Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Not a Contractor left out..State Department spends Bush's Money, no strings attached

“We always saw it as a growth area because of the conflicts in the world,” Steve Cannon, former DynCorp executive.
It's nice to be in Bush America...as long as your a Defense Contractor. Little oversight, same overhead, and ever increasing profit margins, not a bad deal.

On Tuesday, the State Department released two reports: An audit on DynCorp and the other on the State Department's use of private contractors in general. Here are a few revelations from the reports courtesy of the NYT,
Over the past four years, the amount of money the State Department pays to private security and law enforcement contractors has soared to nearly $4 billion a year from $1 billion, but they said that the department had added few new officials to oversee the contracts.
.....
there were too few American officials in Iraq to enforce the rules that apply to Blackwater and other security contractors. It also found that the conduct of the contractors had undermined the broader mission of ending the insurgency and establishing a democratic government in Iraq.
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according to former employees, members of Congress and outside experts..."the office has grown too reliant on, and too close to, the 1,200 private soldiers who now guard American officials overseas."
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The lack of competition does concern us a great deal,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We want as many companies as possible.”
And now for DynCorp's swindle on the American people. Remember these next quotes when Bush asks the 'House of Pelosi' to give him more money for waging his "war on drugs",
the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, has issued more than $2.2 billion in contracts for police training and drug eradication in Iraq, Afghanistan, Latin America and elsewhere, according to State Department records. Ninety-four percent of that money has gone to DynCorp.
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State Department officials viewed it as an interim measure. DynCorp viewed it as an opportunity. “We always saw it as a growth area because of the conflicts in the world,” said Steve Cannon, a former DynCorp executive.
Mr. "boom boom" Cannon was right. Capitalize they did,
Over the next several years, the two small State Department offices issued more than $250 million in police training and diplomatic security contracts to DynCorp for work in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.After the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan, contracts grew again, eventually bringing the company $400 million a year. The law enforcement office had DynCorp dispatch dozens, then hundreds, of police trainers to Afghanistan. The diplomatic security office had DynCorp send employees to guard the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

Former State Department officials and Afghan officials said the DynCorp guards were far too aggressive in their tactics, and their conduct alienated Afghan and European officials, as well as Afghan citizens. Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman, said the company agreed there was a problem and replaced the guards. “The demeanor, the swagger, was wrong,” he said. “We put a stop to that.” Read the full article here
So let me get this straight. From what it sounds like...the U.S. military is not losing the wars, the sub 'machine gun' contractors are. The military can do the job, that's not the problem. Never has been. The problem lies within the 'contracted work'. All they are doing is causing problems and making US pay dearly for it.

Blackwater is losing the hearts in minds of the Iraqis and DynCorp is losing them in Afghanistan. It's the damn contractors and always has been. Bush's dad employed mercenaries in Latin America and so has his son. Worse, he is moving them into the Sudan.

Wake up America, George 'dubya' Bush and crew are swindling US all.

Same Players. Different Scandal.

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