A maildotcom report says:
The Defense Department has failed to provide adequate oversight over tens of billions of dollars in contracts to support military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, says a new report by an independent commission investigating waste and fraud in wartime spending.
U.S. reliance on private sector employees has grown to "unprecedented proportions," yet the government has no central database of who all these contractors are, what they do or how much they're paid, the bipartisan commission found.In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of how taxpayer dollars have been spent since 2001.
And what? Why do people act surprised at all the non-partisan sweetheart deals and misplaced accountability? It is neither the Republicans nor the Democrats in control, nor has it been for a very, very long time. Who controls America? Ditto Britain? Eisenhower said on January 17th, 1961:
Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
What a shock that must have been to the GOP but Ike was never fully one way or the other in party politics. He was asked to declare his preference one way or the other up to the time of his preselection. That comment of his was not from a commie-sympathizer nor from a man who'd lost his marbles. It was just the first time since Wilson that a man of principle had come out and said it.
In the U.S.A., there is the True Conservative who loves his country and constitution and then there are those who have sold out. The True Conservative never gets to be heard and is always marginalized. Does anyone actually say Ike was not a patriot during the war?
To shift the focus again, to supply, for example, shoddy equipment to your troops on the grounds of sweetheart deals I consider very much treason. An example is the story of the Dragon Skins. To begin with on this body-armour business, BAE paid out, some years ago, compensation to the U.S. over zylon, a defective component of body-armour which degrades over time:
Gregory Katsas, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, said: "The Justice department will not tolerate its first responders wearing defective bullet-proof vests."
Hmmm.
Defense Tech ran a few articles on the issue. This article castigated the U.S., not the UK for a piece of nicely-awarded defence contracting which did not take into account the ultimate safety of troops, in this specific case, body armour again. One small case in point [unfortunately, this old link goes to the site, not the archived article itself]:
Defense Review has confirmed [that] just as we expected, Pinnacle Armor SOV-2000 Dragon Skin body armor appears to be significantly superior in every combat-relavant way to U.S. Army Interceptor Body Armor. DefRev recently got a chance to see the actual specs from three different facilities: H.P. White Laboratory, Inc. , United States Test Laboratory a.k.a. USTL, and U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center a.k.a. ATC. The technical data continues in the article and then the conclusion:
The data proves that in Level III/III+ (SOV-2000) and Level IV (SOV-3000) versions, Dragon skin surpases SAPI and ESAPI performance levels in 9 different areas, by huge margins:
- Ballistic Performance
- Weight
- Multiple Repeat Hit Capability
- Flexibility with the Ability to add coverage
- Durability
- Substantially reduced backface deformation (less trauma to the body)
- Ergonomic capabilities (mission specific, concealed, female rifle defeating capabilities)
- Better edge hit capability
There's simply no way anyone who has seen the data that we saw could come to any other conclusion other than Dragon Skin is vastly superior to Interceptor Body Armor. It's not even close. Bottom line is, all relevant ballistic test data is available for viewing and validation (just like we viewed and validated it), exactly as Pinnacle Armor has offered in their written response to the SOUM and the Pentagon Brief by General Sorenson.
Why the negative statements about Pinnacle Armor to Margaret Warner on News Hour with Jim Lehrer Armor for U.S. Troops In Iraq (Jan. 11, 2006) and why Major General Jeffrey A. Sorenson's, Col. John Norwood's, Col. Thomas Spoehr's negative statements about Dragon Skin in their recent news briefings?
These denials either show ignorance of the facts, a lack of knowledge of the available ballistic data, outright lies or are deliberately deceptive.Well, this is due to the fact that the military has (for years) outsourced these types of positions at Natick and PEO to [certain] civilians, instead of maintaining them within the military.
Unlike military personnel these civilians do not have the same level of oversight or controls on them to maintain the typical checks and balances necessary to ensure true and unbiased evaluation of performance-based products (like SOV/Dragon Skin, for instance) for the protection of the America's soldiers.
