Accountability Time for Rumsfeld and Gates

Some of you may be interested in reading about waste at the Department of Defense as well as State and USAID. A report is available at:  http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/docs/CWC_nr-49.pdf  For others we provide a synopsis below of the wartime waste commissions findings and some comments of our own.  The findings first:

1.    Iraq and Afghanistan contractor waste runs at least $31 billion and, possibly, as much as $60 billion (aside:  Warren Buffet, please send your share which we calculate at  $6 billion directly to Leon Panetta, Department of Defense, Washington, DC 20301) 

2.    Government agencies rely too much on contractors

3.    Government rules do not apply to contractors (they recommend more control over contractors or just building more government agencies to avoid contractors)

4.    Money spent on projects needing ongoing tending and maintenance will probably also turn into waste later on (the commission recommends that the existing government agencies take steps to prevent this subsequent waste from happening :)

5.    More in the report about government agencies not knowing how to deal effectively with contractors and managing them and making them compete with each other and blah – blah – blah (by the way, the commission suggests an inspector general and staff oversee and prevent these problems; add rules and enforce them (i.e. more bureaucrats)

6.    Major reforms needed (congress should enact laws, blah – blah – blah)

On second thought don’t bother reading it.  It is a waste of time written by well paid bureaucrats asking for more bureaucrats to oversee other bureaucrats who wasted your money because there are not enough bureaucrats. 

Our brief recommendation:  withdraw American military personnel from everywhere possible as soon as possible; call a major timeout within the US military industrial complex and terminate everyone in any way involved with any aspect of any waste identified in the report.   Further, terminate permanently any contracting arrangements of any sort with any company; its personnel, lawyers and accountants working for any person, place or thing identified in the above report.  Then, instruct the Department of Justice (more bureaucrats) to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of American taxpayers to recover the $31 – 60 billion including filing claims against any elected or employed official who had any responsibility to authorize and, consequently, over see the wasted monies identified in the report.

Any fines or settlement monies collected should be used to build a bureaucrat only prison which will be called, The Rumsfeld/Gates Retraining Center (first two occupants.)  Each center (we imagine we will need several) will provide one quarter acre per inmate; one shovel; one hoe and a few packets of seed of the bureaucrats choosing (corn, tomatoes, beans, watermelons, etc...)  When the bureaucrats learn how to take care of and provide for themselves they will be released.

Closing comment.  Bernie Madoff made off with a similar amount of money from his only too willing clients and close friends.  This caused a big hullabaloo with lots of government finger pointing and bureaucratic caterwauling.  In Bernie's case, the court appointed a person to go after the wrongdoers; the bad guys; the ones who benefited, besides Bernie, from his shenanigans.  It's time the courts of this country applied this "holding people accountable" to government employees, government contractors and politicians.  It is long past time that the same accountability applied to private sector Bernie's be applied to the bureaucratic Bernie's.  If nothing else, this report gives them a good road map to start the process.

Visit:  http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/