The Guardian: US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record

[maddezmom]

US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record· Old stock sent to Afghan forces battling Taliban

The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday.

AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (£150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. But as the New York Times reported in a lengthy investigation, AEY's president, Efraim Diversoli, 22, supplied stock that was 40 years old and rotting packing material.

"Much of the ammunition comes from the ageing stockpiles of the old communist bloc, including stockpiles that the state department and Nato have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed," the paper said.

The report on AEY was the latest instance of private firms securing lucrative defence contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration's policy of privatising growing aspects of the military.

"Operations like this pop up like mushrooms after the rain," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA official who in the 1980s was in charge of arming Afghan rebel groups fighting the former Soviet Union.

more:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/28/afghanistan.usa?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

[Demeter]

1. Oh, Really?

"Operations like this pop up like mushrooms after the rain," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA official who in the 1980s was in charge of arming Afghan rebel groups fighting the former Soviet Union.

Never heard of anything like this until Reagan and Iran/Contra....