Parsons Fails in Iraq, But Keeps Lucrative Government Contracts?

One of the things you can do when a company fails to fulfill their obligations in Iraq--and screws the US taxpayer--is to look at just how many other possible government contracts they still have in other areas. Why should a defense contractor get away with not building a prison in Iraq but still keep contracts to provide workers for the US government in the United States?

I'm sure there are all kinds of high-minded reasons why I'm totally wrong, but here goes: Parsons of California screwed the taxpayers big time in Iraq:

The U.S. government paid a California contractor $142 million to build prisons, fire stations and police facilities in Iraq that it never built or finished, according to audits by a watchdog office.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said Parsons of Pasadena, Calif., received the money, part of a total of $333 million but only completed about one-third of the projects, which also included courthouses and border control stations. The inspector general's office is expected to release two detailed audits today, evaluating Parsons's work on the contract, which is worth up to $900 million.

"Far less was accomplished under this contract than originally planned," the inspector general wrote. "Millions of dollars in waste are likely associated with incomplete, terminated and abandoned projects under this contract." Auditors did not give a dollar figure of how much had potentially been wasted, but they said Parsons got about 10 percent -- or $11.3 million -- of the $108 million of award fees it could have received.

Parsons said in a written statement yesterday that it had "some serious reservations about the conclusions" in the audits, saying the company was hindered by the violent and unstable security situation in Iraq. One of Parsons's subcontractors was shot and killed at close range while in his office, the company said.

Therein lies the real problem--Parsons is merely stealing your money because it can. And while it is stealing your money, it's getting an award for doing a great job as it lies about the progress it is making so that it can claim awards it does not deserve.

And while all of that is going on, your government basically takes the coal shovel, and shovels the money at them while no one is watching over the contracts:

The office, which is charged with finding waste, fraud and abuse in U.S. spending, said a contract of Parsons's size should have had 50 to 60 contracting officers and specialists working on it, but it only had 10.

Parsons won its lucrative deal in 2004 to do security and justice work in Iraq, as part of a dozen other big reconstruction deals. Of 53 construction projects in the Parsons contract, only 18 were completed.

Auditors gave Parsons a scathing report on one of its biggest projects -- a multimillion-dollar prison in Diyala that was to house 1,800 inmates and help alleviate overcrowded facilities -- calling it a failure and wasteful. The U.S. government fired Parsons from the prison contract two years ago, saying it was late and over budget. It paid Parsons $31 million, and then paid other contractors $9 million to keep working on the project.

If Parsons was fired from that contract two years ago, take a look at this story from last year--another project to help restore the oil exporting infrastructure in Iraq details how Halliburton and Parsons have failed to meet deadlines:

Heavily armed soldiers spend their days at the oil terminals scanning the horizon looking for suicide bombers and stray fishing dhows (boats). Meanwhile, right under their noses, smugglers are suspected to be diverting an estimated billions of dollars worth of crude onto tankers because the oil metering system that is supposed monitor how much crude flows into and out of ABOT and KAAOT has not worked since the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Officials blame the four-year delay in repairing the relatively simple system on "security problems." Others point to the failed efforts of the two U.S. companies hired to repair the southern oil fields, fix the two terminals, and the meters: Halliburton of Houston, Texas, and Parsons of Pasadena, California.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) is scheduled to publish a report this spring [Spring, 2007] that is expected criticize the companies' failure to complete the work.

You'd think the gravy train was over for Parsons. You'd think they wouldn't have the gall to keep trying to get more government contracts and fill contractor positions at various US government sites. You'd think there would be great concern as to granting Parsons any more work. But, no worries! If you want to work on a government contract for Parsons, there's no shortage of existing government contract work waiting for you. Parsons has scores of current listings, all throughout the continental United States and throughout the world, looking for people to fill positions on key government contracts.

I believe there should be some sort of law or some sort of regulation that ties what a company does in Iraq to what they do in the United States or in other regions. If a company blows it in Iraq and fails to meet its obligations there, then that company should have its other contracting work for the government held, called into question, or audited for similar cost overruns or practices. Some companies may claim that what their international division does is separate from what their domestic division does--I think that's a sham in order to stovepipe things and keep the money flowing to one part of their business while they use another part of their business to rip off the taxpayers.

And, as if this needs to be added, Parsons should not be awarded any more government contracts until it rectifies the problems with the existing or previous contracts.

The Weapons Will ALWAYS Improve in War

Better, faster, deadlier and more lethal--that's the trend in war. As we increase our ability to protect our soldiers, the weapons that our enemies use to try to kill them also increases. The trick is to anticipate changes in tactics and weapons and always give our troops what they need. A sluggish Pentagon that has a broken procurement system and a bloated bureaucracy can't do that--but who the hell expected the enemy to strap propane tanks to rockets?

Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops.

U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year.

The latest reported rocket-propelled bomb attack occurred Tuesday at Joint Security Station Ur, a base in northeastern Baghdad shared by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. One U.S. soldier and an interpreter were wounded in the attack.

U.S. military officials say IRAM attacks, unlike roadside bombings and conventional mortar or rocket attacks, have the potential to kill scores of soldiers at once. IRAMs are fired at close range, unlike most rockets, and create much larger explosions. Most such attacks have occurred in the capital, Baghdad.

First of all, saying that they have "begun" to use these weapons is a misnomer--just by doing some quick research, I've found people talking about these incidents as far back as October, 2007.

Rockets fired at COP Cashe; 1 rocket seized (1)
A robot controlled by Soldiers from the 789th Ordnance Company, from Fort Benning, Ga., currently attached to the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, investigates an Iranian 107mm rocket at a launch site Oct. 23 [2007]. Five rockets were fired at Combat Outpost Cashe from the site, but no soldiers were injured. Only one rocket managed to land inside the outpost perimeter. Date: 10/30/07

You can see that a weapon like that is relatively easy to transport, aim and fire at our troops and that it could easily be smuggled in a car. Add some propane tanks, and you're in business.

The question I always as, is this really a brand new phenomenon?

A June report on the Web site Long War Journal called the explosives-filled propane tanks "flying IEDs."

Militia members and insurgents have at times increased the sophistication of their weapons, but the rocket-propelled bombs are makeshift devices that also have been used in recent years by insurgents in Colombia. Propane tanks are ubiquitous in Iraq, where the fuel is widely used for cooking, making it hard for security forces to stop production of the bombs.

We always seem to be repeating our mistakes--here's a photo from the Vietnam War of a US soldier holding the remains of a 107mm rocket:



And much about what we learned about IEDs in the Vietnam War could have been applied to what we face today in Iraq. The difference is a technological one, not a philosophical one. Granted, adding propane tanks seems to be all the rage in Iraq since that's what the general population uses. I just hate to see us repeating our mistakes and failing to anticipate what's around the corner.

Why the Military Can't Fix Equipment Fast Enough

According to a GAO report issued on July 8, the amount of equipment being sent to the five military repair depots is causing incredible strain on the system that repairs the equipment our military needs to sustain operations

The five Army depot maintenance activities support combat readiness by providing services necessary to keep Army units operating worldwide. From fiscal year 2004 through fiscal year 2007, the amount of new orders received to perform work increased from approximately $2.6 billion to $5.2 billion—about a 100 percent increase. These orders were to repair and overhaul a wide range of assets, including helicopters, such as the Apache and Blackhawk; combat vehicles such as the Abrams tank; air defense systems, such as the Patriot missile; electronics; and inventory items for the Army, other military services, and foreign governments. Many of these weapons systems are used to support the Army’s current effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. To perform the work needed in support of the Global War on Terrorism, the number of employees at the five depots increased from 12,983 to 15,717—a 21 percent increase—from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2007 and the number of direct labor hours of work increased from about 16.3 million in fiscal year 2004 to 24 million for fiscal year 2007—a 47 percent increase.

