Contractors in Iraq Make Costs Balloon

[punpirate]

A little more insight into how contractors are gaming the system:


http://newsobserver.com/news/nation_world/blackwater/story/1762376p-8044834c.html


Jerry Zovko's contract with Blackwater USA looked straightforward: He would earn $600 a day guarding convoys that carried food for U.S. troops in Iraq.

But that cost -- $180,000 a year -- was just the first installment of what taxpayers were asked to pay for Zovko's work. Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., and three other companies would add to the bill, and to their profits.

Several Blackwater contracts obtained by The News & Observer open a small window into the multibillion-dollar world of private military contractors in Iraq. The contracts show how costs can add up when the government uses private military contractors to perform tasks once handled by the Army.

Here's how it worked in Zovko's case: Blackwater added a 36 percent markup, plus its overhead costs, and sent the bill to a Kuwaiti company that ordinarily runs hotels. That company, Regency Hotel, tacked on its costs for buying vehicles and weapons and a profit and sent an invoice to a German food services company called ESS that cooked meals for the troops.



More at the link.

[Ruffhowse]

1. Everyone in Iraq is feeding at the trough right now, not just contractors.

There is so much money floating around that it's corrupting everyone it comes into contact with. This includes our "oh so saintly" troops. The contractors have all kinds of ways of paying off the troops to look the other way while they forge invoices, fraudulently change delivery schedules, etc. Everyone is gaming the system and it's our tax dollars that are going down one big rat hole. The troops are walking around with hundreds stuffed in their pockets from contractors that pay them to be accessories to the overcharging and graft that is going on. I have heard this from several friends who are over in Iraq at this time, and who I'm ashamed to say are cashing in like everyone else. The whole operation over there is as corrupt as they come. And we just wrote a blank check and sent it over like everyone was going to be doing honest business. There's a reason a majority of the troops support Bush in the election. He's been quite the sugar daddy for them.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. Amazing how the GOP administrations

keep getting greedier about looting the treasury (a.k.a. taxpayer money and money from unborn taxpayers).

The Saving and Loan money grab was huge -- and I believe it was off budget -- and we may even still be pay off that debt.

Now it is "war on the cheap" -- but not really -- as this article points out.

The damned GOP has figured out how to rob the future.

If *ush manages to pull off another theft of the election -- dog help us all -- and the generations to come.

But I do believe that Kerry is fighting a battle for us -- I believe he knows what is at stake. He has looked in their eyes and he is ready to face the evil ones down.

Gore just couldn't manage the fight -- but Kerry is battle hardened.