US Is Fighting A Contractor War

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/21/2010/

US Is Fighting A Contractor War
by Elizabeth Sullivan

snip//


Rumsfeld decided that one way to limit the number of troops committed to Iraq was to avoid mobilizing the Army’s vast supply network in tandem with combat troops.

Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks dissected the result in his book “Fiasco”: piecemeal deployments that shattered unit cohesion and created turmoil just as the insurgency was gathering steam. One critic likened it to “playing the Super Bowl with a pick-up team.”

It also forced the military to rely for essential spare parts, water and other supplies on overpaid and poorly supervised contractors motivated by profits and personal safety considerations rather than wartime command needs.

Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman provide firsthand accounts of what they call “the destructive results of privatizing war” in their new book, “Betraying Our Troops,” published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Some contractors threatened work stoppages to extort payments from the military.

U.S. troops in remote bases scraped by with inadequate supplies of water and only two ready-to-eat meals a day while commanders lived in luxurious bases supplied with plasma TVs, soft-serve ice cream and air conditioning.

Some U.S. soldiers even died providing security for contractors who failed to coordinate plans with U.S. commanders, or who used radios incompatible with military communications gear. Ohio reservist Keith Maupin was guarding a KBR fuel convoy in April 2004 when he was captured by insurgents. His fate remains unknown.

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[fed-up]

1. your tax dollars at work k/r