The five Army depots operate under the working capital fund concept, where customers are to be charged for the anticipated full cost of goods and services. To the extent that the depots do not complete work at year-end, the funded work will be carried into the next fiscal year. Carryover is the reported dollar value of work that has been ordered and funded (obligated) by customers but not completed by working capital fund activities at the end of the fiscal year.

The dramatic increase in "carryover" is the strain, and because we are running at full speed in Iraq and increasing our operations in Afghanistan, the carryover is only going to increase unless drastic action is taken to reduce that strain. I should also note--what "foreign governments" are putting strain on the system? I hope they need the gear to help us fight.

The following chart shows the growth--and the strain--that the military repair depots are under:



The reasons are pretty stark for this:

Our analysis of fiscal years 2006 and 2007 Army depot reports and discussions with depot officials identified four primary reasons for the significant growth in carryover. While some of these reasons are under the control of other DOD activities, such as customers not sending assets needing repair to the depots as planned, other reasons are within the depots’ control.

•First, the Army depot maintenance budget significantly underestimated the amount of new orders received from customers by about $1.7 billion and $1.5 billion for fiscal years 2006 and 2007, respectively. While the depots performed more work than budgeted during fiscal years 2006 and 2007, they could not keep pace with the increases in new orders.

•Second, the depots accepted new orders late in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 that could not reasonably be completed (and in some cases were not even started) prior to the end of the fiscal year.

•Third, our analysis of depot data and interviews with depot officials found that the depots experienced shortages in parts needed to perform their work in fiscal years 2006 and 2007.

•Fourth, based on our review of selected depot production reports on the status of work and discussions with depot officials, we determined that unserviceable assets (assets requiring repair) were not sent to the depots for repair as planned. Army officials informed us that in some cases the assets remained in-theatre (such as Iraq) for longer periods than planned.

I think it's outrageous that the planning was this bad. Obviously, "no one could have forseen" that we'd be tied down in two wars, one unsustainable and one escalating quickly out of control because of a lack of available US troops.

If one of these facilities is located near you, I would be willing to bet you that they're hiring and looking to expand. As the demand increases, the GAO indicated that these facilities have been adding personnel:

• Anniston performs maintenance on both heavy- and light-tracked combat vehicles and their components, such as the M1 Abrams tank.

•Corpus Christi Army Depot (Corpus Christi) overhauls, repairs, modifies, tests, and modernizes helicopters, engines, and components for all services and foreign military customers.

•Letterkenny Army Depot (Letterkenny) has tactical missile repair capabilities supporting a variety of DOD missile systems including the Patriot and its ground support and radar equipment. In response to the Global War on Terrorism, Letterkenny is rebuilding the High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV) that are returning from theater and is rebuilding them to a configuration that will support add-on armor.

•Red River Army Depot (Red River) performs maintenance, certification, and related support services on ground combat systems, air defense systems, and tactical wheeled vehicles. Systems supported include the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, Multiple Launch Rocket System, Small Emplacement Excavator, 5-ton dump truck, and HMMWVs.

•Tobyhanna uses advanced technologies to ensure the readiness of U.S. armed forces and is a full-service repair, overhaul, and fabrication facility for communications-electronics.

This last part is the part that probably bothers me the most--the lack of spare parts is absolutely killing our ability to repair and refurbish equipment and get it back to the troops. When you hear stories like thisabout how we found ourselves in urban combat with the wrong equipment or simply not enough of it and this story where a soldier complains about waiting months for "a handful of screws" , it indicates to me that we have never properly put this country on a wartime footing and used our manufacturing and industrial capabilities to supply the troops. What's lost in all of this is that if we invested in helping create or sustain a dozen or more companies that could manufacture and upgrade or retool and rehabilitate equipment, it would create jobs. It would be "pork barrel spending" to certain folks but it would be money well spent to sustain our military AND reduce the strain on these depots:

Our analysis of depot data and interviews with depot officials found that the depots experienced shortages of parts needed to perform their repair work in fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Our analysis of data in the critical maintenance repair parts reactive system11 at four depots showed that in 733 and 605 instances, repair parts shortages resulted in work stoppage in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, respectively. DLA and to a lesser extent Army Supply were the sources of supply for most of the repair parts. DLA officials told us that a major difficulty DLA faces as a supplier is forecasting the amount of repair parts needed when the depots’ types and numbers of repairs keep changing. Having a firm requirement (quantity of items to be repaired) early in the process is critical if DLA is to provide the spare parts to the depots when they need them. However, this has not always been the case. For example, as discussed later in this report, in November 2006, Red River accepted an order to overhaul 200 HMMWVs. Over the next 4 months, the order was amended first to decrease the quantity to 106 and then increase the quantity to 344. According to DLA officials, changing requirements, similar to this example, make it extremely difficult to forecast the spare parts needed for repairs. If DLA waits to buy the parts until the depot has a firm requirement, the parts might not be available when the depot needs them. On the other hand, if DLA buys the parts before the requirement is firm, DLA is at risk for excess inventory of parts when requirements for parts are significantly reduced.

Depots Could Not Obtain Parts Needed to Perform Repair Work as Scheduled

In order to perform the required repair work and help minimize the impact of parts shortages on depot operations, the depots have taken a number of actions to obtain parts when they were not available, including using parts from other assets, commonly referred to as robbing parts; fabricating the parts; and obtaining parts through the use of their local procurement authority, including the government purchase card. The following are examples of actions taken by the depots.

In October 2006, Anniston accepted a $5.6 million order financed with fiscal year 2007 operation and maintenance appropriated funds to overhaul 1,200 M2 machine guns. The work was originally scheduled to begin in March 2007. Because of the lack of parts, the work did not begin until July 2007 which resulted in more carryover than originally planned. About $5.4 million of the $5.6 million carried over from fiscal year 2007 into fiscal year 2008.

Because of the Global War on Terrorism and the surge in production of the M2s, Anniston had problems with obtaining parts to overhaul the machine guns since 2004. Because the depot could not get the needed parts from DLA or Army Supply, it used parts from other M2 machine guns. Some of these parts included the barrels, buffer body assemble, bolt, barrel extensions, breech locks, and receivers. Since the depot used parts from these 1,200 machine guns to repair machine guns in previous years, these 1,200 machine guns were missing parts. By the time the depot overhauled the 1,200 M2 machine guns, about half of the M2s had been totally stripped of their parts. An Army official stated that the machine guns going through overhaul were the “worst of the worst.” To perform the work, the depot had to buy new parts and have the Picatinny Arsenal fabricate barrel extensions in order to obtain the parts needed to complete the overhaul. This extra work increased the costs to about $10.4 million and the work was completed in December 2007.

In November 2006, Red River accepted an order totaling approximately $24.8 million to overhaul 200 M1114 up armor HMMWVs from the Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command. The order was financed with fiscal year 2007 operation and maintenance appropriated funds and was modified twice. In January 2007, the order was reduced to overhaul 106 HMMWVs for about $13.1 million. Two months later in March 2007, the order was increased to 344 HMMWVs for about $56.1 million. In performing this work, the depot encountered two problems. First, the HMMWVs were not always available, resulting in changes to scheduling the performance of work. Second, the depot encountered problems in obtaining the material it needed to perform the repairs. For example, in May 2007, there was a shortage or potential parts shortage of 45 different parts to perform this work. To obtain the parts needed to perform the work, depot officials stated that they used parts from other vehicles at the depot or purchased parts via local procurement, including using government purchase cards. In August 2007, there was a shortage or potential parts shortage of 30 different parts. Since most of the work was not completed in fiscal year 2007, about $37.5 million carried over into fiscal year 2008. As of December 2007, documents showed that the depot anticipated completing work on this order in April 2008.

