How was it possible for a 22-year-old to sell the US Army R2,4-billion in decades-old munitions?

[maddezmom]

Washington - The US Army has suspended a huge contract with a munitions dealer who was supplying the Afghanistan government with decades-old ammunition from the old communist bloc and gun cartridges manufactured in China, the New York Times reported on Thursday in a lengthy investigative report.

The company, AEY Inc., was run by a 22-year-old man out of an anonymous office in Miami Beach, Florida, and had a vice president who was a masseur, the newspaper reported.

An estimated $300-million (about R2,4-billion) contract was suspended after the Times enquired repeatedly about it with the army, the paper reported.

Some of the middlemen and a shell company that AEY worked with were found on a federal list of suspected illegal arms traffickers.

more;http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_News&set_id=1&click_id=79&art_id=nw20080327085822826C485816

[TooBigaTent]

1. Look for connections. As always with the junta. nt

[aquart]

2. Kickbacks?

[grasswire]

3. obviously a front

Probably for the Carlyle Group.

[frazzled]

4. Brownie incompetence, and Bush admin. "privatization at any cost"

The most galling part of this story, which I awoke to read on the front page of the NY Times (these guys would probably still be at it if their story hadn't been tracked down by news organizations) is that our whole foreign policy regarding terrorism is based on the ability to get Afghan and Iraqi security forces to stand up.

So we pay nearly a third of a billion dollars of American taxpayer money to this kid and a masseur to ship fifty-year old, sputtering, useless Mao-era munitions to these people? And to put our own troops in harms way? (Even more harm's way, since their Afghan and Iraqi compatriots are using unalderated shit to try to control the situation.) No wonder the "war on terror" marches on and on. You'd almost think they wanted it to.

[wolfgangmo]

5. How is not the right question ...

Why did it take so long to happen? And where is the connection to Chimpy?