Paying for the all-voluntary military 14JAN13

THERE is no way I can be described as pro military. I would rather have my tax dollars be spent on social safety net programs, increasing funding for education, job training, infrastructure, protecting the environment, health care, rather than new weapons systems that improve the way we can kill larger numbers of our enemies at the expense of quality of life spending. BUT, I do not support cuts in funding for supplies and services for our troops and vets and their families while the profit margins of military contractors are protected, while the bloated officer corps in every branch of the military waste hundreds of millions of dollars on their own pampered care and while the Pentagon waste hundreds of millions of dollars on marching bands, PR military flyovers, and golf courses, resorts and travel the vast majority of those in the military do not have access to. I find it very disturbing the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission mandated by the 2013 Defense Authorization Bill prohibits "any member from being “employed by a veterans service organization or military-related advocacy group or association,” a move meant to prevent conflict of interest" but not military contractors, members of the military-industrial complex whose interest are profit margins, not our national security. Guess who's interest the commission will best represent? Not the grunt or vet that's for certain. As I have said before, the only hope we have for the US Military to be physically and fiscally revamped  lies with Sec of Defense designate Chuck Hagel, and that is why there is such a firestorm surrounding his nomination. For more on this see my earlier post Excess-profits tax on defense contractors during wartime is long overdue 31DEZ12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/excess-profits-tax-on-defense.html
and 7 Shocking Ways the Military Wastes Our Money 11DEZ12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/7-shocking-ways-military-wastes-our.html
and Top Two Percent To GOP: Tax Us & Defense Execs Say Deeper DoD Budget Cuts, Higher Taxes OK 5&3DEZ12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-two-percent-to-gop-tax-us-defense.html

This from the Washington Post....

By Walter Pincus

The United States can’t sustain the pay, allowances, retirement and health benefits that the all-volunteer military force and their families enjoy, according to a study by the Defense Department’s Reserve Forces Policy Board.
“The all-in cost of the all-volunteer force is one of the time-ticking bombs that could explode our defense capabilities if not dealt with responsibly,” said Arnold L. Punaro, chairman of the board, a former top staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee and retired Marine Corps major general.
Punaro said one reason that it’s difficult to reform the system is because “the Pentagon does not know what the all-volunteer force really costs.” His board study says the Defense Department has not included in its calculations all ancillary, life-cycle costs such as family housing, education, day care, commissaries and health care.
They are the equivalent of what industry would consider deferred compensation, Punaro said.
Under today’s system, military personnel who retire after 20 years of service receive at least 50 percent of their salaries for the rest of their lives, indexed for inflation. Another 2 percent is added for every service year over 20. They also get lifetime health insurance under TRICARE, the military’s HMO-style plan whose current annual fee for families is $520.
“The military (active duty) retirement system is arguably the best retirement deal around. Unlike most retirement plans, the Armed Forces offer a pension (technically a “reduced compensation for reduced services) with benefits that start the day you retire, no matter how old you are,” according to Military.com.
Punaro adds these facts:
“First of all, 80 percent of those who join the military and serve honorably never get one nickel in retirement benefits or health care after they leave active duty. For the 17 percent that make it to a non-disability retirement, 75 percent of them retire at career [year] 23 or less (why wouldn’t they).”
One result, he adds, is “we now have 2.4 million retirees and only 1.4 million active duty.” Adding to the cost, he says, “We have 9 million beneficiaries of the $52 billion-a-year health-care bill of which 5.5 million are retirees and their dependents.”
The 1970 Nixon-appointed commission that recommended moving from the draft to an all-volunteer force said the program “would be unsustainable over time if it did not end the 20-year cliff vesting retirement, the up and out promotion system and change the pay and compensation from time in grade to skills and performance.” The all-volunteer program started in 1973, and 40 years later none of those changes has occurred.
Change will depend on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission, which Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called for last year and Congress established in the fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization Bill. President Obama signed the bill on Dec. 31.
Its task is “to make recommendations to modernize such systems in order to ensure the long-term viability of the All-Volunteer Force.”
There will be nine members, one appointed by Obama and two each by the Senate majority and minority leaders and House speaker and minority leader. A four-month deadline was set to appoint the members. The law prohibits any member from being “employed by a veterans service organization or military-related advocacy group or association,” a move meant to prevent conflict of interest.
Panel recommendations are supposed to come within two years. Five months after the commission is established, the president is to give it a set of principles for modernization. Four months later, the defense secretary is supposed to provide specific recommendations. Six months after that, the commission is to report its findings and recommendations to the president and to Congress.
To protect current members of the armed forces and retirees, the commission cannot change the monthly amount of retirement pay to less than what they would have received under current programs, nor their eligibility date.
Here’s a tough issue for the commission: relating retirement compensation to combat or non-combat service.
On Friday I discussed budget problems before a group of Marine Corps majors and lieutenant colonels at the Command and Staff College at Quantico. Many of them had seen — or would see — service in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.
I noted that, historically, probably fewer than 20 percent of them would spend 20 years in the service and qualify for retirement pay and benefits. I then asked how they felt about those who don’t see combat but serve 20 or more years in office jobs. There was a nervous rustle when I mentioned the Marine Corps Band, “The President’s Own,” most members of which never went to boot camp and who can serve their entire military career in Washington.
According to the band’s Web site, 40 of its musicians have 19 or more years of service, almost all with the band. That’s roughly 30 percent of the band’s musicians, or near double the potential retirement rate for combat and other units. The director, Col. Michael J. Colburn, and his executive and operations officers have each been with the band for more than 24 years.
Shouldn’t a retirement plan have a pay differential between combat and non-combat service since today most enlisted personnel who fight almost never stay in for 20 years? Should there be a totally different retirement system?
It remains to be seen whether Congress will have the nerve to significantly revise a system that the country can no longer afford
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/paying-for-the-all-voluntary-military/2013/01/14/3c4bab00-5e71-11e2-a389-ee565c81c565_print.html

