Very interesting.
In our last post below, we asked just what defense and national security-related services Mitchell Wade’s MZM, Inc. was providing the US government and whether the fact that Wade had to get Duke Cunningham a house and a boat to secure the contracts tells us anything about the quality of the services Wade’s company provides.
Well, tonight in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marcus Stern — who broke the story ten days ago — follows up with some very telling details.
One of the contracts Wade seems to have bought his way into is this one …
Counter Intelligence Field Activity, a highly secretive program created in 2002 by a Pentagon directive that focuses on gathering intelligence to avert attacks like the ones on Sept. 11, 2001.
I certainly feel better knowing that MZM’s got that one covered.
And then there’s this (emphasis added) …
Cunningham is on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the defense appropriations subcommittee, which puts him in position to influence the awarding of defense intelligence contracts.
MZM had 56 such contracts totaling $68,645,909 in fiscal year 2004, according to Keith Ashdown, an analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense. One of those contracts is to provide interpreters in Iraq. For the most part, the contracts were awarded to MZM without competition through a process known as “blanket purchase agreements.”
Just gets better and better, doesn’t it?