In discussing the M1114 up armor HMMWV work with Red River officials, they told us that the problems encountered in performing the fiscal year 2007 work also occurred in the previous fiscal year. First, the quantity to be repaired kept changing. Specifically, in January 2006 they accepted an order to repair 37 HMMWVs. In March 2006, the order was amended to 108 HMMWVs. Then in July 2006 the order was amended to repair 58 HMMWVs. Finally, in August, 2006, the order was amended back to 108 HMMWVs. Second, the depot also encountered problems on obtaining parts to perform the work. According to depot officials, because the last amendment increasing the order to 108 HMMWVs occurred in August 2006 and the HMMWVs to be repaired were in poor condition, the carryover amount was high.

Finally, someone who knows what the hell they're supposed to use their government credit card on!

As this problem gets worse, remember--every time a troop doesn't have the equipment that they need in a war zone, their unit suffers, their readiness suffers and they are placed in danger for no good reason.

And that's the real outrage here. No American should ever reach for a weapon or go without a vehicle that isn't there in a war zone.

Another Corrupt Army Officer Pleads Guilty

Are we ever going to get to the bottom of what went on in the early days of the Iraq war? How could our government funnel billions of dollars in cash into the country and not provide any basic oversight or control on what happened to the money?

An Army officer and his wife have pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme involving contracts in Iraq, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

Maj. John Cockerham, 43, pleaded guilty to one count each of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering, the Justice Department said. His wife, Melissa, 41, pleaded guilty to a count of money laundering.

The pleas were taken on Jan. 31, but weren't unsealed until Tuesday, the Justice Department said.

John Cockerham admitted taking or being promised more than $9 million in bribes for awarding contracts while stationed in Kuwait, the Justice Department said. He was responsible for awarding contracts worth millions of dollars including those for bottled water.

Once he agreed to take the bribes, Cockerham told contractors to pay his wife, sister and others to hide the activity, the Justice Department said.

What's even worse is that, reportedly, two suicides in Kuwait can be linked to the investigation that caught Cockerham:

Although a Justice Department official said it was too early to know if the suspects in the corruption investigation operated independently or in a network, public records indicate that several served overlapping tours. At least two officers who worked at Camp Arifjan when Major Cockerham was there committed suicide after learning they would face bribery charges. One, Maj. Gloria D. Davis of Missouri, shot herself in December 2006, a day after admitting she took at least $225,000 in bribes, government officials said.

Here's how it all worked--allowing Cockerham to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars:

The camp, a $200 million logistics hub, stands like an island in the middle of the desert south of Kuwait City. Major Cockerham worked in a prefabricated two-story building with about 20 other military people and civilians, committing millions of dollars on the phone or with a few strokes on his computer in his cubicle.

Military officials said a major assigned to award such large contracts for the Army Contracting Agency should have at least 10 years of experience in “broad acquisition,” a minimum of four years of direct contracting experience and annual ethics training. But the procurement workload from the Iraq war grew so big so fast that the Pentagon was forced to rush people with virtually no training or experience into some of its most complicated contracting jobs, Army officials said.

“From what I understand, John didn’t get the courses he should have had for his assignment until his assignment was over,” said Mr. Parks, Major Cockerham’s lawyer.

Oversight was virtually nonexistent by design. There were no auditors at Camp Arifjan, and contracts worth more than $500,000 were the only ones requiring review in Washington. Most contracts were written for about $100,000. It was also common for contracting officers to use “blanket purchase agreements,” allowing them to open a line of credit with a company with little more than a promissory note, much like a customer at a small-town grocery store.

Ideally, Army officials said, the purchasing cycle would be divided among at least three contracting officers. One would take an order for supplies from a unit commander and seek bids from companies to fill the order. Another would award the contract, and a third would oversee delivery of the goods. That system, officials said, would allow each contracting officer to serve as a check on the others.

At Camp Arifjan, a single contracting officer handled all three parts of the process, giving the officers broad discretion and creating opportunities for unit commanders to join conspiracies by inflating their troops’ needs. What resulted, said Mr. Young, the Army Contracting Agency director, was “a web of deceit.”

The only thing that is shocking is that he got caught. Cockerham apparently kept ledgers of what he did in his home--a pretty clear indication that he knew what he was doing was wrong, he wanted to keep detailed records of what he was doing, and at the end of the day, proof positive that a person can be too smart for their own good.

Memo to all you wannabe criminal masterminds out there--don't keep a ledger of all of the the illegal things you do in your home.

Here's Why We Need a Truman Committee

I hate to write about something that's going to upset people so early in the morning, but how can anyone stomach the incompetence and the greed and the corruption of the political appointees of the Bush Administration?

A House investigative committee has learned that the American ambassador to Albania knew evidence of Chinese origins was being removed last year from an ammunition shipment before a U.S. contractor sent the material to Afghanistan, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel.

This month, Maj. Larry Harrison, a Pentagon official at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, told staff members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Ambassador John L. Withers II held a late-night meeting with Albania's defense minister. After the Nov. 19 meeting, the order was given to Albanian officers "to remove all evidence of Chinese packaging" from the ammunition, Waxman said in a letter sent yesterday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In a June 9 appearance, Harrison told the committee that "the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing," Waxman wrote. Harrison also said "that he did not agree with the decision to remove the Chinese markings," Waxman said.

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Efraim E. Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., the U.S. company involved, on 71 counts, including conspiracy to defraud the government on a $298 million U.S. Army contract to provide various types of ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.

Where do you start with something like that?

I hope Major Harrison's career doesn't come to an end because of this incident. Rarely does the person who speaks up and blows the whistle on the Bush Administration and their political appointees emerge unscathed from the act of thwarting their political goals and their rampant greed. Someone will likely take action against Harrison's career, and that's why we are seeing a military that is hollowed out, staffed with yes-men, and overrun by the God-boys who invite crazies to come to the Pentagon and give them briefings.

No matter how you look at this story, what emerges is a troubling incident of corruption and greed:

On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.

Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.

The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.

According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.

Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.

This is the kind of thing that sets off warning bells. When Major Harrison realized what sort of ground he was standing on, he immediately took steps to protect himself--perhaps he already was savvy to how the Bush Administration treats people who get between them and their money:

After his hour-long interview, Harrison "expressed an interest in seeking advice of counsel" and a Pentagon attorney terminated the session, Waxman wrote. Three days later, Harrison's lawyer told the committee he needed at least two weeks to prepare for continuing the interview.

Waxman charged in his letter that "it appears" embassy officials kept from the committee information related to the ambassador's meeting in Albania. Harrison told the panel that he had "urged embassy officials to inform the committee," Waxman wrote, but embassy officials did not mention it in response to a prior request for information.

All this, so a few corrupt officials in Albania could dump Cold War-era ammunition into the hands of some Club-hopping trash from Florida, who could then make millions re-packaging it and sending it to the Middle East.

Perhaps the death penalty for war profiteers isn't harsh enough.

A Day of Reckoning Is Coming

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) weighs in on the use of contractors:

In 2006, 52 major defense contractors employed 86,181 of the 1,857,004 former military and civilian personnel who had left DOD service since 2001. This number includes 2,435 former DOD officials who were hired between 2004 and 2006 by one or more of the contractors and compensated in 2006, according to our match of DOD and IRS data. These officials had previously served as generals, admirals, senior executives, program managers, contracting officers, or in other acquisition positions which made them subject to restrictions on their post-DOD employment. We found 1,581 of the 2,435 former DOD officials—about 65 percent—were employed by seven of the contractors: Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., L3 Communications Holding, Inc., General Dynamics, and Raytheon Company. In addition, to estimate how closely related work assignments of former DOD officials were to their previous assignments at DOD, we examined in greater detail the job histories of a randomly selected sample of former DOD senior and acquisition officials employed by the contractors.

It is no secret that the Pentagon used many former military officers to "help sell the war in Iraq" and other issues. Regular readers will also remember that one company, Booz Allen Hamilton, has divested itself entirely of government contracting work, selling that part of its business to The Carlyle Group.

