Today’s Must Read

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

So what defense contract in Iraq didn’t involve a kickback? What contract was awarded through competitive bidding? As Pentagon investigators conduct an unprecedented review into corruption in the department’s Iraq contracting, it’s a rare bid that wasn’t crooked.

Yesterday, Congress learned that $6 billion worth of contracts are under criminal review. That’s right — criminal:

Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan — including food, water and shelter — were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.

In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and matériel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.

Taken together, the figures, provided by the Pentagon in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, represent the fullest public accounting of the magnitude of a widening government investigation into bid-rigging, bribery and kickbacks by members of the military and civilians linked to the Pentagon’s purchasing system.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) called DOD’s procurement process “a culture of corruption,” an assessment that appears to represent the bipartisan consensus. Yet the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general said the contracting corruption was attributable to “isolated incidents.” Yes, $6 billion worth of isolated incidents.

Underscoring the culture-of-corruption charge: a court case reveals that a company hired to build the U.S. embassy in Iraq, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, paid $200,000 in kickbacks for two Army contracts. The allegation comes out of testimony given by a former KBR contracting official, Anthony Martin, convicted of bribery earlier this year.

Martin said in court documents that he agreed to receive kickbacks before awarding a $4.6 million contract to First Kuwaiti to supply 50 semi-tractors and 50 refrigeration trailers for six months. A month later, Martin awarded First Kuwaiti an additional $8.8 million subcontract to supply 150 semi-tractors for six months.

For his effort, Martin said, the company agreed to pay him $200,000. After he received an initial $10,000, he took a trip back to the United States. When he returned, he says he told the company he would not take any additional money.

The court filing says Martin’s “criminal benefactor appears to have completely escaped responsibility for his misconduct and instead continues to profit from a cozy relationship with the government.”

First Kuwaiti is accused, among other things, of using slave labor to build the embassy. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is investigating whether State Department Inspector General Howard “Cookie” Krongard obstructed an internal review of the charges.

Latest Muckraker
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: