Remember how we were going to rebuild Iraq?
Remember how the money flowed like water?
Remember how well Bremer accounted for it?
Ok... if you don't remember that last part, you're not going senile. You probably do remember the Bush administration shut down the office of Special Inspector General in 2006. Well, guess what? Turns out a lot of people were stealing a lot of our money. We're talking billions and billions of dollars here.
Here's the good news. There's a new sheriff in town.
The Washington Post still has a few good writers, and Walter Pincus is one of them. Although his beat is intelligence and military affairs, he reports today that the last administration looked the other way while its cronies stole billions and billions of dollars. That's the bad news.
The good news? Either we get it back or we're going to have to break something.
While they're at it, this administration can kill a few vultures with one stone. Not only will we be able to offset some of the costs of health care reform, we'll be able to clean up the cesspool of connivance that has become defense contracting.
Let's talk about a bag of washers. Not the kind that clean clothes, I'm talking about those little round pieces of flat metal with a hole in the middle. How much would you pay for a bag of 10 washers? 75 cents? A buck? $1.25? $2.50? Try $196.50! Throw in $210 inner tubes and $10 fuses and it adds up. Oh... by the way... those overcharges are all from one company, Aecom Government Services.
When you start adding up the other abuse you wind up with at least $35.2 BILLION in financial transactions that are now suspect. No wonder Halliburton abandoned America for Dubai. They're like the Meyer Lansky of corrupt corporations. When they couldn't buy their way out of trouble, they skipped town.
Yes boys and girls, the party of fiscal restraint with cheerleaders like Chuck Grassley in their haste to drown government in a bathtub brought back that old favorite of the American contractor, the $500 hammer. That's pretty funny because the Republican-controlled House Arms Services Committee was the one that killed the funding for the office of Special Inspector General under the watchful eye of Tom "the hammer" Delay.
As MSNBC reported at the time:
In a stealth blow during a closed-door conference on a major defense bill, the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision to shutdown the Special Inspector General (IG) office led by Stuart Bowen Jr
At the time, he was responsible for tracking $18 billion worth of expenses. And he was having no problem finding waste and abuse. The money they were uncovering would have more than paid for the office's operating costs. In fact, they reported actual dollar amounts and named names. Here's just one example of many:
About $62 million was spent on overhead for contractors that only accomplished $26 million in construction work.
That's what happens when you don't provide resources to review contracts and only .1 percent of the charges get questioned. And people are surprised about the cost overruns with the embassy construction?
As Pincus points out, the SIG reviewed four of the 139 invoices from Aecom. These totaled $29.9 million. Of that, the auditors found $4.1 million in potential overbillings. That's a lot of washers.
Here's the kicker.... remember all the yelling about ACORN? You know, the yelling that led to legislation that cuts off government funding to any contractor filing false reports? Well guess what Aecom Government Services is boasting about on its web site? They just got a six month extension on their contract to support troops in Afghanistan worth $78.8 million dollars!
Like I said before, here's the good news. There's a new sheriff in town. Now that someone leaked the documents showing that dozens of congressional reps are under investigation for abuse, we learn today that:
Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.
There's no question this crap has been going on for years. There's no question that the Republic Party has been a major enabler and benefactor of this. But it is equally clear this crosses party lines. To which I say "fine", as in fine the bastards who stole the money and anyone who helped them defraud the American taxpayers.
We've got better things to spend that money on. Given his historic success prosecuting and collecting from war profiteers, I'm hoping Grayson will start giving seminars so other interested parties can bag a few of these bastards.