Fraud in the Defense Department

Nicole Kaeding The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost more than $1 trillion with billions going to Department of Defense (DoD) contractors. All of that spending has led to a large uptick in waste and fraud. As much as $60 billion has been wasted on U.S. operations in those two countries, according to analysis from the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department has brought more than 235 criminal cases since 2005. The Associated Press highlights some examples: In the past few months alone, four retired and one active-duty Army National Guard officials were charged in a complex bribery and kickback scheme involving the awarding of contracts for marketing and promotional material, and a trucking company driver pleaded guilty to bribing military base employees in Georgia to obtain freight shipments — often weapons which required satellite tracking — to transport to the West Coast. More recently, a former contractor for the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, which provides transportation for the service, was sentenced to prison along with a businessman in a bribery case in which cash, a wine refrigerator and other gifts traded hands in exchange for favorable treatment on telecommunications work. Also, three men, including two retired Marine Corps officers, were charged with cheating on a bid proposal for maintenance work involving a helicopter squadron that serves the White House. The story continues on with the long list of abuses: De...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs