, she did make a phone call. Diplomacy Accomplished!
Robert Greenwald's "Iraq for Sale"
I'm not sure what the right answer is here. I'd guess that a lot of the individuals working for these outfits are good people. But I really was under the (obviously mistaken) impression that wars were fought with soldiers, not corporations.
One thing for certain, the accountability that exists in the military is not there for these private contractors, either in regard to blood or treasure.
An American contractor who buried secret payments from Iraqi subcontractors in a Baghdad yard was sentenced Monday to five months in prison for trying to smuggle $50,000 into the United States.Robert Grove, 63, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in March after customs agents found stacks of $100 bills hidden in his day planner, a carrying case around his neck and his backpack. He had declared just $350 in merchandise on a customs form.
Grove, a retired Army colonel, had been questioned about Iraqi kickbacks months earlier by U.S. officials investigating his employer, West Chester-based Weston Solutions Inc., prosecutors said.
It's not just the money, although there's lots and lots of that, but that lack of accountability is putting our troops in harms way.
"It takes a great deal of vigilance on the part of the military commander to ensure contractor compliance," said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you're trying to win hearts and minds and the contractor is driving 90 miles per hour through the streets and running over kids, that's not helping the image of the American army. The Iraqis aren't going to distinguish between a contractor and a soldier."
Commondreams notes that the Senate is holding a hearing this Friday to investigate some of the abuse.
WASHINGTON - September 17 - The Senate Democratic Policy Committee has announced that it will hear testimony this Friday regarding abuses by government contractors during the Iraq War. The hearing, entitled “The Mistreatment of Iraq Contracting Whistleblowers,” will focus on the experiences of the employee-whistleblowers who report contractor misconduct, and will include significant information about Iraqi contracting abuses. The hearing will be held in the Dirksen Senate Building, room 226.Among those scheduled to testify is Bunnatine Greenhouse, who served as the top civilian contracting officer for the Army Corps of Engineers until she was demoted in retaliation for her opposition to “casual and clubby” contracting practices in the run-up to the War. Ms. Greenhouse has described a controversial five year, no-bid, multi-billion dollar contract awarded to Halliburton/KBR in 2003 as “the most blatant and improper contracting abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”
Also testifying will be Stephen M. Kohn, President of the National Whistleblower Center and co-counsel for Ms. Greenhouse.
