Panel tallies massive waste and fraud in wartime U.S. contracts ($12 million a day)

[kpete]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- A nonpartisan panel reporting to Congress says the United States is wasting $12 million a day among contracts issued in support of American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting spent the past three years documenting whether American funding went where it was supposed to. The findings show misdirected money has totaled between $31 billion and $60 billion, and that both the government and the contractors are to blame for fraud and waste.

Commissioner Katherine Schinasi told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the numbers don't seem to have an impact on people concerned about spending.

To make it easier to grasp the magnitude of the problem, Schinasi said, "we've broken it down to $12 million a day."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/08/31/wartime.contracting/index.html

[sudopod]

1. Easier to grasp?

More like an obfuscation of the real problem Waste is terrible, but...

365 x 12,000,000 = 4,380,000,000 ~ 4.4 billion dollars per year.

Compared to the overall war budget of 700 billion per year, that's peanuts, less than 1%. If we want to save money, just cut the bloody DoD budget.

[No Elephants]

4. True, but we are never going to eliminate the Department of War's Budget.

"The Department includes the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, as well as non-combat agencies such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the NORAD base in Colorado Springs. The DoD's annual budget was roughly US$786 billion in 2007.<5> This figure does not include tens of billions more in supplemental expenditures allotted by Congress throughout the year, particularly for the war in Iraq, or expenditures by the Department of Energy on nuclear weapons design and testing.]/b]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense


Of course, the figure does not include Homeland Security. I wonder if it even includes the Pentagon.

[defendandprotect]

7. Would take one hell of an uprising -- but think it could be done ... !!!

[Blue_Tires]

18. Don't forget the growing 'private' intelligence/spy/merc industries

Building their crystal empires right next to Dulles Airport...

[sudopod]

21. so messed up, isn't it? O_o nt

[Supersedeas]

2. where is the Republican outcry for government accountability

[No Elephants]

3. Where is ANYone's outcry for accountability? Including yours and mine?

"The study looked at contracts from 2001 through the projected end of fiscal year 2011.

Republicans had the power of the purse for four of the years for which there were actual numbers. Democrats had the power of the purse for most of the rest of the time. And for the last 7 months, power has been divided.

"A paper statement was left with reporters from Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts, who said the panel's findings "are alarming." Tierney, the ranking Democrat on a House subcommittee that reviews foreign operations, said he will introduce a bill next week "to create a permanent inspector general for contingency operations."

Such a move is among the recommendations of the commission.

Tierney's statement continued: "The kind of waste we have witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be repeated."


I love the Massachusetts delegation--except for the Brown turd--but who is Tierney kidding? There's been waste like this in the military forever. And yet another layer of bureaucracy is highly unlikely to stop it (though it will create more jobs).

[Supersedeas]

16. You put me on the spot. I have just written to Kay Hagan (D-NC) on the

Armed Services committee expressing my outrage.

[Enthusiast]

5. We better cut social security......nt

[defendandprotect]

6. ... but we can't afford MEDICARE FOR ALL .... or unemployment benefits for long term unemployed ...!

[pinto]

8. Kick

:kick:

[Xipe Totec]

9. U.S. Wasted at Least $31 Billion in War Contracts

Source: Wired Magazine

It turns out that scattering cash into the wind would have been more efficient than the U.S. system for awarding reconstruction contracts during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A two-year inquiry by a congressionally created panel finds that at least 15 percent of the $206 billion-with-a-B spent on wartime contracts thus far has been lost to waste, fraud and abuse. That very conservative estimate is likely to grow — and it amounts to an indictment not just of wartime contracts, but the wars themselves.

The Commission on Wartime Contracting concludes that "vast amounts" of contract money in Iraq and Afghanistan provided "little or no benefit" to the war efforts. The commission confirmed $31 billion in contractor cash lost to corruption or dysfunction. But it warned that the true figure could be as high as $60 billion, or "$12 million every day for the past 10 years."

And even that massive figure — almost 30 percent of all wartime contract dollars — isn’t the whole story. Iraq and Afghanistan remain riddled with corruption. That corruption endangers all the "apparently well-designed projects and programs" that the U.S. has launched in both countries. Untold "billions of dollars" are liable to "turn into waste" in the future, says the report, "if the host governments cannot or will not commit the funds, staff, and expertise to operate and maintain them" — especially money spent on the Afghan military and on Iraqi healthcare centers.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/wasted-war-cash

---

As if, somehow, there was such a thing as money spent on this war that was not wasteful. :eyes:

[SpiralHawk]

10. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL & Republicon Cronies (R)

[SpiralHawk]

11. "Smirk. Sneer. Smirk." - xVP Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney (R - Halliburton)

[Hubert Flottz]

12. "Where there's smoke, there's work!"

Better tune in to find out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V6z0OxuAzY

for your own good!

[TatonkaJames]

13. When you have tons of money on pallets

It's tempting for anyone to take a piece, and once someone starts, it's a free for all.

Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., claimed that recent college graduates with Republican ties were sent to Iraq instead of experienced government personnel.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2852426&page=1

Many of the American agents submitted their paperwork only hours before they headed to the airport. Two left Iraq without accounting for $750,000 each, which has never been found.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/07/iraq.features11

I would find Paul Bremmer and ask why he's faded into the darkness.

[n2doc]

14. And that's why we have to cut 2 billion from winter heating oil subsidies for the elderly

As well as cutting climate satellites, climate research, food bank support, etc. Because wasting money on this is much more important! :sarcasm:


Seriously, why isn't Obama pounding the table about this waste and fraud instead of talking about eliminating regulations? Obama defenders, do you have an answer?

[SpiralHawk]

15. Iraq = Freaking Feeding Frenzy for Republicon War Profiteers

There's your freaking RepubliCon Socialism for Fatcats in action...

[Blue_Tires]

17. WHY? Why is it when Cantor or some other teabagger-of-the-week

Goes on national television howling mad about budget cuts and the deficit, do none of the worthless "journalists" wave this shit in their face and ask for an explanation?

[Art_from_Ark]

20. It's precisely because those "journalists" are worthless

that they don't ask the tough questions.

Having grown up watching Cronkite, Huntley-Brinkley, and later, MacNeil-Lehrer, I cringe every time I watch what passes for American TV news these days.

[newspeak]

19. wow, they just found this out?

All of Cheney and Little Boots most loyal friends were getting lucrative contracts that we, the american people, have been paying for. And some of these companies were outright criminals. Anyone see the testimony in front of congress about a planeload of (I believe Filipinos)-when they got on the plane they were told their job would be in Iraq and they held them at gunpoint. They could not leave the plane. I'd say we got some corporations with way too much power. didn't FDR sign a bill against war profiteering in WWII? I think Iraq was targeted just so they could steal the oil and make sure the "loyal" friends could raid the treasury-carte blanche. Of course, Saudi Arabia, one of the worst human rights violators, didn't mind taking out one of their enemies.