America loves its mercenaries.
Competitive-bid Pentagon contracts are a low point since the Sept. 11 attacks, giving way to the military's addiction to hard-to-trace, fast-track no-bid contracts that have encouraged waste and fraud, according to a new report.
Private military contractors, the politically correct name for everyone from hired guns to engineers and custodians, are still cashing in since the war on terror began 10 years ago.
A new "fellow the money" investigation, dropping incrementally each day this week by the Center for Public Integrity's IWatch News, shows the Pentagon's no-bid contracts jumped to $140 billion in 2010, up from $50 billion in 2001.
"While the Pentagon says its overall level of competition has remained steady over the past 10 years, publicly available data shows that Defense Department dollars flowing into non-competitive contracts have almost tripled since the terrorist attacks of 9/11," writes author and journalist Sharon Weinberger, the accomplished national security writer whose byline is on the CPI investigative report.
The Pentagon’s competitive-bid contracts declined to 55% the first half of this year based on dollars spent, the group's analysis of available public federal records show.
The big winner in both the competitive-bid and no-bid world of Pentagon spending, is the Houston-based outfit KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root. KBR was competitively awarded an umbrella contract in December 2001, but was not required to compete for any subsequent contacts, the analysis revealed.
Over 10 years through the end of July of this year, KBR earned $37 billion, proving water systems, heaters, tents, and dining facilities, as well as electricians, cooks, cleaners and other civilian workers for military bases, CPI reported.
"The rush to war in the months following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 created an urgency in the Pentagon, not just for military operations but also for contracting," Weinberger writes in thge second of five installments of CPI's "Windfalls of War" series --- an update to an earlier groundbreaking investigation by the highly regarded watchdog group.
Showing posts with label mercenaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mercenaries. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
NATO Extends Mission As Brit Mercs Deploy With Rebels
Updated 4:15 p.m. edt
Another senior Libyan government official defected today to Italy, while there was a rare explosion in the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi.
Libya's oil minister Shukri Ghanem became the latest member of Moammar Gadhafi's cabinet to defect, pledging his loyalty to the rebel Transitional National Council, the Italian news agency reported. The announcement came just days after more than 120 Libyan military, including at least five generals, defected.
In Benghazi, a car bomb exploded outside the hotel where diplomats stay when they meet with TNC officials. No one was hurt, according to the Associated Press.
end update
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NATO announced today it is extending the Libyan campaign by three months, driving the point home with at least a half-dozen air strikes overnight in Tripoli.
"NATO and partners have just decided to extend our mission for Libya for another 90 days. This decision sends a clear message to the Qadhafi regime: We are determined to continue our operation to protect the people of Libya. We will sustain our efforts to fulfil the United Nations mandate. We will keep up the pressure to see it through," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced.
"Our decision also sends a clear message to the people of Libya: NATO, our partners, the whole international community, stand with you. We stand united to make sure that you can shape your own future. And that day is getting closer," Rasmussen said.
A spokesman for Moammar Gadhafi repeated that the Libyan dictator will not step down.
In Britain, meanwhile, officials have been scrambling to explain an Al Jazeera video that captured about a half-dozen Western-looking military advisers mingling with the rebel army. Those boots on the ground belong to mercenary former British SAS officers, anonymous sources have been cited as saying by the UK press.
Britain, France and other Nato countries are supplying the mercs with communications equipment to work as target-spotters for air strikes and coordinators with rebel forces when British Apache and French Tiger attack helicopters are deployed around around Misrata this week, The Guardian of London reported.
Another senior Libyan government official defected today to Italy, while there was a rare explosion in the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi.
Libya's oil minister Shukri Ghanem became the latest member of Moammar Gadhafi's cabinet to defect, pledging his loyalty to the rebel Transitional National Council, the Italian news agency reported. The announcement came just days after more than 120 Libyan military, including at least five generals, defected.
In Benghazi, a car bomb exploded outside the hotel where diplomats stay when they meet with TNC officials. No one was hurt, according to the Associated Press.
end update
---[
NATO announced today it is extending the Libyan campaign by three months, driving the point home with at least a half-dozen air strikes overnight in Tripoli.
"NATO and partners have just decided to extend our mission for Libya for another 90 days. This decision sends a clear message to the Qadhafi regime: We are determined to continue our operation to protect the people of Libya. We will sustain our efforts to fulfil the United Nations mandate. We will keep up the pressure to see it through," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced.
"Our decision also sends a clear message to the people of Libya: NATO, our partners, the whole international community, stand with you. We stand united to make sure that you can shape your own future. And that day is getting closer," Rasmussen said.
A spokesman for Moammar Gadhafi repeated that the Libyan dictator will not step down.
In Britain, meanwhile, officials have been scrambling to explain an Al Jazeera video that captured about a half-dozen Western-looking military advisers mingling with the rebel army. Those boots on the ground belong to mercenary former British SAS officers, anonymous sources have been cited as saying by the UK press.
Britain, France and other Nato countries are supplying the mercs with communications equipment to work as target-spotters for air strikes and coordinators with rebel forces when British Apache and French Tiger attack helicopters are deployed around around Misrata this week, The Guardian of London reported.
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