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In reply to the discussion: 8.5 TRILLION !!! - The Pentagon's Doctored Ledgers Conceal Epic Waste - Reuters [View all]Hubert Flottz
(37,726 posts)With the Pentagon budget up two-thirds over the last decade, its no surprise that charges of war profiteering make for regular front-page fodder. But for sheer scale and audacity, nothing beats the corruption that surrounded the Union war effort and, thanks to the horrendously poor quality of the resulting equipment, did much to undermine it.
From the very beginning, government representatives awarded contracts based not on the best product, or the fairest price, but on the highest bribe. As the war progressed, the problem became epidemic: during one week alone in November 1861, contractors in New York generated nearly $3 million in revenues from military deals. It would be easy to excuse a little corruption, or even a lot, if the result was high-quality equipment. But much of the contractors profit came from cutting corners. And with the government representatives more concerned with lining their own pockets than establishing a system of standards, there was little quality control over the goods that went into the field.
Read more...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/the-unions-shoddy-aristocracy/?_r=0
'Multiple' failures led to Iraq electrocution, Pentagon says
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/military.electrocutions/
Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base
A Georgia man has filed a lawsuit against contractor KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, saying the companies exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.
Joshua Eller, who worked as a civilian computer-aided drafting technician with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said military personnel, contractors and third-country nationals may have been sickened by contamination at the largest U.S. installation in Iraq, home to more than 30,000 service members, Defense Department civilians and contractors.
"Defendants promised the United States government that they would supply safe water for hygienic and recreational uses, safe food supplies and properly operate base incinerators to dispose of medical waste safely," according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. "Defendants utterly failed to perform their promised duties." Read more here...
http://www.armytimes.com/article/20081203/NEWS/812030329/Suit-claims-Halliburton-KBR-sickened-base
So why should old folks who paid into Social Security and Medicare be robbed, to pay for the Pentagon's graft and ineptitude?