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Fraud in the Defense Department
From Nicole Kaeding of Cato.
"The wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan cost more than $1 trillion with billions going to Department
of Defense (DoD) contractors. All of that spending has led to a large
uptick in waste and fraud.
As much as $60 billion has been wasted on U.S. operations in those
two countries, according to analysis from the Commission on Wartime
Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department has brought
more than 235 criminal cases since 2005.
The Associated Press highlights some examples:
In the past few months alone, four retired and one
active-duty Army National Guard officials were charged in a complex
bribery and kickback scheme involving the awarding of contracts for
marketing and promotional material, and a trucking company driver
pleaded guilty to bribing military base employees in Georgia to obtain
freight shipments — often weapons which required satellite tracking — to
transport to the West Coast.
More recently, a former contractor for the Navy’s Military Sealift
Command, which provides transportation for the service, was sentenced to
prison along with a businessman in a bribery case in which cash, a wine
refrigerator and other gifts traded hands in exchange for favorable
treatment on telecommunications work. Also, three men, including two
retired Marine Corps officers, were charged with cheating on a bid
proposal for maintenance work involving a helicopter squadron that
serves the White House.
The story continues on with the long list of abuses:
Defense contractor Leonard Francis was arrested in San
Diego last year on charges that he offered luxury travel, prostitutes
and other bribes to Navy officers in exchange for confidential
information, including ship routes. Prosecutors say he used that
information to overbill the Navy for port services in Asia in one of the
biggest Navy bribery schemes in years. Ethan Posner, a lawyer for
Francis, declined comment.
Yet many others involve more mundane cases of contracting or
procurement fraud. Consider the trucking company contractor in
Afghanistan who bribed an Army serviceman to falsify records to show
fuel shipments that were never delivered, or the former Army contractor
who demanded bribes before issuing orders for bottled water at a
military camp in Kuwait.
According to the story, the Defense Department acknowledges the issue
and is working to improve the situation. But if this report is any
indication, DoD has a long way to go."
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