Does that mean that a day of reckoning is coming, along with massive cuts or changes? Booz Allen Hamilton seems to be betting that the contracting business is about to implode. While that is likely not the case, large cuts or reforms could radically change the relationship between contractors and the Federal government.

One reason for this is the now exposed lack of ethics and accountability in the federal contracting sector. By focusing on individuals and companies who might have faced mandated "cooling off" periods between their government employment or service and their contracting work, the GAO found a number of companies either didn't ask or weren't able to provide proper ethical guidelines memorandum. These memorandums ensure that the contractor is within guidelines, and what it boils down to is this--a general can leave the military, go to work for a private company, and directly influence or benefit from that military service with no consideration as to whether or not that person brings an unfair advantage in exchange for monetary compensation to that contractor.



The GAO provides what is best described as an "oh shit" moment in the making:

Similar to the requirements of defense contractors, no laws or regulations require DOD ethics or acquisition officials to track or monitor former DOD employees after they begin their new contractor jobs to ensure compliance with applicable post-government employment restrictions. As discussed earlier in this report, past legislative requirements to make the employment of former officials with defense contractors more transparent to DOD by having individuals or contractors report to DOD on the post-government employment with contractors were not successful and were repealed by 1995. However, the changed requirements left DOD without a mechanism to obtain information about its former senior and acquisition officials who go to work for its contractors. In our view, and DOD ethics and procurement officials agree, the information currently available to DOD from providing written ethics opinions to former DOD senior and acquisition officials who request them regarding prospective employment restrictions has limited utility for monitoring compliance with post-government employment restrictions once former DOD officials go to work for defense contractors for several reasons:

• while officials have been encouraged to seek an ethics advisory opinion, they were not required to obtain them, nor were contractors required to ask for them;
• DOD’s record-keeping for its written ethics opinions is decentralized at the many defense ethics offices that issued them; and
• DOD lacks a mechanism for providing the information to contracting officers or program managers for a particular contract.

Nonetheless, for DOD’s purposes, ethics advisory opinions may now be more readily available and centrally located because of the 2008 defense authorization act provision that requires former officials to obtain written ethics opinions on applicable post-government employment restrictions from their DOD ethics officials before accepting compensation from defense contractors for a period of 2 years after leaving DOD service. DOD also has a new record-keeping requirement to retain each request and each written opinion provided in a central database or repository for at least 5 years.

While this requirement may help to increase transparency over which former officials are working with contractors and what may raise a potential conflict of interest, its utility may be limited because information is not being tied to specific contracts. Senior ethics officials in DOD’s Standards of Conduct Office and the director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy and Strategic Sourcing (DPAP), for example, told us that DOD currently does not have a mechanism to link information on former officials’ post-DOD work for their new employers for specific defense contracts that are pending or awarded before their former agencies, offices, or commands. They believed that such a mechanism would be valuable to program managers and contracting officers who need to ensure that contracted work being done in their programs is free of conflicts. They also believed that such a mechanism would be relatively cost-effective to implement. After learning of the results of our data collection efforts, in fact, these officials were concerned that current mechanisms do not provide DOD a clear picture of how many former officials are working with contractors and what risks of conflicts are present.

It would seem that, once the Congress catches up to this issue, there will be a day of reckoning, and the idea of "ethics" could be reintroduced to a community that has benefited greatly from large contracts and inside information. Generally when a lack of accountability occurs in a given area, there is a rush to close the loopholes, solve the underlying issues, and enforce the laws. In this case, billions of dollars of taxpayer money are at stake--much of it has been poured down a rabbit hole already. Discovering that there were significant lapses in the enforcement of ethical guidelines only makes the larger issues of where the money spent for the Iraq war, for example, really went an issue for a reform-minded Congress. The end result of any significant reform would mean that a number of prominent, highly placed and well-compensated individuals would either have to comply with ethical guidelines or see their days of feeding at a considerably large and profitable trough ended abruptly.

Trouble Ahead For Boeing?

As one of the largest defense contractors, Boeing has experienced a series of serious setbacks recently. Can the company survive these setbacks and continue to grow?

In another blow to Boeing Co.'s battered defense business, the U.S. Air Force on Thursday [May 15] tapped rival Lockheed Martin Corp. for a contract potentially worth more than $3.5 billion to build a new generation of global positioning satellites.

[SNIP]

The loss of the contract, known as Global Positioning System IIIA, was Boeing's third high-profile defeat in as many months.

The company lost a $35-billion contest to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force in February and a $3.74-billion award to build unmanned spy planes for the Navy in April.

Boeing's recent troubles might not have anything to do with this story, from October of last year--but it raises some troubling concerns. Since that time, Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks:

Boeing has fired an employee for speaking to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after the newspaper published a story in July saying that Boeing couldn't properly protect data in its computer systems from theft, manipulation and fraud. The story also suggested that the company may have misrepresented the security of its data in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The fired employee says he was trying to save the company but was treated badly after he raised ethical concerns internally about how the company was conducting security audits of its systems. He then spoke with a reporter as well as the SEC about his concerns. Now he says the company is retaliating against him, instead of trying to fix its problems. An anonymous e-mail sent to the Seattle P-I also disclosed that Boeing is spying on other employees to ferret out whistleblowers by videotaping workers and reading their e-mail.

The Seattle P-I's July story about Boeing's alleged security problems revealed that the company had failed repeatedly to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act -- a law that requires companies to prove that they have internal control of their data to prevent anyone from manipulating financial numbers and deceiving stockholders. The law requires companies to, among many other things, implement controls that restrict access to data and computer systems to only those people who need it, and that access and changes to systems -- including code changes -- are well documented.

When your company cannot comply with Sarbanes Oxley, it generally means there is chaos and trouble within. Since that story broke, Boeing's stock has plummeted and it has lost out on some lucrative business.

The details of how Boeing had its biggest loss--the tanker deal--show that the company wasn't really even in the running:

Boeing Co failed to beat Northrop Grumman Corp in any of the key criteria in the $35 billion tanker aircraft competition won by Northrop and its European partner, according to a defense analyst with close ties to the Air Force.

"This was not a close outcome in any sense of the term," the analyst, Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, told Reuters. "Northrop won decisively and completely, and Boeing simply was not competitive in the major measures."

Thompson said in a report on Monday that Boeing matched the appeal of the Northrop bid only in the area of proposal risk. And that came only after Air Force reviewers pressed Boeing to stretch out its aggressive development schedule for a new version of its 767 jet, which in turn added cost.

In fact, the Boeing proposal was initially rated as "high-risk" because reviewers were concerned that Boeing's proposal to build a new version of the 767, using parts from other versions, would cost more than expected.

Boeing couldn't compete with Northrup Grumman to build UAVs for the Navy, either:

Northrop’s Global Hawk beat out a highly modified unmanned Gulfstream G550 offered by Boeing and the Predator-based Mariner UAV offered by the Lockheed-General Atomics team.

2008 has been good to Northrop, which in February secured the $35 billion Air Force contract for 179 tankers, along with European partner EADS.

That contract is frozen, thanks to a protest filed by the loser, Boeing, which is not having such a good year in its defense efforts. In March, the Chicago-based firm lost the $766 million Joint Tactical Radio System’s Airborne Maritime Fixed Station program to Lockheed Martin. It failed to persuade the Air Force to sign a contract for more C-17 cargo lifters, and is fighting to hold on to the $15 billion-plus combat search-and-rescue helo contract it won in November 2006.

Boeing's loss of the Global Positioning System (GPS) deal was due in part to its inability to meet current expectations:

The new generation of satellites will be able to locate objects with 9 inch accuracy, a substantial improvement over the current satellite constellation. That improved accuracy is scheduled to come online in 2019. In the meantime, Boeing appears to be struggling to fulfill its current GPS contract. "Boeing has yet to launch a single satellite under its most recent GPS contract from April 1996, and in 2006 the company forfeited $21.4 million and replaced the program's managers after delays and cost overruns," Bloomberg reports.

