"Free Market" Mission Accomplished
From some guy who calls himself Atrios and World O'Crap, here are a few enlightening details of how the lean, mean, private market fulfills the mission--to the tune of $20 million tax dollars.
From WoC:
While working on a $21 million contract to safeguard Iraq's new currency as it was being distributed, Custer Battles set up shell companies through which to bill items needed for the contract so they could "inflate costs and create a mark-up in excess of that normally permitted under a cost-plus contract."
Custer Battles (CB) arranged for the forklifts used for moving Iraqi currency to be shown as being leased through their shell companies (at a cost of thousands of dollars per month per forklift). At least one of the forklifts (and perhaps as many as eight of them) had actually been "liberated" from Iraqi Airways. When it first set up shop at the airport, CB ordered its employees to confiscate the forklifts (which Iraqi Airways had been forced to abandon during the war), and paint over the Iraqi Airways insignia. The shell companies then made up lease documents so that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) could be billed for CB's use of the equipment which CB had stolen appropriated.
From the WaPo:
During the trial, retired Brig. Gen. Hugh Tant III told jurors that Custer Battles's performance amounted to "probably the worst I've seen in my 30 years in the Army." Tant had been overseeing the firm's work on the currency conversion contract.
He testified that of the 36 trucks the firm supplied, 34 did not work. When he confronted Battles, he said Battles responded: "You asked for trucks and we complied with our contract and it is immaterial whether the trucks were operational."
That's what they call "supporting the troops."
Contrast that with a post from YRHT noting the 50th anniversary of a true government project: the interstate highway system. I'm guessing that if Custer Battles had worked on THAT, we'd still have a dirt road between NOLA and BR.
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