Yeah, I knew you could!
"Use of Iraq Contractors Costs Billions, Report Says
WASHINGTON — The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.
One out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of private contractors now outnumber American troops.
The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops.
So what? They made their $$$$?
Whadda ya mean, "Support the Troops?"
The administration was now awarding contracts at a rate of $15 billion to $20 billion a year.
All that $$$ that WE NEED HERE, America!!
The first official price tag on contracting in Iraq and raised troubling questions about the degree to which the war had been privatized.
Contractors in Iraq now employ at least 180,000 people in the country, forming what amounts to a second, private, army, larger than the United States military force, and one whose roles and missions and even casualties among its work force have largely been hidden from public view.
Yeah, THANKS, NYT!!!!
The widespread use of these employees as bodyguards, translators, drivers, construction workers and cooks and bottle washers has allowed the administration to hold down the number of military personnel sent to Iraq, helping to avoid a draft.
Woah, woah, woah!!!!
The NYT BRINGING UP THAT WORD!!!!
Then SOMETHING MUST BE UP!!!
It would be as if they uttered "impeachment" and "Bush" at the same time!
Get ready to SUIT UP SOON, kids!
In addition, the dependence on private companies to support the war effort has led to questions about whether political favoritism has played a role in the awarding of multibillion-dollar contracts. When the war began, for example, Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company run by Dick Cheney before he was vice president, became the largest Pentagon contractor in Iraq.
Yeah, but that would "conspiracy" talk, wouldn't it, Times?
Nice of 'em to mention this crap after five fucking years, huh?
Could you BE ANY LATER to the PARTY, NYT?
Horse is out the barn already!!!
Dina L. Rasor, an author and independent expert on contracting fraud, said she believed that the $100 billion cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office might be low, since there were virtually no reliable audits of or controls on spending during the first years of the war. “It is a shocking number, but I still don’t think it is the full cost,” Ms. Rasor said. “I don’t think there have been any credible cost numbers for the Iraq war. There was so much money spent at the beginning of the war, and nobody knows where it went.”
Well, I say we GET IT BACK from the WAR LOOTERS, and if they don't like that idea -- HANG 'EM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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