Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., thinks Blackwater USA violated tax laws and may have defrauded the government of millions of dollars. (The company says its guards are independent contractors with the federal government.) Stay tuned, but the proposal to ditch Blackwater for another contractor looks more justified by the day.
Meanwhile, one possible replacement for Blackwater, DynCorp International, is the subject of a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. He says the State Department so badly mishandled a contract that it “does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program.”
The stories have in common not just private contractors toiling in Iraq but the Bush administration’s continuing problems with oversight, accountability and competence.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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21 Comments
What’s the big deal, bush is already going back to the trough, to make up for the lost bils.
Don’t expect Tiahrt to welcome any oversight. Not only does he favor no-bid contracts (hey, it’s only taxpayer money), but he gets campaign contributions from Blackwater.
Where are all the “over taxed” cry babies now? Max? When the right mispends your money thats ok. But when taxes are proposed to help with education or healthcare its….”its free taxpayer money”. Total hypocrisy. If this story was on a education contract misspending tax payer money they would be up in arms. But this is for the good of the country. Dynacorp has stolen 1.2 BILLION. Say nothing reich wingers. Its what you are best at!
You Mike, understand the difference between spending taxes on temporary things and spending taxes on “entitlements.”
Entitlements are long term and will eventually eat our national revenue down to nothing. Medicare and Medicaid if not fixed within the next few years are going to consume the largest portion of tax revenue and cripple the effectiveness of the government.
Follow the money and see exactly where these billions are going for these contractors. Perhaps that is the reason the Bush Administration does not welcome any accountability of transparency? Fat cats are fine and dandy if they are Bush supporters – is that the lesson to be learned here?
Yes Kansas I do understand. Do you understand what being robbed means? This open season on the treasury is your parties fault. This is what you get when you have “no bid” contracts. This administration will be remembered for its lack of accountability, honesty, and more simply lact of accounting. I am not speaking of Entitlements here. I am talking about the looting of the treasury. Are we clear now?
And Public Contractors need Private Oversight.
Are we clear now?
Posted by: Mike | October 23, 2007 at 04:51 PM
crystal. :)
“kansas on entitlements” on entitlemens?
Whatever.
THis is what you get (among other things) when you make war and occupation a for profit enterprise.
Does this mean the Iraq war is now an entitlement?
TO halliburton that would be yes leftcoaster.
Blackwater looks to be about to be made un entitled.
I guess they’ll understand how the poor sick kids who had their SCHIPS taken away feel.
JR is a lying ahole for repeatedly claiming the veto of the EXPANDED SCHIP bill cuts the funding for kids.
Bush agreed to expand SCHIP, but not to 25 year old ‘kids’ and not to families that earn $80,000 per year.
JR, are you that stupid that you follow the Dem Underground talking points or are you intentionally lying?
Well “wahawk”
Vetoing the bill he was sent has the effect of ending funding to the entire SCHIPS program. bush was aware of that. He vetoed it anyway.
That is a statement of fact I lied about nothing.
Hey I don’t blame you cons for being upset. Him doing that is political suicide.
Political suicide JR? You mean Bush won’t be re-elected?
You dumba*s!
Didn’t Congress pass an interim budget bill that was approved by Bush?
Get your facts straight JR.
Now the Liberal Socialist Democrat Congress has NOT passed the budget bills due 10/1/2007 for the next fiscal year.
This Dem Congress has been too busy doing what? Questioning 12 year olds about SCHIPS.
As if we need a 12 year old to tell Congress what to do.
You know, 12 year olds could do a better job then the Demcratic Congress we got now!
Max, you beat me to the point.
JR is just one of the bottom 50% of Americans.
You know, by definition, 1/2 of America is below average.
That be JR.
bush’s veto ultimately ends funding for the SCHIPS health care program for children.
And as I raised this as an aside for comparison, further discussion of it only distracts from the thread.
Gosh how many kids could we insure with the money Dyn corp and Blackwater have misappropriated?
You make a fool of yourself in debate and I’M the dullard? “wahawk”?
Wahawk’blog rank:”ankle biter”
JR, you be the man walking in fools shoes.
Self anoiting yourself make the facts no different.
Any one watching / tracking the cash flow on the arena?
Most of what the liberal press gives us, concerning Iraq, is pure BS.
Here is another “phoney soldier” who wrote for the liberal rag New Republic, who has been totally busted:
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
To inform your opinion, even further, of the rise of privatization (most significantly with our military), read Naomi Klein’s latest book, ‘Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism’.