Halliburton

A while back I discussed the inevitable consequence of Republican no-bid contracts for companies, like Halliburton, owned by their cronies with no oversight: the electrocution of our troops due to corporate incompetance. This is another part of the crony capitalism and the "Drown America in a Bathtub" ideology of the right wing.

The background story is this: a Halliburton subsidary, KBR, was given a no-bid contract to manage some bases in Iraq. The Republican government let them do this with no real oversight. The incompetence of this company has led to the electrocution of some of our troops due to faulty wiring. This problem was known and yet the company did nothing and continued to be awarded no-bid contracts by the Republicans. And the electrocutions have continued with no action taken.

Finally a freshman Democratic Senator, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, is calling for a formal investigation from the General Accounting Office.

Blackwater is a mercenary organization with close ties to Republican politicians. They are one of the many incompetent war profiteers that the Bush/McCain Republicans love so much. Right now they are best known for a scandal where their poorly disciplined and improperly led mercenaries opened fire on Iraqi civilians. Blackwater's slaughter of these civilians has been declared unjustified and has led to an FBI investigation. This scandal led to resignation of US state department official Richard Griffin and a call for more oversight of these "private contractors" (a code word for Republican war profiteers).

So, when a company performs this badly, what does the Bush Administration do?
Renew their contract, of course! Despite being involved in a scandal that led to the downfall of a State Department official and a considerable blow to our attempts to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Blackwater is rewarded with a renewal to the contract. This is the very definition of mismanagement and it has become the signiture of Republican policy: reward the incompetent.

Of course we already knew that incompetence is rewarded by the Republicans. Halliburton is another one of these Republican war profiteer organizations that consistently disply amazing incompentence. Yet Halliburton still gets any contract they want from the Republicans, despite frequently overcharging for their services, being blatantly corrupt, and being incompetent in the delivery of services to the point of actually regularly letting our soldiers get electrocuted rather than actually fulfill their contract.

No, really, I want my money back.

About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.

More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.

source: Auditors: Billions squandered in Iraq

$10 billion. Think about it folks. This is what it looks like with its "wheels" on: $10,000,000,000. The Bush administration has already spent $350,000,000,000 on this fiasco and is passing the golden gallon-sized chalice, looking for an additional handout in the amount of $100,000,000: of your money. My money. Our money.

Maybe it's unseemly to speak in terms of "wasted" lives--3,000-plus, not counting the destroyed and devastated lives of family members now grieving those fallen, not counting the lives that will never be, uh, "quite the same" (read the War Amputees Blog lately?). PTSD? Put The Sonsabitches on Depakot!

When it comes to the wounded-or shall we just call them the "walking dead"? (oh, I guess that doesn't work either, cause too many of them can't even walk)--we really have no idea how many lives are involved because the U.S. lacks mechanism to accurately track troops wounded in Iraq. What the hell else does the U.S. lack? Universal health care. Adequate funding for public schools. A social safety net to bring anywhere from 2.3 to 3.5 million homeless people in from the cold.

And the civilian body count? By the time I am finished typing this sentence, the stats will already be "dated," so you may as well just see for yourself, here: "We don't do body counts,"-so sayeth CentCom.