Boeing has successfully deployed satellites for the Air Force, most notably the WGS-1

Boeing today [May 12] announced that the U.S. Air Force has placed the first Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite into operation over the Pacific region. The Boeing-built satellite transitioned to operations on April 16, following extensive satellite and ground system tests conducted by the government with support from Boeing engineers.

"The successful launch, checkout and handover of WGS-1 went smoothly and is a testament to the great work of the combined government and contractor team," said Brig. Gen. Susan Mashiko, commander of the Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles. "The performance of this first WGS satellite is nothing short of exceptional."

WGS is the first operational SATCOM system supporting the government's transformational communications architecture. Each satellite has the capacity to transmit information at rates of more than three gigabits per second. This is more than 10 times the capacity of the government's Defense Satellite Communications System, known as DSCS.

There's also trouble with Boeing's 787 as well:

Customers of the much-anticipated but late-to-the-gate 787 Dreamliner are waiting for Boeing to make official what they strongly suspect -- that delivery of the first plane will be delayed into the second half of 2009 or beyond.

Deliveries of the Dreamliner are already 10 months behind schedule and glitches along Boeing's complex global supply chain slowed production and forced the company to redesign its wing box. Asked on Apr. 3 about the possibility of yet another delay, Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach simply acknowledged that an announcement of a revised schedule is coming soon.

How best to explain Boeing's troubles? Is there simply too much competition for contracts? Are they too many companies vying for an ever-shrinking pile of money from the defense and aviation sectors of an economy being strained by escalating fuel costs?

For starters, Boeing's stock has begun to recover from a disastrous performance in March.



Boeing is also deploying an aircraft that can fire lasers:

After years and years of development, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser, a modified C-130H turboprop plane, last week fired its chemically-powered ray gun "in ground tests for the first time," the company says in a statement.

The plane is supposed to be a prototype for a flying laser blaster that can "destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations."

If "it performs to spec," Lew Page at the Register notes, the ATL could "take out targets such as individual vehicles or cellphone towers, silently and from as far as 18-20 kilometers. People in the vicinity of an ATL strike might not realize what had happened until well after the event, if at all. This could be especially handy for Boeing's initial customer - the US military's secretive Special Operations Command."

In this weird economy, bad news is sometimes good for business:

Bad news, but, apparently, it's also good news. Boeing shares have risen nearly 5% since the news. Why investors view a halving of previous delivery estimates, and another six-month delay in production, as "good news," I've got two theories:

Investors thought the delay would be longer than six months, or perhaps worse ...They feared the delay might be shorter. Had Boeing pushed the envelope and targeted another three-month extension on the 787, then failed to meet its deadline once again, investors' faith in management would almost certainly have broken. As it is, Boeing is building in two months more than even it thinks are needed to wrap this project up, the idea being to give itself a "safety margin" in case unexpected problems crop up during testing and certification of the 787.

So in retrospect, perhaps it was also good news when Boeing lost the KC-X Tanker contract to Northrop Grumman last month. Now Boeing can use all that free time to get things right on the commercial side of its business.

As Boeing goes, so goes the nation? Is there more trouble ahead?

Bean Counting Gone Horribly Wrong

Put this on your outrage pile...

Since 2004, the Pentagon has spent roughly $16 billion annually to maintain and modernize the military's business systems, but most are as unreliable as ever—even as the surge in defense spending is creating more room for error. The basic defense budget for 2007 was $439.3 billion, up 48 percent from 2001, excluding the vast additional sums appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to federal regulators and current and former Pentagon officials, the accounting process is so obsolete and error prone that it's virtually impossible to tell where much of this money ends up. While the department's brass has made a few patchwork improvements, billions are still unaccounted for. The problem is so deeply rooted that, 18 years after Congress required major federal agencies to be audited, the Pentagon still can't be.

There are some wars going on--you'd think we'd see some cooperation:

Preoccupied with protecting their turf, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines continue to maintain separate, increasingly outdated systems that can't talk to each other, trace disbursements, or detect overbilling by contractors. At the Indianapolis facility, as at the Defense Department's four other main U.S. centers for financial operations, accounting programs under the same roof can't share information without extensive jury-rigging, as though contracts, payments, and accounting had nothing to do with one another.

"In the Defense Department, what you have now are material weaknesses that are in every single area, in every part of the department, so deep and so wide you do not really have any way of figuring out where money is being spent," says Linda Bilmes, a federal budget expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

You have to read all the way up to page three to find this little nugget:

The Indianapolis center and other back offices are supposed to comply with a congressional mandate to track how much of each year's emergency appropriations are spent on the Bush administration's declared global war on terrorism. But a former senior official from the Indianapolis center, who requested anonymity, says that its outmoded systems can't be tweaked to produce such data. Instead, it's done offline by workers combing through computer data and pulling out what they think should be attributed to the war on terrorism. Their guesswork, the source says, is probably way off.

The dysfunction stems in part from the traditional independence of the military branches. Over several decades, they have cobbled together separate processes for identical functions, resulting in the uncontrolled growth of more than 4,000 accounting, financial, and inventory systems. Their names form an acronym soup: CAPS, Stanfins, IAPS, Somards, Samms, Mocas, HQARS, Stars. The department's primary system for handling weapons contracts and payments dates from 1958; a costly attempt to replace it was abandoned in 2002 as a failure. The Army's notoriously inaccurate main accounting system was created in 1966.

I would hasten to add that none of this is by accident. I happen to know there are certain DoD agencies that have sophisticated systems that are pretty complex. They're up to date, have vast capabilities, and use cutting edge technology. Whatever boondoggle exists in Indianapolis is largely an intentional design, combining the best efforts of thousands of planners to hide the money they're spending and keep Congress off of their turf.

The first task of the next Secretary of Defense is to designate the system that they're going to use, and give everyone two fiscal years to transition. And then every single computer, mainframe, desk lamp and lightswitch in Indianapolis gets shut off, permanently. Failure to do that means an instant 25% cut in funds for each year until the DoD is in compliance with Congress. Fix it, make everyone use it, and then shut that old system down forever.

BREAKING - When The Generals Lied - The Briefings Are History

This doesn't surprise me, but that's what the news dumps are for--putting the bad news out when no one will see it.

The secretary of defense will no longer brief retired military officers-turned-network television analysts, the chief Pentagon spokesman said Friday.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings said he suspended the program this week amid media scrutiny of the practice.

An article in the Sunday New York Times alleged that the analysts were used to push the Bush administration's messages topics including the war in Iraq and what was going on in the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report also claimed that some of the analysts were involved in business contracts with the Pentagon -- information the newspaper said was rarely or never disclosed, even to the networks.

The briefings were started by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2003, during the buildup to the war in Iraq.

Hastings said that since his arrival at the Pentagon this year, the group of analysts has not met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. But he was unclear whether the analysts had ever met with Gates, who took over the post in December 2006.

And with good reason--Gates isn't interested in lining the pockets of sycophants. That's the difference between Gates and Rumsfeld. Gates isn't going to let anyone profit from what he controls. Case closed.

That's why I'm so glad we went in-depth with this story and I think we both feel vindicated for our outrage. I was mocked on Sunday and Monday on another blog, which shall remain nameless, for being bent out of shape about this. Well, for those folks, and for the Generals who lied and made money, I got one thing to say:

Who's laughing now, bitches?

When The Generals Lied - "The Nation" Was On to Them In April, 2003

I don't know how many more of these I will end up doing--maybe a couple more in the next few weeks, as time allows. There really is no end to what you'll find when you go digging in this mess.

The New York Times article by David Barstow has a kindred spirit in this article, from April 2003, that appeared in The Nation:

Perhaps Americans can be excused for imagining that "regime change" in Iraq would be a cakewalk. So did Don Rumsfeld, who lashed back at critics accusing him of approving a too-optimistic war plan. Like Rumsfeld, a veritable army of ex-generals playing military analysts on TV seem to have gotten the story wrong, too, and are only now, very belatedly, changing their tune.

One might have expected a pro-military slant in any former general's initial estimation of the US invasion. But some of these ex-generals also have ideological or financial stakes in the war. Many hold paid advisory board and executive positions at defense companies and serve as advisers for groups that promoted an invasion of Iraq. Their offscreen commitments raise questions about whether they are influenced by more than just "a lifetime of experience and objectivity"--in the words of Lieut. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a military analyst for NBC News--as they explain the risks of this war to the American people.

McCaffrey and his NBC colleague Col. Wayne Downing, who reports nightly from Kuwait, are both on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a Washington-based lobbying group formed last October to bolster public support for a war. Its stated mission is to "engage in educational advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein," and among its targets are the US and European media. The group is chaired by Bruce Jackson, former vice president of defense giant Lockheed Martin (manufacturer of the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and other aircraft in use in Iraq), and includes such neocon luminaries as former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle. Downing has also served as an unpaid lobbyist and adviser to the Iraqi National Congress, an Administration-backed (and bankrolled) opposition group that stands to profit from regime change in Iraq.

NBC News has yet to disclose those or other involvements that give McCaffrey a vested interest in Operation Iraqi Freedom. McCaffrey, who commanded an infantry division in the Gulf War, is now on the board of Mitretek, Veritas Capital and two Veritas companies, Raytheon Aerospace and Integrated Defense Technologies--all of which have multimillion-dollar government defense contracts. Despite that, IDT is floundering--its stock price has fallen by half since March 2002--a situation that one stock analyst says war could remedy. Since IDT is a specialist in tank upgrades, the company stands to benefit significantly from a massive ground war. McCaffrey has recently emerged as the most outspoken military critic of Rumsfeld's approach to the war, but his primary complaint is that "armor and artillery don't count" enough. In McCaffrey's recent MSNBC commentary, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle," and added for good measure that the "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker." In March alone, IDT received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware.

Downing has his own entanglements. The colonel serves on the board of directors at Metal Storm Ltd., a ballistics-technology company that has contracts with US and Australian defense departments. The company's executive director told the New York Times on March 31 that Metal Storm technologies would "provide some significant advantage" in the type of urban warfare being fought in Iraq.

So much for predictions. Everything in the article from 2003 appears largely confirmed as fact in Barstow's article, and that just shows everyone that not only was The Nation solidly in front of this story but that Barstow was dead-on in his collating of everything that has been going on since April 2003. There's a book here, between these two articles, and someone could probably do it justice. Would it sell? That's the part that breaks your heart. No one gives a shit.

How else can you explain the fact that many of these officers will continue to appear on Television every night, speaking in hushed tones about how wonderful everything is? It's clear that McCaffery's early opposition was tempered by 2006--why the reversal? Could it be all of that procurement money was speaking louder than the truth? At what point did they get to him? Did someone walk into his office and tell him to "knock this shit off" and get behind the war or the gravy train was going to end?

When it comes to procurement, there seems to be a gaggle of former military officers who were willing to say anything publicly in order to ensure that their business interests weren't threatened by a Pentagon that might award a contract to another company. The procurement boondoggle has been around forever. It was there in 1775 when the chaotic and disorganized elements of the Continental Army were trying to find blankets and shoes, and the people in Boston and New York were only too happy to oblige with whatever rotting stock they could sell at a markup to an agent who was supposed to be acting on behalf of the soldiers. By the end of the war, these agents were rich men, at least the ones who weren't caned and beaten for being corrupt.

“We knew we had extraordinary access,” said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’ ” For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq’s security forces. “I know a snow job when I see one,” he said. He did not share this on TV.

“Human nature,” he explained, though he noted other instances when he was critical.

When I read things like that, my first reaction is to yell "bullshit." I personally don't think Mr. Eads was paying attention. He was probably more interested in lining his own pockets than he was in looking at Iraqi police officers and their gear. Anyone who has seen the dog-and-pony show knows one thing--the participants don't give two shits about anything that doesn't directly affect them. As in, where are the drinks, where's the food, where's the goodie bag, where do I go shopping, when do we get to fly fast in the Blackhawk.

To say, well after the fact, that he thought it was a "snow job" is to expect him to have a level of sophistication that hasn't yet been demonstrated. General Petraeus was writing, in 2004, of how great the Iraqi police were. I'm supposed to assume retired LTC Eads was "smarter" and more "knowledgeable" than the new CENTCOM Commander? Was he just spreading the same lies? Or did he think he had more insight? If so, why didn't he call Petraeus on it publicly in the early years of the war, when Petraeus was busy failing to achieve his mission and train the Iraqi police? Well, the proof of that would be if Eads actually said, at the time, what he thought was the "snow job" part of the whole matter.

Whoops! He didn't tell anyone. We have to take his word for it. Pardon me if I do not.

You see, when these men are caught lying, they have to try to justify and explain themselves. They have been caught lying about something they know nothing about, and that's war. How sad is it that we have a generation of military men that had their careers slotted between Vietnam and the start of the Iraq War in 2003 and, by and large, to a man, they know absolutely nothing about war? A full scale reform of the service academies, the schools and the courses, and the very organization of the military itself should be front and center. Sadly, it's glossed over.

If an analyst who was always wrong about everything gets caught in that lie, the first thing they are going to do is to try to dodge accountability by claiming "private" views that were correct all along, thereby mitigating the fact that their "public" statements were consistently wrong. That's called covering your ass, because who's going to hire someone who's paid to be right but has a track record of being wrong about everything? That wingnut welfare only extends to the civilians, you know. Retired military officers do get that pension, you know. That's more than Bill Kristol and Michael O'Hanlon get.

Procurement seems to be the part that keeps surfacing when I look into the details of this article. Yeah, it's been out for a while, and no, the media isn't running with this ball. They're running AWAY from the story, simply because it makes the corporate ownership uncomfortable.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood.

Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction contracts from the coalition.

In 2003, in the same article above, The Nation wrote:

At Fox News, military analysts Lieut. Col. Bill Cowan and Maj. Robert Bevelacqua are CEO and vice president, respectively, of wvc3 Group, a defense consulting firm that helps arms companies sell their wares to the government. It recently inked an exclusive deal with New Zealand's TGR Helicorp and will help the company hawk its military aviation equipment to the United States. The firm trades on its inside contacts with the US military, and a message on its website reads, "We use our credibility to promote your technology" (accompanied by the sound of loud gunfire).

The networks don't seem too concerned about what the analysts do on their own time. "We are employing them for their military expertise, not their political views," Elena Nachmanoff, vice president of talent development at NBC News, told The Nation. She says that NBC's military experts play an influential role behind the scenes, briefing executive producers and holding seminars for staffers that provide "texture for both on-air pieces and background." Defense contracts, she adds, are "not our interest."

I don't know about you, but that last bit speaks volumes as to why the networks don't care to have this story continue to be talked about. Everyone "seems" to have understood that the war was a boondoggle--if you spoke favorably, you got to ride on the gravy train. If you didn't the train ride was over and you were tossed off the side with nothing.

How did any of that serve the best interests of the American people or the soldiers we sent to fight?

Really, I don't know how much more obvious it has to be. Why can't anyone see that that was what was going on? Doesn't anyone in this country, aside from those of us who hang out here, even care?

When The Generals Lied - LTG Thomas McInerney

LTG Thomas McInerney is the first stop in our series. Out of the group of senior officers profiled in this story, McInerney appears to be one of the more corporately connected officers.