U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa 13JUN12

THIS article is a perfect example of the immoral expansion of American military involvement in countries around the world as presented in DRIFT The Unmooring of American Military Power, by Rachel Maddow ( I am really enjoying this book). War is business and the military-industrial complex is dictating American foreign and military policy to maintain and increase their profit margins at the expense of American taxpayers and to the detriment of American domestic policy and foreign relations. The use of contractors to carry out American military operations allows actions that can lead to open conflict and expand to war without a constitutionally mandated vote on the U.S. going to war. These contractors often do more harm than good in the countries they are operating in, causing resentment of and hostility to American involvement in their governments and countries. Too often, if there wasn't an active, militant, violent opposition in the host country before the contractors arrived one develops. The Pentagon is sending mercenaries who are not accountable by U.S. or local laws for any crimes committed, and the contractors employees are usually nothing more than American government sanctioned gangs. If any of these operations are legitimate they should be approved by Congress and staffed by American military personnel only, and coupled with State Department programs on encouraging and empowering democratic institutions in the host country, supporting universal human rights and providing aid for the development of the local economy. Politically and economically stable allies in Africa are much more cost effective in quashing terrorist activity than corrupting military involvement. Our present activities will only fan the flames of radicalism, the cycle of conflict will continue and the U.S. military-industrial complex will become richer. This from the Washington Post...

By Craig Whitlock

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project.
At the heart of the surveillance operations are small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes. Equipped with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals, the planes refuel on isolated airstrips favored by African bush pilots, extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles.
About a dozen air bases have been established in Africa since 2007, according to a former senior U.S. commander involved in setting up the network. Most are small operations run out of secluded hangars at African military bases or civilian airports.
The nature and extent of the missions, as well as many of the bases being used, have not been previously reported but are partially documented in public Defense Department contracts. The operations have intensified in recent months, part of a growing shadow war against al-Qaeda affiliates and other militant groups. The surveillance is overseen by U.S. Special Operations forces but relies heavily on private military contractors and support from African troops.
The surveillance underscores how Special Operations forces, which have played an outsize role in the Obama administration’s national security strategy, are working clandestinely all over the globe, not just in war zones. The lightly equipped commando units train foreign security forces and perform aid missions, but they also include teams dedicated to tracking and killing terrorism suspects.
The establishment of the Africa missions also highlights the ways in which Special Operations forces are blurring the lines that govern the secret world of intelligence, moving aggressively into spheres once reserved for the CIA. The CIA has expanded its counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering operations in Africa, but its manpower and resources pale in comparison with those of the military.
U.S. officials said the African surveillance operations are necessary to track terrorist groups that have taken root in failed states on the continent and threaten to destabilize neighboring countries.
A hub for secret network
A key hub of the U.S. spying network can be found in Ouagadougou (WAH-gah-DOO-goo), the flat, sunbaked capital of Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in Africa.
Under a classified surveillance program code-named Creek Sand, dozens of U.S. personnel and contractors have come to Ouagadougou in recent years to establish a small air base on the military side of the international airport.
The unarmed U.S. spy planes fly hundreds of miles north to Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara, where they search for fighters from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a regional network that kidnaps Westerners for ransom.
The surveillance flights have taken on added importance in the turbulent aftermath of a March coup in Mali, which has enabled al-Qaeda sympathizers to declare an independent Islamist state in the northern half of the country.
Elsewhere, commanders have said they are increasingly worried about the spread of Boko Haram, an Islamist group in Nigeria blamed for a rash of bombings there. U.S. forces are orchestrating a regional intervention in Somalia to target al-Shabab, another al-Qaeda affiliate. In Central Africa, about 100 American Special Operations troops are helping to coordinate the hunt for Joseph Kony, the Ugandan leader of a brutal guerrilla group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army.
The results of the American surveillance missions are shrouded in secrecy. Although the U.S. military has launched airstrikes and raids in Somalia, commanders said that in other places, they generally limit their involvement to sharing intelligence with allied African forces so they can attack terrorist camps on their own territory.
The creeping U.S. military involvement in long-simmering African conflicts, however, carries risks. Some State Department officials have expressed reservations about the militarization of U.S. foreign policy on the continent. They have argued that most terrorist cells in Africa are pursuing local aims, not global ones, and do not present a direct threat to the United States.
The potential for creating a popular backlash can be seen across the Red Sea, where an escalating campaign of U.S. drone strikes in Yemen is angering tribesmen and generating sympathy for an al-Qaeda franchise there.
In a response to written questions from The Washington Post, the U.S. Africa Command said that it would not comment on “specific operational details.”
“We do, however, work closely with our African partners to facilitate access, when required, to conduct missions or operations that support and further our mutual security goals,” the command said.
Surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations, it added, are “simply a tool we employ to enable host nation militaries to better understand the threat picture.”
Uncovering the details
The U.S. military has largely kept details of its spy flights in Africa secret. The Post pieced together descriptions of the surveillance network by examining references to it in unclassified military reports, U.S. government contracting documents and diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group.
Further details were provided by interviews with American and African officials, as well as military contractors.
In addition to Burkina Faso, U.S. surveillance planes have operated periodically out of nearby Mauritania. In Central Africa, the main hub is in Uganda, though there are plans to open a base in South Sudan. In East Africa, U.S. aircraft fly out of bases in Ethi­o­pia, Djibouti, Kenya and the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Seychelles.
Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command, which is responsible for military operations on the continent, hinted at the importance and extent of the air bases while testifying before Congress in March. Without divulging locations, he made clear that, in Africa, he wanted to expand “ISR,” the military’s acronym for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
“Without operating locations on the continent, ISR capabilities would be curtailed, potentially endangering U.S. security,” Ham said in a statement submitted to the House Armed Services Committee. “Given the vast geographic space and diversity in threats, the command requires increased ISR assets to adequately address the security challenges on the continent.”
Some of the U.S. air bases, including ones in Djibouti, Ethi­o­pia and the Seychelles, fly Predator and Reaper drones, the original and upgraded models, respectively, of the remotely piloted aircraft that the Obama administration has used to kill al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen.
“We don’t have remotely piloted aircraft in many places other than East Africa, but we could,” said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. “If there was a need to do so and those assets were available, I’m certain we could get the access and the overflight [permission] that is necessary to do that.”
Common aircraft
Most of the spy flights in Africa, however, take off the old-fashioned way — with pilots in the cockpit. The conventional aircraft hold two big advantages over drones: They are cheaper to operate and far less likely to draw attention because they are so similar to the planes used throughout Africa.
The bulk of the U.S. surveillance fleet is composed of single-engine Pilatus PC-12s, small passenger and cargo utility planes manufactured in Switzerland. The aircraft are not equipped with weapons. They often do not bear military markings or government insignia.