This theme is continued in the following article:
...well, the next day (January 14th), Mr. Helms wrote about a very disturbing situation. Helms reported that two soldiers getting ready to deploy to Iraq were being forced to leave their Pinnacle Armor Dragon Skin vests behind.They were informed that if didn't leave the Dragon Skin body armor behind, their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies might be nullified in the event of their deaths, so their beneficiaries would receive nothing.
Helms also reported that the two soldiers were told they might also face disciplinary action for not complying with the order to leave the Pinnacle Armor vests behind.According to the SFTT report, the soldiers complied with the order, so they will now have to... wear official issue body armor--most likely the Interceptor Multi-Threat Body Armor System Outer Tactical Vest (OTV), which has been the subject of considerable criticism of late, with regard to ballistic performance and durability.
Helms/SFTT reports that one of the soldier's commanders expressed deep regret about ordering him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind, but that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up."If this report is true, it's DefenseReview's opinion that an investigation should be launched immediately into who is behind these orders. Whoever it is, (again, if the SFTT report is accurate) they deserve to be prosecuted. They're putting the lives of infantrymen in danger by increasing the likelihood they'll be killed in combat.
The body armor situation is really just par for the course, since our infantry has been contending with sub-standard small arms for decades. The 5.56x45mm FN M249 SAW/LMG (Squad Automatic Weapon/Light Machine Gun) should have been replaced a long time ago. It's too heavy (a claimed weight of 16.75 lbs) for an LMG/SAW, and isn't sufficiently reliable or accurate.Every bonafide small arms expert that DefenseReview has spoken with has characterized the FN M249 SAW as "a piece of crap", and we're quoting them diplomatically.
The 7.62x51mm FN M240B GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun), at 27 lbs empty, is way too heavy for mobile infantry use.And, both weapons represent approx. 50-year old tech. Even the latest variants of the M16, the M16A4 rifle and Colt M4/M4A1 Carbine represent technology that's at least 50 years old, now, and should have been replaced with a better solution a long time ago.It goes on and on.
Is it any better in the UK? You might like to read this and this, by James Cleverley, which refer to substandard equipment and shortages for UK troops. On August 10th, 2006, the Beeb ran an article:
British troops fighting in Iraq urgently need better-protected patrol vehicles to prevent more being killed by roadside bombs, MPs have warned. The all-party defence committee said the "under-equipped" soldiers needed more helicopters, as well as air conditioning to stop heat exhaustion.
Its report said members had seen first hand how overstretched troops were during a visit to Iraq in June. Committee chairman James Arbuthnot said:
"We cannot send them on operations without giving them the tools they need to do the job."We were disturbed by the deficiencies in equipment they faced," Committee chairman James Arbuthnot reported. "
The MoD must address equipment shortages and capability gaps as a matter of urgency."
Ha! These equipment shortages are no accident – they are the result of short-term expedient purchase from the lowest bidder and the most connected. This is about sweetheart deals over the last fifteen years and further back down the track in other areas.There is no serious lack of forethought - only defence contracts.
It's the tip of the iceberg and if I were a soldier in a front line combat situation, knowing I was wearing and using defective equipment, I would call it treason and collusion at the highest levels.
On the Blackwater/Halliburton thing:
Democrats also pointed out ties between Blackwater and Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton. During the incident in Fallujah where four Blackwater employees were killed and incinerated by an angry mob, Blackwater was a sub-contractor to Kellogg, Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary.
Republican Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia said the Democrats do not like profits and devise lawsuits for "their crony lawyer friends." He also said Democrats want the "redistribution of wealth" and that nine of the 22 members of the Waxman committee agreed with MoveOn.org about General David Petraeus.
Prince reiterated that Blackwater was not a partisan company. He also rejected the use of the term "mercenary" to describe Blackwater. Prince cited the dictionary definition of mercenary as a professional soldier working for a foreign government.
Blackwater Chairman and CEO Erik Prince was right in one respect - this is not a party political thing and sheeting it home to either the Republicans or Democrats is a smokescreen. It is the whole nature of the power base which supports the puppets in Washington who purport to be the government.In the end, the $64 000 question is how to beat this monster with its grip on the ordinary citizen's life?
