Blackwater Fraud uncovered

[mrsalty]

Money well spent??
I guess it depends on how much you value the life of a human being.

two-year investigation has finally begun to shed some light on the trail of taxpayer dollars that paid for Blackwater USA's famously ill-fated security mission in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004.

Blackwater's contract was less than a month old when four of its security operatives were ambushed and killed, some of their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge in an incident that changed the course of the Iraq war.

Blackwater was at the bottom of a four-tiered chain of contractors. The Moyock, N.C.-based company says it billed the next company up the chain $2.3 million. At the top of the chain was KBR, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co.

Now the Pentagon has calculated that by the time KBR got around to billing the government, the tab to the taxpayers for private security work had reached $19.6 million. The government is moving to take that money back, charging that it was improperly spent.

Last week, federal investigators identified $10 billion they said has been squandered in the war because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses. More than a quarter of that amount, $2.7 billion, was charged by Halliburton.

Until recently, not even the Pentagon had been able to sort out the players. Last year, the Army told Waxman it could find no indication that Blackwater had been hired to provide security under KBR's multibillion-dollar contract to support the U.S. military operation in Iraq.

But this month the Army said extensive research had revealed that Blackwater had in fact been hired through two intermediary companies.

Furthermore, the Army said, that appears to be a violation of KBR's contract, which prohibits hiring private security services. So the Pentagon has moved to take back the estimated $19.6 million that KBR charged the government for security services.

Family members of the four dead Blackwater contractors are suing Blackwater, charging that the company - in the interest of cutting corners and turning a profit - sent their loved ones into hostile territory without the protection of armored vehicles, rear gunners or automatic weapons.
An internal Blackwater e-mail exchange released by Waxman's committee seemed to bolster that allegation. The day before the fatal ambush, the four men's supervisor wrote to Blackwater management pleading for better equipment. His superior, Mike Rush, wrote back that it was the responsibility of the next contractor up the chain, Regency Hotel & Hospital Co.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/stor...795&ran=143615

[Ultrashogun]

Another drop in the bucket.

[RaposaBJJ]

Shit bags.

[Gregster]

I suppose that as a result of this eye-opening article, I should assume the following:

1) The process of government contracting is sometimes inefficient and wasteful. Knock me over with a feather, why don't ya?

2) Halliburton, a company which was lauded for their efficiency and cost-effectiveness while being given preference for no-bid contracts to support military deployments by the Clinton administration is a lumbering, wasteful outfit whose selection for a no-bid contract to support military deployments by the Bush administration is but one example of the current administrations' fraudulent, wasteful, and self-serving nature.

3) Blackwater contractors, who were previously over-armed and gung-ho merchants of death to be feared by all they encountered hired by the government to reign terror with impunity upon Iraqis were actually lambs sent to their ill-equipped slaughter

[d brooks]

We are their bitch, like it or not

bend over for your master, blackwater, kbr and haliburton

either that or get on your knees and pull out your pockets..

[Sir Burton]

Originally Posted by Gregster

I suppose that as a result of this eye-opening article, I should assume the following:

1) The process of government contracting is sometimes inefficient and wasteful. Knock me over with a feather, why don't ya?

2) Halliburton, a company which was lauded for their efficiency and cost-effectiveness while being given preference for no-bid contracts to support military deployments by the Clinton administration is a lumbering, wasteful outfit whose selection for a no-bid contract to support military deployments by the Bush administration is but one example of the current administrations' fraudulent, wasteful, and self-serving nature.

3) Blackwater contractors, who were previously over-armed and gung-ho merchants of death to be feared by all they encountered hired by the government to reign terror with impunity upon Iraqis were actually lambs sent to their ill-equipped slaughter

1) True dat.

2) True dat.

3) True dat.

Reality is a bitch