The Pentagon began acquiring the planes in 2005 to fly commandos into territory where the military wanted to maintain a clandestine presence. The Air Force variant of the aircraft is known as the U-28A. The Air Force Special Operations Command has about 21 of the planes in its inventory.
In February, a U-28A crashed as it was returning to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa. Four airmen from the Air Force Special Operations Command were killed. It was the first reported fatal incident involving a U-28A since the military began deploying the aircraft six years ago.
Air Force officials said that the crash was an accident and that they are investigating the cause. Military officials declined to answer questions about the flight’s mission.
Because of its strategic location on the Horn of Africa, Camp Lemonnier is a hub for spy flights in the region. It is about 500 miles from southern Somalia, an area largely controlled by the al-Shabab militia. Lemonnier is even closer — less than 100 miles — to Yemen, where another al-Qaeda franchise has expanded its influence and plotted attacks against the United States.
Elsewhere in Africa, the U.S. military is relying on private contractors to provide and operate PC-12 spy planes in the search for Kony, the fugitive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a group known for mutilating victims, committing mass rape and enslaving children as soldiers.
Ham, the Africa Command chief, said in his testimony to Congress in March that he was seeking to establish a base for surveillance flights in Nzara, South Sudan. Although that would bolster the hunt for Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, it would also enable the U.S. military to keep an eye on the worsening conflict between Sudan and South Sudan. The two countries fought a civil war for more than two decades and are on the verge of war again, in part over potentially rich oil deposits valued by foreign investors.
Other aviation projects are in the offing. An engineering battalion of Navy Seabees has been assigned to complete a $10 million runway upgrade this summer at the Manda Bay Naval Base, a Kenyan military installation on the Indian Ocean. An Africa Command spokeswoman said the runway extension is necessary so American C-130 troop transport flights can land at night and during bad weather.
About 120 U.S. military personnel and contractors are stationed at Manda Bay, which Navy SEALs and other commandos have used as a base from which to conduct raids against Somali pirates and al-Shabab fighters.
About 6,000 miles to the west, the Pentagon is spending $8.1 million to upgrade a forward operating base and airstrip in Mauritania, on the western edge of the Sahara. The base is near the border with strife-torn Mali.
The Defense Department also set aside $22.6 million in July to buy a Pilatus PC-6 aircraft and another turboprop plane so U.S.-trained Mauritanian security forces can conduct rudimentary surveillance operations, according to documents submitted to Congress.
Crowding the embassy
The U.S. military began building its presence in Burkina Faso in 2007, when it signed a deal that enabled the Pentagon to establish a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment in Ouagadougou. At the time, the U.S. military said the arrangement would support “medical evacuation and logistics requirements” but provided no other details.
By the end of 2009, about 65 U.S. military personnel and contractors were working in Burkina Faso, more than in all but three other African countries, according to a U.S. Embassy cable from Ouagadougou. In the cable, diplomats complained to the State Department that the onslaught of U.S. troops and support staff had “completely overwhelmed” the embassy.
In addition to Pilatus PC-12 flights for Creek Sand, the U.S. military personnel in Ouagadougou ran a regional intelligence “fusion cell” code-named Aztec Archer, according to the cable.
Burkina Faso, a predominantly Muslim country whose name means “the land of upright men,” does not have a history of radicalism. U.S. military officials saw it as an attractive base because of its strategic location bordering the Sahel, the arid region south of the Sahara where al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate is active.
Unlike many other governments in the region, the one in Burkina Faso was relatively stable. The U.S. military operated Creek Sand spy flights from Nouakchott, Mauritania, until 2008, when a military coup forced Washington to suspend relations and end the surveillance, according to former U.S. officials and diplomatic cables.
In Ouagadougou, both sides have worked hard to keep the partnership quiet. In a July 2009 meeting, Yero Boly, the defense minister of Burkina Faso, told a U.S. Embassy official that he was pleased with the results. But he confessed he was nervous that the unmarked American planes might draw “undue attention” at the airport in the heart of the capital and suggested that they move to a more secluded hangar.
“According to Boly, the present location of the aircraft was in retrospect not an ideal choice in that it put the U.S. aircraft in a section of the airfield that already had too much traffic,” according to a diplomatic cable summarizing the meeting. “He also commented that U.S. personnel were extremely discreet.”
U.S. officials raised the possibility of basing the planes about 220 miles to the west, in the city of Bobo Dioulasso, according to the cable. Boly said that the Americans could use that airport on a “short term or emergency basis” but that a U.S. presence there “would likely draw greater attention.”
In an interview with The Post, Djibril Bassole, the foreign minister of Burkina Faso, praised security relations between his country and the United States, saying they were crucial to containing al-Qaeda forces in the region.
“We need to fight and protect our borders,” he said. “Once they infiltrate your country, it’s very, very difficult to get them out.”
Bassole declined, however, to answer questions about the activities of U.S. Special Operations forces in his country.
“I cannot provide details, but it has been very, very helpful,” he said. “This cooperation should be very, very discreet. We should not show to al-Qaeda that we are now working with the Americans.”
Discretion is not always strictly observed. In interviews last month, residents of Ouagadougou said American service members and contractors stand out, even in plainclothes, and are appreciated for the steady business they bring to bars and a pizzeria in the city center.
In April 2010, one American, in particular, drew attention. A U.S. contractor who had been assigned to support the surveillance missions in Ouagadougou was flying home from Africa on leave when he announced that he had been “in Ouaga illegally” and was carrying dynamite in his boots and laptop. As the contractor, Derek Stansberry, mumbled other incoherent stories about allegedly top-secret operations, he was grabbed by U.S. air marshals aboard the Paris-to-Atlanta flight. No explosives were found, but the incident drew international attention.
Stansberry, who did not respond to a request for comment, was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity; he said he was overstressed and had overdosed on the sleep aid Ambien.
A photograph on his Facebook page around the time of the incident showed him posing in the cockpit of a Pilatus aircraft. The caption read: “Flying a PC-12 ain’t that hard.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-expands-secret-intelligence-operations-in-africa/2012/06/13/gJQAHyvAbV_print.html