McInerney is a Fox News analyst. This is his bio sketch:

General McInerney is the founder of Government Reform Through Technology, a consulting firm that works with high-tech companies. GRTT conducts business with federal, state, city and local governments to help them introduce advanced technology into the public sector.

Prior to this, he was the CEO and the president of Business Executives for National Security, a national, nonpartisan organization of business and professional leaders.

For 35 years, General McInerney served as a pilot, commander, and strategic planner in the U.S. Air Force.

He retired from military service as Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Director of the Defense Performance Review, reporting to the Secretary of Defense. He led the Pentagon's "reinventing government" effort, visiting more than 100 leading-edge commercial companies to assimilate their ideas about business re-engineering.

General McInerney graduated from the United States Military Academy and earned a Master's degree in international relations from George Washington University. He also attended the Armed Forces Staff College and National War College.

This part has either been deliberately left out or was not relevant to include:

Ezenia! Inc., (OTCBB:EZEN.OB), today announced that Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney USAF (Ret.) has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors. His appointment is effective immediately.

[snip]

General McInerney also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Alloy Surfaces Company, KIL Inc. Kilgore Flares Co, LLC, SABA (Federal Advisory Board), Pan American International Academy (Flight Simulators), Agusta Westland NA, Nortel Government Solutions and Crescent Technology Ventures Plc .

According to the New York Times, McInerney was receiving "talking points" from the Pentagon:

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

“Good work,” Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. “We will use it.”

Coincidentally, McInerney was serving on various company boards in late 2006--as outlined above. He has worked in the corporate world throughout his career, and there's nothing wrong with that. But one of the companies he was working with, Ezenia! Inc., was almost wholly dependent on contracts with the Department of Defense:

These risks and uncertainties include the considerations that are discussed in the Company' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006, such as the evolution of Ezenia!'s market, dependence on the United States government as its largest customer and on other major customers, continued funding of defense programs by the United States government and the timing of such funding

At the same time that McInerney was disseminating favorable talking points for the Pentagon, Ezenia! was given a monetary award:

Nashua, N.H. (November 27, 2006) - Ezenia! Inc. (OTCBB:EZEN.OB), a leading market provider of real-time collaboration solutions, today announced the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, New York has awarded the Company a $1 million contract extension for Phase II of its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract.

Despite McInerney's presence on the Ezenia board, the company failed to show significant profitability. In 2007, tough times hit Ezenia!:

NASHUA – Computer networking company Ezenia Inc. lost $4.5 million last year – a decline of more than $8 million from a profitable 2006.

The Nashua company attributes some of the loss a to $2.2 million increase in operating expenses amid declining revenues. Ezenia spent extra money on product improvements, sales and marketing, and legal fees, the company reported Wednesday.

The company also faced expenses from the closing of its Colorado office and the consolidation of those operations into the Nashua headquarters. That move is expected to eventually soften quarterly losses.

"Management expects that the company will continue to be under pressure for at least the first half of 2008 as market conditions remain uncertain," Khoa Nguyen, chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.

However, a decision by DoD in February, 2008 to award Ezenia a lucrative contract renewal for a tenth consecutive year seems to have turned things around:

NASHUA, N.H., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ezenia, Inc (OTCBulletinBoard: EZEN) , a leading provider of real-time collaboration solutions for corporate and government networks, announced today that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has renewed its license subscription for InfoWorkSpace under the Joint Intelligence Virtual Architecture (JIVA) contract, for a tenth consecutive year.

Sponsored by the DIA, JIVA provides the Intelligence Community with state- of-the-art DCID security, ensuring that critical data is delivered to only the appropriate individuals. Over the last 9 operating years, InfoWorkSpace has a track record of proven, reliable collaboration capabilities unparalleled by any other collaboration product. Using InfoWorkSpace has ensured critical information gets delivered so a rapid response can be coordinated. The secure data being distributed enables a seamless coordination to geographically dispersed organizations, and assists in the successful execution of critical missions around the world. This architecture touches not only all direct U.S. intelligence agencies, but also each individual branch of the U.S. military. Ezenia is extremely proud of the historic use of InfoWorkSpace in the context of this mission.

Dozens of companies could provide this same service--but in the 9th year of this contract, Ezenia! was losing money. So why would DoD keep feeding a small company that couldn't make money from this program? McInerney's term on the board of directors was set to expire this year, and he was not reappointed. But it does call into question whether or not this company was able to stay afloat, win contract renewals, win a one million dollar bonus and survive a management shakeup if McInerney wasn't on their board while doing the legwork of the Pentagon to help sell the war to the American people.

Could it be because General McInerney was on their board--and was actively disseminating the talking points of the Pentagon? It gives one pause.

UPDATE I 11:00AM

Here's a snippet of what kind of thinker McInerney is:

I might sleep easier if this were merely Becker’s invention. But all of it, he writes, is prefigured in the Pentagon’s OPLAN 5027, a scheme for ‘defeating the enemy in detail’ (whatever that means). Last March [March, 2004] the Atlantic convened a ‘war game’ with former American diplomats and generals to see how a new conflict with the North might play out. Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, an air force strategic planner with decades of experience, played the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ‘Would we win?’ he asked. Well, ‘there’d be a lot of carnage,’ but yes, we would win – ‘quicker than we did in Operation Iraqi Freedom’ most likely, or in the worst case it might take an extra month. Civilian casualties in Seoul could be kept down to no more than 100,000 (not one South Korean was invited to participate in this ‘game’). North Korea’s nuclear weapons upset the balance of power in the region, he thought, so the US should give nukes to Japan and South Korea for pre-positioning. Once the war begins, for every nuke the North use ‘we will use a hundred.’ That also applies should the North transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists: ‘If any nuclear weapons go off in the United States, you are a target,’ General McInerney would tell Pyongyang, even if it weren’t clear where the weapons came from. The opaque and uncontrolled Other excites exterminationist impulses: it would be nice to say that this is merely McInerney’s view, but the pattern runs deep in American history.

And, This little nugget from September, 2007:

General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney of the Iran policy committee.

“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”

What is the "Iran Policy Committee?"

It appears to be part of the Nuclear Control Institute, although the connection is murky, to say the least. Coincidentally, Captain Charles Nash and Major General Paul Vallely were prominently featured in the New York Times article, alongside McInerney. It's interesting that such vocal supporters of the war in Iraq would be part of the Iran Policy committee.

HERE is an excellent explanation as to why McInerney is ideologically suspect:

On the April 12 [2006] edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing the potential use of military action to thwart Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Fox News military analyst retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney purported to "lay out a campaign today that will take Iran down very quickly." When asked by host Bill O'Reilly if his military strategy "would be all air, no infantry, and maybe some Special Forces trying to help," McInerney responded that was "correct." But neither McInerney nor O'Reilly mentioned that McInerney also said in 2002 that the military campaign in Iraq, which has now lasted longer than three years, would be "shorter" than the 42 days it took to complete the Persian Gulf War in 1991, adding, "It is going to be absolutely awesome, and that's why this war, if we do it properly, will go very quick, and we'll have less civilian casualties than we did last time."

When the Generals Lied (a proposed Series)

It might be worth our while to do this as a series.

This is from the New York Times article, a supplementary piece which shows the actual communications and memos. It's pretty devastating.

It should also put to rest any idea that this was all made up. In fact, what I plan to do is to try to correlate procurement and public support for the war. I don't know what I will be able to find, but here's some of the methodology that will likely be used.

I plan to start looking at various retired generals or admirals who comment regularly on CNN, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, CNN and whoever else is out there. I suspect that a number of print or online organizations have had this "message spin" done to them in different ways as well.

