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by Wisco | February 5, 2007 at 02:18 pm
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Bush's budget request for war.
Agence France-Presse:
President George W. Bush presented the US Congress with a mammoth 716.5 billion dollar budget request to fund large US military, including its missions in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush's defense budget, unveiled as part of a larger government budget plan for fiscal 2008, also seeks to acquire more troops, warships and aircraft for a major expansion of the US military.
The defense budget request came in three pieces -- 481.4 billion dollars for the Pentagon's 2008 base budget; 141.7 billion dollars for the "global war on terrorism" in 2008; and 93.4 billion dollars to cover additional war costs in the current fiscal year to September 30.
How about we get out of the war-making business? There's obviously no money in it. Well, not for taxpayers anyway. Others are making out like bandits.
Hartford Courant:
...a quarterly report to Congress by Stewart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, cites continuing ineptitude and fraud by contractors. It is enough to boil the red blood of American taxpayers. Tens of millions of dollars have been wasted on shoddy construction, poor design and unauthorized expenditures. The bulk of the blame: poor contract oversight.
Notoriously, nearly $44 million was spent on work at a residential camp for police trainers, most notably on unauthorized purchases such as VIP trailers and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The camp was never completed because of security concerns.
There's that nasty word -- 'oversight.' It's way past time congress started exercising oversight and that means saying one simple word.
No.
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Wisco
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 14:58 on February 5th, 2007
At NowPublic, this is high praise from NowPublic editors! Your story is now on the home page for awhile, and everywhere else the “good stuff” box shows up. The links to sources helped lend authority to your point of view- one international and one domestic US , I noticed. Also , the "NO" at the end provides rhetorical power to your point of view, whether one agrees with that point of view or not. A well done piece on an important issue.
at 17:43 on February 5th, 2007
Notoriously, nearly $44 million was spent on work at a residential camp for police trainers, most notably on unauthorized purchases such as VIP trailers and an Olympic-size swimming pool. The camp was never completed because of security concerns.
That was the brain child of Laura Bush.
Raw sewage is leaking from the ceilings in that building,
not to mention its not even safe structurally.
Also, there is an Olympic sized swimming pool, that will neve be used.
I saw one news article headline...
"Did Iraq contractor fleece American taxpayers? "
the way its worded makes it seems its Iraqs fault.
It is a US contractor.
heres some snips.
Brad
911review.org
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But the two contracts reviewed by the special inspector general's staff produced vastly different types of problems. One of the contracts called on Falls Church-based DynCorp International to build a camp to house its trainers. Auditors found that the company performed $4.2 million worth of work that had not been authorized by the contract, including building the pool and 20 VIP trailers at the behest of Iraqi officials. Because of security concerns, the camp was never used.
Parsons was ultimately paid $5.3 million for substandard work, auditors found. The Army Corps of Engineers will also be paid -- up to $2.5 million -- for monitoring Parsons's work, even though auditors said its oversight was "essentially non-existent."
http://tinyurl.com/2hjjg7
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The report places some blame on the Army Corps of Engineers, which was supposed to oversee the project.
"They actually awarded Parsons merit increases despite widespread evidence of deficient work," says Rep. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Parsons' contract was terminated last spring. However, the company insists problems at the academy occurred after it was turned over to the U.S. government. Parsons also says it's done good work on 1,000 projects in Iraq under hazardous conditions.
Bowen disputes this, saying he's found serious deficiencies at almost every Parsons project inspected.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16909438/