Graft in Contracts Spread From Kuwait Base

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

On the fourth Sunday in July, John Lee Cockerham was here in his hometown for the baptism of his twin sons.

People in this northwest corner of Louisiana think of him as an unlikely success story, a man who started with nothing to become a major in the Army. He and his 17 siblings grew up without electricity and running water. His parents earned barely enough to keep everyone fed.

Yet even after he made it out of Castor, his ties to these backwoods remained strong. The congregation at New Friendship Baptist Church celebrated his last promotion with a parade. At his sons’ baptism, he told fellow worshipers that he hoped to instill in his children the values he had wrested from hardship.

Less than 24 hours later Major Cockerham was behind bars, accused of orchestrating the largest single bribery scheme against the military since the start of the Iraq war. According to the authorities, the 41-year-old officer, with his wife and a sister, used an elaborate network of offshore bank accounts and safe deposit boxes to hide nearly $10 million in bribes from companies seeking military contracts.

The accusations against Major Cockerham are tied to a crisis of corruption inside the behemoth bureaucracy that sustains America’s troops. Pentagon officials are investigating some $6 billion in military contracts, most covering supplies as varied as bottled water, tents and latrines for troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/world/middleeast/24contractor.html?hp

[soothsayer]

1. when we're spending $500,000 a minute in Iraq, it's not surprising

[OneBlueSky]

2. "investigating some $6 billion in military contracts" is something like . . .

investigating BushCo for not properly maintaining the Rose Garden . . . nothing but a token that completely avoids a massively larger issue, i.e. hundreds of billions (if not trillions) stolen, lost, or simply wasted in Iraq . . .

[DrDan]

3. why do they not support our troops????

[legin]

4. Cockerham is too low-class to receive the benefits of corruption

Hence the opening paragraphs of this article which places him nicely.

Now if he was a BAE official, a Saudi ambassador, or a Texas oil mate of bush*, things would be different.

Corruption only works if only some people are corrupt, if everybody is corrupt then the whole system breaks down.

[legin]

5. And too bloody cheap as well

for say an arms contact with the Saudi royal family, somewhere between 10% and 25% of the price of the deal is paid off in backhanders.

So for $6bn in contracts there should be at least $600m floating around somewhere.

Admittedly there were other people to pay off other than Cockerham, but $10m is pretty lame, $100m I could live with perhaps.

[legin]

6. In fact if I was corrupt I would be outraged

If I charge a bottom rate 10% 'contact tax', then some upstart comes along and only charges 1% - 5%, I would take the view that someone is trying to eat into my income.