I think you can then track down instances where a positive spin was given in public by a general AND a subsequent award of a contract within the procurement realm of DoD. Now, I'm not alleging anything illegal--procurement in and of itself is very detailed and I'm not going to allege that something was awarded to a company that did not produce adequate bids or documentation. I think it's important to begin aligning the positive spin, the business benefits, and who was responsible for giving that spin while sitting on the board of a company that then benefited from a DoD procurement award.

When you start with this info:

Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts’ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.

“The worst conflict of interest was no interest.”

Mr. [Wayne] Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq — a clear ethical violation for most news organizations.

And then when you start to think about this kind of thing:

CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq.

General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it failed to do additional vetting.

“We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have,” CNN said in a written statement.

In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. “I mean, that’s what McNeil does,” he said.

CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil’s military business or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006.

General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on CNN. “I’ve got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest,” he said.

But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, and finally made inquiries about his new job.

“We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end our relationship with him,” CNN said.

I sure would like to know how the hell this went on, and at what cost to our government.

When the Generals Chose Lies Over Their Soldier's Lives...

We are returning this post to the top of the page. This is the story that everyone should be talking about. This is the story that should have us taking to the streets. Stars on the collar do not automatically equate with honor. These shameless men need to be held up and singled out for special scorn and ridicule. They are traitors and they are complicit in the deaths of 1600+ American service members. Hold them accountable.

UPDATED, to fix the link, to categorize some of the items here, and see below for what we propose to do with this subject as a series of posts throughout the next few weeks or so...




Ultimately, we will never view the words "military analyst" or "retired General" in the same light again. We used to look upon these people as noted experts, members of a small elite of military officers that had perspective that few Americans possessed, and, ultimately, honest brokers of the information that they were sharing with the American people. I'm going to use this article from the New York Times to break down how we have traded the lives of soldiers for access, and how a select group of men have betrayed their country for a few measley dollars.

In April 2006, Pentagon officials, starting with then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, met with various "analyts" who were then appearing on various television networks. These "retired military analysts" were also men who sat on the boards of various defense contractors, and were given increased access to people like Rumsfeld in exchange for properly disseminating a pro-administration view that the war in Iraq was going better than what was really going on. At the time of this meeting, there were generals who were opposed to the war, and opposed to Rumsfeld personally, and they had started what was dubbed a "revolt of the generals" in order to get the message across to the American people that the war in Iraq was going off the rails. When the details of that meeting were leaked, and when they were written about in the New York Times, the American people were only given an inkling of what was really going on--and that is, a major campaign was underway to lie to the American people to give the Bush administration political cover:

In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept “very formal,” records show. “This is very, very sensitive now,” a Pentagon official warned subordinates.

On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

“I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ”

“What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?”

There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war was rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The administration’s overall war strategy, they counseled, was “brilliant” and “very successful.”

“Frankly,” one participant said, “from a military point of view, the penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes, is relative.”

That's right--at that point, only 2,400 US troops had lost their lives, and it was being bandied about as all "relative." Think of how many we could have saved if the American people had been told the truth.

The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his life, several analysts recalled.

Soon after, analysts hit the airwaves. The Omnitec monitoring reports, circulated to more than 80 officials, confirmed that analysts repeated many of the Pentagon’s talking points: that Mr. Rumsfeld consulted “frequently and sufficiently” with his generals; that he was not “overly concerned” with the criticisms; that the meeting focused “on more important topics at hand,” including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government.

Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

“Focus on the Global War on Terror — not simply Iraq. The wider war — the long war.”

“Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.”

But if Mr. Rumsfeld found the session instructive, at least one participant, General Nash, the ABC analyst, was repulsed.

“I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions,” he said.

Omnitec was a company hire to--get this--measure just how much the military analysts were able to effectively spread the pro-war message that the Pentagon was trying to put out there. Never again will we look at these men without wondering..."who has bought them off? Have they been co-opted? What boards do they sit on? Does the Secretary of Defense have a hand up their back and is he moving their mouths?

Better yet--how did this even happen? Well, without Congressional oversight, this is how it all came to be:

In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld’s private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Mr. Allard [General Wayne Allard] said, describing the effect. “You’re back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV.” It was, he said, “psyops on steroids” — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. “It’s not like it’s, ‘We’ll pay you $500 to get our story out,’ ” he said. “It’s more subtle.”

One of the Generals who participated in the elaborate shell game that helped cover up just how badly the war in Iraq was going back in 2005 used an apt analogy that should send shivers down the spine of everyone who knows just how badly the American people were manipulated during the Vietnam War:

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

At a time when these men could have--COULD HAVE--stepped up and done something to save the lives of US troops by pointing out the woeful shortages of equipment, these men went before the American people and tried to spin the situation. And I use spin as a euphemism for "fuck the soldiers over to provide political cover for the Bush Administration."

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. “They can’t shoot, but then again, they don’t,” one officer told them, according to one participant’s notes.

“I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

“You can’t believe the progress,” General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months.

“We could not be more excited, more pleased,” Mr. Cowan told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. There was barely a word about armor shortages or corrupt Iraqi security forces. And on the key strategic question of the moment — whether to send more troops — the analysts were unanimous.

“I am so much against adding more troops,” General Shepperd said on CNN.

What is clear from this article is that the silence of the generals equated to a betrayal--a betrayal bought and paid for with dead Americans. Instead of telling the truth, these generals lied to the American people, so that they could hold on to their "access" to key Pentagon officials and the continued flow of money from the Pentagon into the companies they represented:

Some analysts said that even before the war started, they privately had questions about the justification for the invasion, but were careful not to express them on air.

Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq’s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled asking the briefer whether the United States had “smoking gun” proof.

“ ‘We don’t have any hard evidence,’ ” Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. “We are looking at ourselves saying, ‘What are we doing?’ ”

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling “very disappointed” after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being “manipulated” to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

Mr. Bevelacqua and another Fox analyst, Mr. Cowan, had formed the wvc3 Group, and hoped to win military and national security contracts.

“There’s no way I was going to go down that road and get completely torn apart,” Mr. Bevelacqua said. “You’re talking about fighting a huge machine.”

Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006.

“Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,” he wrote. “I will do the same this time.”

Punishment for ANY general who stood up to the Rumsfeld information machine was swift:

On Aug. 3, 2005, 14 marines died in Iraq. That day, Mr. Cowan, who said he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the “twisted version of reality” being pushed on analysts in briefings, called the Pentagon to give “a heads-up” that some of his comments on Fox “may not all be friendly,” Pentagon records show. Mr. Rumsfeld’s senior aides quickly arranged a private briefing for him, yet when he told Bill O’Reilly that the United States was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq, the repercussions were swift.

Mr. Cowan said he was “precipitously fired from the analysts group” for this appearance. The Pentagon, he wrote in an e-mail message, “simply didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t carrying their water.” The next day James T. Conway, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, presided over another conference call with analysts. He urged them, a transcript shows, not to let the marines’ deaths further erode support for the war.

“The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.”

“General, I just made that point on the air,” an analyst replied.

“Let’s work it together, guys,” General Conway urged.

Finally, and I know this has been one of the longer posts we've done, the major networks have been shamed into silence by the revelations in this story:

CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts’ business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential conflicts.

NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analysts. The network issued a short statement: “We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest.”

Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network’s military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about any outside business entanglements. “We make it clear to them we expect them to keep us closely apprised,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives “refused to participate” in this article.

CNN requires its military analysts to disclose in writing all outside sources of income. But like the other networks, it does not provide its military analysts with the kind of written, specific ethical guidelines it gives its full-time employees for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest.

All I can add is, shame on these men. Shame on them, and may they never make another nickel off of their access or their use of their background. Congress MUST step in and call these men to appear and hold hearings to determine how much a soldier's life is worth. Apparently, the lives of our soldiers are worthless to men who'd rather trade them for no-bid contracts, a meal with Don Rumsfeld, a free plane ride, and a lucrative gig telling the American people that all is well in a war where we now know, finally, at long last, that all is not well.