Ponies Full Of Money

by digby

I have a little suggestion. Before anybody signs another blank check for Bush to expand the military, escalate the war or add more than 70 billion to the “emergency” supplemental, how about we make the Pentagon account for this:

The Pentagon is still struggling to get a handle on the unprecedented number of contractors now helping run the nation’s wars, losing millions of dollars because it is unable to monitor industry workers stationed in far-flung locations, according to a congressional report.

The investigation by the Government Accountability Office, which released the report Tuesday, found that the Defense Department’s inability to manage contractors effectively has hurt military operations and unit morale and cost the Pentagon money.

“With limited visibility over contractors, military commanders and other senior leaders cannot develop a complete picture of the extent to which they rely on contractors as an asset to support their operations,” said the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

According to the report, some 60,000 contractors are supporting the Army in Southwest Asia, a region that includes Iraq. That figure is compared to the 9,200 contractors used to support the military in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

This unprecedented number of contractors on the battlefield means loss of visibility, GAO reports.

Commanders are often unsure how many contractors use their bases and require food, housing and protection, according to the report. One Army official said the service estimates losing about $43 million each year on free meals provided to contractors who also receive a food allowance.

The military does not have enough personnel devoted to overseeing the implementation of contracts, GAO found. In one case, a single person was assigned to monitor compliance of a contract at 27 different installations throughout Iraq in just a six-month tour.

Jane wrote about this the other day over at Firedoglake, noting that the Iraq study Group said “there are roughly 5,000 civilian contractors in the country.” Wise old mandarins indeed.

There is some good news:

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he plans to establish a subcommittee to conduct thorough investigations, including one on contractor abuse.

The war profiteering that’s gone on for the last six years is an extremely important issue and I hope the new congress gets to the bottom of it. Not only are they bankrupting the nation, every taxpayer dollar they spend on Bush cronies and graft and corruption in the military industrial comples is a dollar not spent on the actual troops. This should offend every right thinking person in the nation, no matter what their partisan persuasion.

Update: Maha has a very intriguing post up that adds much to this discussion of what this war is costing us.

The January 2007 issue of Harper’s (the cover art is a photograph of a rubber duckie) has an article by Chalmers Johnson titled “Republic or Empire: A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States.” It’s not online and won’t be for awhile (once again, Harper’s policy about not putting articles online until they’re a couple of months old makes me crazy), but reading the article in light of Baker’s news story is guaranteed to scare the living bleep out of you.

In the article, Chalmers discusses “military Keynesianism,” in which “the flow of the nation’s wealth — from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers.” As a result, “the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.” Then, he ties military Keynesianism to the “unitary executive” theory and Bush’s increasingly unchecked power. Meanwhile, citizens and media dutifully “abet their government in maintaining a facade of constitutional democracy until the nation drifts into bankruptcy.”

I haven’t read the article but I will look forward to doing so. Read Maha’s post in the meantime. This is a subject which is long overdue for discussion in my opinion.

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