What's it going to take for us to hold the Iraq War profiteers accountable?  The Bush administration's $3 trillion war in Iraq has been the direct cause of our current recession, and yet private defense contractors continue to reap billions in profits.  I'm not even talking about KBR for the moment.  That loathesome Cheney-backed Halliburton subsidiary has actually been the focus of a bit of media and Congressional attention recently (though not enough) for contaminating our troops' water supplies, ignoring electrical safety standards that led to troop casualties, and dodging hundreds of millions in tax payments.  No, I'm talking about L-3, the second largest employer in the Iraq occupation behind KBR.  

L-3 makes about $1 billion a year off of the outsourcing of intelligence gathering in Iraq.  The U.S. government hired L-3 to work with the military in interrogating and running background checks on Iraqi prisoners and civilians.  L-3  now employs approximately 7,000 translators and 300 intelligence experts in Iraq, and has grown to become the ninth largest defense contractor in the U.S and the sixth largest Iraq War profiteer.  While this outsourcing alone is cause for alarm, it is how L-3 runs its company that is particularly egregious.  

From Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: 

Last week, I spoke at a conference organized by NYU's Center on Law and Security called "Privatizing Defense: Blackwater, Contractors, and American Security." Also present at the conference were Blackwater Worldwide vice president Martin Strong and a lawyer for Blackwater, David Hammond. At the conference, I confronted Strong on Blackwater's killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, 2007. The day after our exchange, the Bush Administration extended Blackwater's Iraq "security" contract for another year.

The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials.

"This is bad news," al-Maliki adviser Sami al-Askari said. "I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims."

New Inspector General report finds that Halliburton delivered contaminated water to US bases in Iraq.

More at therealnews.com and at Iraq for Sale

When I first met Ben Carter by telephone in January of 2006, he was somewhat of a lone voice shouting into an empty stadium. He had been working for Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR)—a Halliburton subsidiary that had billions of dollars worth of government contracts in Iraq—as a water contamination specialist. I was working with Brave New Films on a documentary (Iraq For Sale) about war profiteering companies who used the war as a way to line their pockets with gads of tax-payer cash for such things a bag of washed laundry at $100 a pop, or $45 for a six pack of Coke.

The war had been outsourced and privatized, and the likes of KBR were not so privately robbing the country blind with cost-plus contracts. Based on this bright idea, the more a company spent, say, on that Hummer for the boss running the ice cream stand for the troops on leave in Kuwait, the more that company made. Or rather, when looked at from the public's side of the ledger, the more the taxpayer paid.

If they supported the troops any better, they'd be killing them.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Pentagon's inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."

Earlier this month CIA Director Michael Hayden testified before Congress and admitted private contractors were employed to waterboard al Qaeda detainees.

According to a Wall Street Journal article posted on CorpWatch:

"CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was asked whether contractors were involved in waterboarding al Qaeda detainees. He replied: 'I'm not sure of the specifics. I'll give you a tentative answer: I believe so.' An agency spokesman declined to clarify the answer.

According to two current and former intelligence officials, the use of contracting at the CIA's secret sites increased quickly in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, in part because the CIA had little experience in detentions and interrogation. Using nongovernment employees also helped maintain a low profile, they said. The sites were designed to handle only the most sensitive detainees."

So not only is the U.S. goverment outsourcing the war and its disastrous aftermath to private companies, it's even outsourcing the torture of prisoners.  Then, the CIA destroys the evidence.  Convenient.

Yes, that's "moderate" Susan Collins, who lies about self-imposed term limits, wholeheartedly supports Samuel Alito, walks arm in arm with President Bush and, as this video shows, thinks that Blackwater's stealing your taxpayer money so they can kill people and cover it up deserves to be ignored.

But other profiteers shouldn't get jealous of Blackwater. She's formed a protectiion racket for them too. 

Watch the video! 

Hard to imagine. G-d, this is getting tiring.

WASHINGTON - Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government's investigation of the incident.
 
Damage to the vehicles in the convoy has been held up by Blackwater as proof that its security guards were defending themselves against an insurgent ambush when they fired into a busy intersection, leaving 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

(snip)

The repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn worldwide attention. The Sept. 16 shooting has strained U.S. relations with the Iraqi government, which wants Blackwater expelled from the country. It also has become a flash point in the debate over whether contractors are immune from legal consequences for their actions in a war zone.

Nobody accountable for anything. Ever.

This crap is the reason the "Real I.D." b.s. is scaring me.

(AP) Some travelers may be vulnerable to identity theft after petitioning the government a year ago to have their names removed from lists that restrict them from flying.

As many as 247 travelers who petitioned the government between Oct. 6, 2006, and Feb. 13, 2007, to have their names removed from those lists may be vulnerable, according to a congressional investigation.

The investigation into the Transportation Security Administration's traveler redress site found security problems with the government-sanctioned Web site, which have since been fixed.

(snip)

Investigators found one of the senior program managers at TSA who oversaw the launch of the redress site is a former employee of Desyne Web Services - the company that received the $48,816 contract to develop the site and continues to do business with TSA today. The employee is also a high school friend of the company's owner, according to the report.

Who in the world would feel comfortable giving this government absolutely unfettered control over every aspect of your life? Oh, nevermind.

I posted about this back on October 6th fer chrissakes. Seems the guy in charge declared every a-ok, right before he hit the exit for a well deserved retirement. Oopsy.

