Defense Spending
The
cry in Congress is “Cut Spending. We are spending way too much money. We are
going broke”. We’re certainly doing that all right. In my posting to this blog
on January 7th, I discussed the subject of government spending,
especially defense spending, and it is not a pretty picture. As a matter of
fact, our spending for defense is an abomination to this country and an insult
to the intelligence of those managing it, their integrity notwithstanding. We certainly
need defense and the necessary spending that goes with it. We all agree with
that, I’m sure, but we don’t need the downright criminal lying, cheating, stealing,
and politicking that are going with it, not to mention the bungling
inefficiencies in the procurement processes.
January
28th, Army Times published an article on their website reporting the
filing on January 23rd of a civil suit against the company, KBR
(formerly, Kellogg, Brown, & Root), for incidents which occurred in 2003
and 2004, ten years ago. The charges?–KBR used morgue reefers to transport ice
and food for human consumption without properly sanitizing them first, charging
the government for the cost of these reefers without disclosing their prior
use. In addition, the report also alleges that the heart of the Justice
Department’s suit lays in the claim that Kellogg, Brown & Root Services
Inc., and Kuwaiti companies La Nouvelle General Trading & Contracting Co.
(La Nouvelle) and First Kuwaiti Trading Co. (First Kuwaiti), in 2003 and 2004,
took kickbacks and submitted false claims in connection with KBR’s army
contract to provide support in Iraq.
The alleged
activities occurred under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP
III, an umbrella contract for an indefinite delivery of an indefinite quantity
of wartime logistical support services such as transportation, maintenance,
food, shelter, and facilities management. KBR is alleged to have claimed
inflated, excessive reimbursements as well as reimbursement for goods and services
that were grossly deficient or not provided, one example of which is a
subcontract to supply fuel tankers for more than three times the tankers value.
La Nouvelle later rewarded the KBR employee who awarded the subcontract with a
$1 million bank draft, the suit claims.
This is only a small
example of the corruption in our Defense Department. Let me suggest to you a
book which will provide many more–many, many more. Buy it. Read it. Read about the
Carlisle Group, KBR, DARPA, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, the Cheney
connection, the Bush family connection, and the Saudi connection. The title of
the book is, What Every American Should
Know About Who Is Really Running The World, written by Melisa Rossi and published by Penguin in 2005. Once finished, you will
understand much more fully the Shadow Government of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite, really in charge of and running our
country.
As an afterthought, in the event you do care enough about what is happening to our country and choose to read the additional matter recommended, ask yourself a couple questions. In light of the fact that many of these same companies have been sued time and time again over the years for these fraudulent acts, why do our leaders continue to buy from them? Why don't we purge each and every one of them from our source of suppliers? One more, please–why do we persist in continuing with this enormously expensive facade of subcontracting?
Ronald Miller
mtss86@comcast.net
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