Obama Unveiling Defense Strategy, Military Cuts 5JAN12

MUCH can be done to cut the Pentagon budget while maintaining the readiness and integrity of the U.S. military. The best place to start would be eliminating the bloated and wasteful contracts with "service" providers. When my father and uncles were in the Army there were no private contractors providing food, laundry, transportation, communications and housing services to the military; men and women in the Army did that AND were trained in infantry and / or medical skills. Military Intelligence was just that, not contracted out to private firms. People who wanted to serve enlisted or were recruited and were paid according to their rank and job within the military. They were also provided housing or a housing allowance, meals or a food allowance, health care within the military system, and had access to subsidized shopping and transportation, all within the military system. People entered the military to serve their country, to have a job, for access to higher education after their service, and for some a career in the military. The military-industrial complex has become dependent on the Pentagon's contractor welfare system, greedily slopping taxpayer dollars from the nation, ensuring their excessive executive compensation while failing to provide quality, reliable service to the military war after war. Cut the war profiteers and get the Pentagon focused on maintaining a lean, mean and properly supplied and supported U.S. military. From HuffPost....
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama put his personal stamp Thursday on a rejiggered Pentagon strategy for absorbing hundreds of billions of dollars in defense budget cuts, marking a turning point in U.S. security policy after a decade of war.
In a rare appearance in the Pentagon press briefing room, the president announced that the military will be reshaped over time with an emphasis on countering terrorism, maintaining a nuclear deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland, and "deterring and defeating aggression by any potential adversary."
Those are not new military missions, and Obama announced no new capabilities or defense initiatives. He described a U.S. force that will retain much of its recent focus, with the exception of fighting a large-scale, prolonged conflict like the newly ended Iraq mission or the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
"As we end today's wars and reshape our armed forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies," he wrote in a preamble to the new strategy, which is titled, "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense."
The strategy hints at a reduced U.S. military presence in Europe and says Asia will be a bigger priority. It also emphasizes improving U.S. capabilities in the areas of cyberwarfare and missile defense.
Obama's decision to announce the strategy himself underscores the political dimension of Washington's debate over defense savings. The administration says smaller Pentagon budgets are a must but will not come at the cost of sapping the strength of a military in transition, even as it gets smaller.
In a presidential election year, the strategy gives Obama a rhetorical tool to defend his Pentagon budget-cutting choices. Republican contenders for the White House already have criticized Obama on a wide range of national security issues, including missile defense, Iran and planned reductions in ground forces.
Obama also wants the new strategy to represent a pivot point in his stewardship of defense policy, which has been burdened throughout his presidency by the wars he inherited and their drag on resources.
The new strategy moves the U.S. further from its longstanding goal of being able to successfully fight two major regional wars – like the 1991 Gulf War to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait or a prospective ground war in Korea – at the same time.