WASHINGTON - The fire-fighting system in the massive new $740 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is defective, according to documents obtained by McClatchy and U.S. officials, who allege that their concerns were ignored or overruled in a rush to declare the complex completed.

"As far as I know, nothing's been fixed," said one State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation for speaking to the news media. "The lives of the people who are working in that building are going to be at stake" if the complex doesn't meet building codes, he said.

Last month, 19 days before he retired, State Department buildings chief Charles E. Williams certified key parts of the embassy's fire-fighting system ready for operation, according to the documents McClatchy obtained.

How you can consider this anything but willful negligence is beyond me. It is made even worse by the fact that the company testing and to certify the safety measures is......

Moreover, Williams' thumbs-up was based on tests run by another contractor that was hired, not by the State Department, but by the company building the embassy, First Kuwaiti General Contracting and Trading Co. State Department officials, members of Congress and others have accused First Kuwaiti of shoddy construction and questionable labor practices.

So, months after many, many instances of malfeasance by FKGC they're still being given contracts for life and death inspections.

I wish this were a joke. It ain't. The name of this idiotic book is Working in a War Zone: Military Contractors, and if you're so bold as to read a bit further you'll find this:

Interest Level: Grades 5 - 8
Reading Level: Grade 5 

That's right, you can sit down with your 10 year old child, put on Hannah Montana and then transition into reading about how best to waterboard some Sunni insurgents you picked up on recon in Fallujah. Or better yet, how to misappropriate "funds" (see taxpayer dollars) while providing water to our troops containing with enough fecal contamination to give all of Utah amoebic dysentery.

Here is the lovely description of this tome:

People rarely think about the workers who provide products and services to the military and rebuild war-torn areas. The people who do these jobs, military contractors, have as important and exciting a career as anyone else in the military. This book brings readers right into the thick of the action. A variety of military contractor careers are profiled and brought to life. Readers learn about the daily dangers experienced by these professionals, and the importance of the work they accomplish.

Isn't that the truth! Undermining democracy, getting people killed, stealing vast sums of money and getting the world to hate us sure is important work.

On a related note:

A secret intelligence assessment of the first battle of Fallujah shows that the U.S. military thinks that it lost control over information about what was happening in the town, leading to "political pressure" that ended its April 2004 offensive with control being handed to Sunni insurgents.

I am guessing it was all of our faults that the Pentagon plans for war like Mitt Romney plans for vacation with the dog...

How bad does it have to get? This story is making the rounds today:

Omar Khalif, vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of those missing and trafficked, said that at least two children are sold by their parents every week. Another four are reported missing every week.

See how things have improved since we invaded?

He said: "[The] numbers are alarming. There is an increase of 20 per cent in the reported cases of missing children compared to last year."

"In previous years, children were reported missing on their way home from schools or after playing with friends outside their homes. However, police investigations have revealed that many have been sold by their parents to foreign couples or specialised gangs." 

According to police investigations and an independent IFA study, Iraqi children are being sold to families in many European countries - particularly the Netherlands and Sweden - Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

"Taking advantage of the desperate situation of many families living under poverty conditions in Iraq, foreigners offer a good amount of money in exchange of children as young as one-month old and up to five years of age," Khalif said.

He said there are fears children are being trafficked for the sex trade and the organ transplant black market.

Yes, we're fighting them over there so we don't have to...let our soldiers survive and prosper over here?

Violence did go down the second half of the year, however. And conservatives will triumphantly tell you. So if we keep adding to the number of troops there (while all our allies pull out) and institute a draft, perhaps we can keep violence down just enough for no political solution to be reached while we ignore domestic issues and keep averting our eyes from unimportant places like, say, Pakistan... 

The Pentagon, meanwhile, will increasingly look to the uneven Iraqi security forces to carry the load in 2008 as demands for an American exit strategy grow sharper during the U.S. election year.

Britain, the main U.S. coalition partner in Iraq, is gradually drawing down its forces and other allies, including Poland and Australia, are contemplating full-scale withdrawals in the coming year.

Groovy. Wait, I have another idea (besides sending in the entire editorial staff of The National Review). How about we just suit up more mercs, because their record has been so stellar!

Perhaps the next surge can be manned by the mercs of C.R.I., who appear in the cool video? They couldn't do any worse than Blackwater, CACI or Halliburton...

You can get more on this uplifting story here. 

Vice President Cheney is asked about the young American who was working in Iraq, who was drugged and gang raped by co-workers, then locked in a shipping container by her employer, KBR. 

Why no? You mean this government of complete propriety and their friends the war profiteers? Say it ain't so!

Here is a taste of a story that ought to make you sick:

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

It gets worse, if you can believe it. You can go here for the rest if you can stomach it....

No, sadly, the words most of us long to hear--including a majority of those in uniform--were not uttered by one of our leaders. But by new British PM, Gordon Brown:

GORDON Brown yesterday delivered a stirring festive message to Our Boys in Iraq: "Happy Christmas - war is over."

The PM was cheered as he praised UK troops and revealed combat operations in Basra will end "within two weeks".

More details here.

Don't worry though, it's ok, because the profiteers will still collect their multi-millions even if more of our brave troops die because of this.

For all the dirty details of this story go here.

Gee, I wonder what they could have been talking about? The New England Patriots? Hip hop? Or perhaps something more nefarious...

Another Gottalaff effort. Really well done and hysterical.

Go here for more on this...