Rolling Stone on Iraq Spending

[cannon_fodder]

Not one of my usual sources, but this article is pretty damning.  Its hard (for me) to argue with the information and antidotes provided, such as:

quote:In short, some $8.8 billion of the $12 billion proved impossible to find. "Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?" asked Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. "But that's exactly what our government did."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle

Everyone concentrated on Halliburton and distracted from the more menacing problem - everyone else.  Cost Plus contracts, no oversight, cash basis, payment without results; it all shows that we were totally unprepared for a drawn out conflict and did a poor job when one was presented to us.  One would think that YEARS is long enough to adapt, but you would be wrong.

In a cost plus arrangement with no oversight, the more creative you are in adding costs... the better.  I get a contract to build something, I subcontract to X, who contracts to Y, who contracts to Z.  Now I have 4 layers of administrative costs on which I collect profits.  Money I get even if X, Y or Z do not get paid or doesnt do any job.  Great system.  Or "term contracts" that pay $X over a term of 2 years to do Y... no mention on if the job actually has to be completed.

Lets do some good:  state of the art hospital without drinkable water or electricity - check.  Anti smoking campaign in a country where the leading cause of death is murder - check.  get electricity up and running, provide jobs and schools, get drinking water to the people - nope.    

Then add the resumes of those appointed to open markets, manage the budgets, and everything else and its even more damning.  I'm not a Bush hater, and I do not take Rolling Stone as gospel... but this just ties together everything nicely.  Damning article to be sure.  5 pages.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle/3

I'd love it if someone more knowledgeable than I refutes any of this.  Are these antidotes the norm?  Does incompetence reign as supreme as I fear?  Someone say it aint' so.

quote:For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success?

Sad, but true?  I think I hit my breaking point.  Government's should be run on an allowance - this is how much you get, deal with it.
- - -


and for the record, the "poor" contractor mercenary that gets blown up and loses part of his hand and leg gets no sympathy from me.  What did he think they paid him $120,000 a year for?  It was a dangerous job and a very well known risk when he took it.  He did it for money, he got his money.  Its crappy that his employer gave him $40K for getting blown up and fired him, but who would expect better from a mercenary operation?  If you do not want to get blown up, don't take a job that pays you $10K a month fighting people that want to blow you up.

[MichaelC]

Government simply can not give away money to private companies, without oversight or the expectation of results.  That's what has happened. It goes all the way down to Blackwater, this gov't has truly privatized this war and has chosen not to monitor what the private sector is doing.  There are no consequences to failure, it's a buddy-buddy wink-wink "cash under the table" system.

Normally, a gov't should really want their dollars to succeed in war.  This gov't does not seem to care.

[iplaw]

quote:This gov't does not seem to care.

Nor have any in recent memory.  

[Chris]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:This gov't does not seem to care.

Nor have any in recent memory.  

pancakes did you even read the article?!

[NellieBly]

The extreme waste isn't really news. This has been written about many times before over the past four years.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by Chris

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:This gov't does not seem to care.

Nor have any in recent memory.  

pancakes did you even read the article?!

Yes I did, but thanks for the concern.  Our government has been buying $500 toilet seats and $1,000 hammers for decades now.  Do you think contractors screwing the goverment and the government looking the other way is somehow a recent invention?  I don't think so...and during wartime it's doubly easy to do so.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

The extreme waste isn't really news. This has been written about many times before over the past four years.

Missed those Clinton defense contractor waste stories 10 years ago?

Clinton allows defence contractors to bill for mergers and favors.

Clinton Era defense waste and fraud.

That's just two.  I can give you 20 more.

[cannon_fodder]

Hey, I know this isnt NEW.  I just thought this article rolled it all up nicely.  Just well written to evoke outrage I guess.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Hey, I know this isnt NEW.  I just thought this article rolled it all up nicely.  Just well written to evoke outrage I guess.

It was a nasty article, and probably dead on.  I was just shooting back comments to those who seem to think this is something that only W could contrive.

[Townsend]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Hey, I know this isnt NEW.  I just thought this article rolled it all up nicely.  Just well written to evoke outrage I guess.

It was a nasty article, and probably dead on.  I was just shooting back comments to those who seem to think this is something that only W could contrive.

I have a hard time believing these stories of government waste and misappropriations have that much to do with the presidents.  I'm not saying they don't have anything to do with it but they're not controlling it.

[MichaelC]

I've always had a problem with the level of privatization in this war.  War is not Social Security, or Welfare, or the County Jail, or anything else.  War is some pretty serious stuff, there are young American lives involved here, the lives of Iraqi citizens, and our ability to wage war is on the line.  

Obviously, most people around here would like to see the US do a decent job in Iraq, but a large part of that entails the proper use of money.  The larger question to me is, could you be saving American lives by spending the money better?  In all probability, the answer is "yes."  Privatizing this war to this extent, was a mistake IMO.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by MichaelC

I've always had a problem with the level of privatization in this war.  War is not Social Security, or Welfare, or the County Jail, or anything else.  War is some pretty serious stuff, there are young American lives involved here, the lives of Iraqi citizens, and our ability to wage war is on the line.  

Obviously, most people around here would like to see the US do a decent job in Iraq, but a large part of that entails the proper use of money.  The larger question to me is, could you be saving American lives by spending the money better?  In all probability, the answer is "yes."  Privatizing this war to this extent, was a mistake IMO.

Do we really have the government resources in manpower to re-build Iraq?  USACE is limited in man-power, though I do know they have provided some project over-sight in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

FEMA (insert chuckle here) is supposed to be busy with state-side disasters and re-building.

There's really not an alternative solution other than creating another bureauocracy which really isn't any cheaper or more efficient than their lack of oversight on contracted projects.

[MichaelC]

Government resources are as flexible as the gov't is.  In this case, perhaps, not very.

To say that it wouldn't be cheaper or more efficient to run reconstruction, supply, and transportation within the confines of gov't, that could be quite misleading.  There is no evidence of that, and again, it's up to the gov't.  Whether or not we have one that cares, that's kind of the question.

What you have now in essence is companies (which are in the business of making money), making ungodly amounts of money due to no oversight.  There is almost no reason to perform to any reasonable standard, because no one cares.  Exchange that for a gov't-type entity where standards are everything, and profits are not the motive.  Outside of hating gov't bureaucracy for the sake of hating hating gov't bureaucracy, you're going to have a hard to proving that it wouldn't be more efficient.

We see it all the time.  Private companies running prisons, or our county jail.  There may be more oversight there than in Iraq, but there seems to be more problems as companies perform to different standards and rob the system by taking profits.  Spending tax payer money not to house prisoners, but to line the pockets of a CEO.  Privatization is not "righteous" or in any way necessarily better than a gov't run system.

[iplaw]

I have an idea.  Why don't we take some the a-hole accountants over at the IRS who needlessly bother people and businesses with audits and have them focus their time and effort on bringing contractor bids in line?

We would save far more money eliminating waste than we generate by doing audits....

[iplaw]

MichaelC:

I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't agree totally either.  Can you point us to a federal program that actually runs efficiently?  That's probably a better indicator than hypotheticals about creating a nationalized Halliburton...

As far as I can tell money gets wasted either way.  Either the government pisses it away through inefficency or they piss it away by overpaying contractors.