Army to Examine Iraq Contracts

[Ghost in the Machine]

Army to Examine Iraq Contracts
Published: 8/29/07, 12:05 AM EDT
By RICHARD LARDNER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse, service officials said Wednesday.

Overall, the contracts are worth close to $3 billion and represent every transaction made between 2003 and 2007 by a contracting office in Kuwait, which the Army has identified as a significant trouble spot.

In a separate probe, a high-level team led by Pentagon Inspector General Claude Kicklighter will travel to Iraq next week to investigate how U.S. weapons intended for Iraqi security forces ended up being used for murders and other violent crimes in Turkey.

Among the contracts to be reviewed by the Army are awards to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which has received billions of dollars since 2001 to be a major provider of food and shelter services to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats in Congress have claimed that KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown and Root, benefited from ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, who once led Halliburton Co., the Houston-based oil services conglomerate, and congressional Republicans.

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7816&eeid=5379534&_sitecat=1504&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=3&ck=&ch=ne

[Bozita]

1. Isn't this a lot like the fox overseeing the chickencoop?

Or, is there still hope?

[Ghost in the Machine]

3. I think there's hope, myself..

The Army looking into the contracts isn't at all like the fox guarding the hen house. Some of these top guys want to know WHY the troops don't have drinking water... or food... or armor. They're pissed off about it and now they want answers. That's my take on it anyways..

[madrchsod]

2. john warner started the ball rolling

and he`s been on the whitehouse hit list ever since--page two explains why
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/world/middleeast/28military.html?ex=1345953600&en=3d96ec13b270f221&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Iraq Weapons Are a Focus of Criminal Investigations - New York Times

[Ghost in the Machine]

4. Interesting...

"But federal officials say the inquiry has moved far beyond the initial investigation of hundreds of thousands of improperly tracked assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols that grew out of Senator Warner’s query. In fact, Senator Warner said in a statement to The New York Times that he was outraged when he was briefed recently on the initial findings of the investigations.

“When I was briefed on the recent developments, I felt so strongly that I asked the Secretary of the Army to brief the Armed Services Committee right away, which he did in early August,” Senator Warner said in a statement."/snip


"That federal agency, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, responded with a report in October 2006 that found serious discrepancies in American military records of where thousands of the weapons actually ended up. The military did not take the routine step of recording serial numbers for the weapons, the inspector general found, making it difficult to determine whether any of the weapons had ended up in the wrong hands.

In July 2007, the Government Accountability Office found even larger discrepancies, reporting that the American military “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi security forces as of Sept. 22, 2005.”{emphasis mine}

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/world/middleeast/28military.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=3d96ec13b270f221&ex=1345953600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[w8liftinglady]

6. I still think Warner is an old-school Republican,like my dad

My dad hates the * administration

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. kick

[Supersedeas]

7. just so you know where Supplementals are directed -- Dems on notice before you approve!!