‘Blog Items’ Archives
Iraq’s Police Training Program Records in Disarray
by David Phinney Oct. 23, 2007 -- The State Department so terribly managed a $1.2 billion contract for Iraqi police training that it can't figure out what it got for the money spent, a new report says (pdf). Total Disarray: in invoices and records on the project -- and because the government is trying to recoup money paid inappropriately to [...]
Matt Drudge Rocks
There have been reasons for blasting Matt Drudge, but one has to hand it to him. More than a decade ago, his Drudge Report brilliantly pointed the way to the vitality of the Internet as a news medium. And personally, he stood tall against his critics -- largely in the mainstream news media who found his early years a threat to their pipeline of [...]
UN on Mercenaries
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/17/africa/mercenaries.1-154107.php
Combating Trafficking for Forced Labor Purposes
http://www.mediaforfreedom.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=4957 This year we noted several disturbing global trends which speak directly to the plight of labor trafficking victims. The first is the use of debt as a tool of coercion. In labor as well as sexual exploitation, illegal or illegitimate debt is increasingly used to keep people in [...]
Read It: ‘Suicide Is Not Painless’
New York Times columnist Frank Rich delivers a scathing analysis of Pentagon and US government-guided procurement in Iraq begins with the suicide of Charles D. Riechers, 47, the second-highest-ranking procurement officer in the United States Air Force who killed himself by running his car’s engine in his suburban Virginia garage several weeks [...]
Grapes and Sex and Government Contracts
Talk about low-hanging fruit: A prostitute testified Wednesday that former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham fed her grapes as she sat naked in a Jacuzzi before they headed to a bedroom at a Hawaiian resort. The woman testified at the bribery trial of defense contractor Brent Wilkes, who is accused paying the former congressman with $700,000 in [...]
Baghdad Embassy Coverup
by David Phinney Oct. 19, 2007 -- A project manager and the State Department Inspector General covered up "enormous problems" in the management of the $592-million embassy project in Baghdad, McClatchy newspaper reporters Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay report today. Problems became apparent after a mortar shell smashed into the [...]
Blackwater Morphing
Robert Young Pelton's take on Blackwater -- as filtered by Dan Rather Reports on HDNet. Petlon says the interview took place nine months ago, but was netcast only recently: Go to minute 37:50 after first story: Petlon and Rather talking about Blackwater.
What is USProtect Doing in Iraq?
by David Phinney If these bribes between USProtect and the General Services Administration in California took place, you have to wonder how USProtect is going about its business in Iraq: Oct. 17, 2007 -- A former chief executive for USProtect, a security company pleaded guilty earlier this month to giving bribes to a contracting officer at [...]
Unknown Number of Federal Civilian Workers
For many years, there was no accurate estimate on the number of contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan until The Los Angeles Times came up with a headcount that contractors now outnumber the miliary. Apparently, no official count has been made for federal civilian employees either. The Washington Post reports that the Defense Department has [...]
