U.S. adventure in Iraq torn by scandals
2010Gerry Foley 2010-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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Scandals continue to break about the massive misappropriation of U.S. funds in the occupation of Iraq. The British Guardian reported Jan. 25: “The US state department’s gross mismanagement of a multibilliondollar contract for training Iraqi police has left US funds vulnerable to waste and fraud, a watchdog said “In a scathing report, Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, strongly criticised both the state department and DynCorp International, the firm that won the $2.5bn (£1.5bn) contract in 2004—the largest awarded by the state department.”
DynCorp is one of the mercenary corporations spawned by the privatization of the U.S. military, along with the notorious Blackwater (now renamed “Xe” in attempt to distance itself from its ill fame). It is also a major contractor in Afghanistan. The article continued: “Members of Congress said the latest findings cast doubt on DynCorp’s ability to handle similar contracts in Afghanistan.
“’I don’t have any confidence that they’re doing a better job there. … If we don’t correct this immediately, we are going to be having the same conversation a few years from now,’ said Senator Claire McCaskill, the Democratic chairman of the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight.”
The mercenary outfits represent a level of privatization that exceeds the worst examples of war profiteering in the golden age of the capitalist monopolies in the (continued on page 5, in “New evidence of need for a turnaround in the unions”)
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