The strategy document announced by Obama contained no specifics on the size of expected troop reductions; the Army and Marine Corps already are set to shrink beginning in 2015. The document said the Pentagon will have to find savings in pay and health care benefits for members of the military, but it offered no specifics.
It made clear that while some current missions of the military will be curtailed, none will be scrapped entirely.
"Wholesale divestment of the capability to conduct any mission would be unwise, based on historical and projected uses of U.S. military forces and our inability to predict the future," the document said.
The administration and Congress already are trimming defense spending to reflect the closeout of the Iraq war and the drawdown in Afghanistan. The massive $662 billion defense budget planned for next year is $27 billion less than Obama wanted and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon this year.
Appearing with Obama to answer reporters' questions about the strategy document were Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. Panetta in recent months had previewed the main themes of the strategy by emphasizing a need to continue pressuring al-Qaida and paying more attention to Asian security challenges, including China and North Korea.
Factors guiding the Obama administration's approach to reducing the defense budget are not limited to war-fighting strategy. They also include judgments about how to contain the growing cost of military health care, pay and retirement benefits. The administration is expected to form a commission to study the issue of retirement benefits, possibly led by a prominent retired military officer.
The administration is in the final stages of deciding specific cuts in the 2013 budget, which Obama will submit to Congress next month. The strategy to be announced by Panetta and Dempsey is meant to accommodate about $489 billion in defense cuts over the coming 10 years, as called for in a budget deal with Congress last summer. An additional $500 billion in cuts may be required starting in January 2013.
A prominent theme of the Pentagon's new strategy is what Panetta has called a renewed commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific region.
The administration is not anticipating military conflict in Asia, but Panetta believes the U.S. got so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 that it missed chances to improve its position in other regions.
China is a particular worry because of its economic dynamism and rapid defense buildup. A more immediate concern is Iran, not only for its threats to disrupt the flow of international oil but also for its nuclear ambitions.
___
Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

U.S. trucking funds reach Taliban, military-led investigation concludes 24JUL11

This is what we are fighting for??? Sacrificing American blood for??? Wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for??? This is another example of the corruption of the Afghan nation that demands we end this war and get out of Afghanistan now! From the Washington Post....

By Karen DeYoung

A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses.
The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. In March, the Pentagon extended the contract for six months.
According to a summary of the investigation results, compiled in May and reviewed by The Washington Post, the military found “documented, credible evidence . . . of involvement in a criminal enterprise or support for the enemy” by four of the eight prime contractors. Investigators also cited cases of profiteering, money laundering and kickbacks to Afghan power brokers, government officials and police officers. Six of the companies were found to have been associated with “fraudulent paperwork and behavior.”
“This goes beyond our comprehension,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who last summer was chairman of a House oversight subcommittee that charged that the military was, in effect, supporting a vast protection racket that paid insurgents and corrupt middlemen to ensure safe passage of the truck convoys that move U.S. military supplies across Afghanistan.
The military summary included several case studies in which money was traced from the U.S. Treasury through a labyrinth of subcontractors and power brokers. In one, investigators followed a $7.4 million payment to one of the eight companies, which in turn paid a subcontractor, who hired other subcontractors to supply trucks.
The trucking subcontractors then made deposits into an Afghan National Police commander’s account, already swollen with payments from other subcontractors, in exchange for guarantees of safe passage for the convoys. Intelligence officials traced $3.3 million, withdrawn in 27 transactions from the commander’s account, that was transferred to insurgents in the form of weapons, explosives and cash.
A senior U.S. defense official said that a radically revised transport system, replacing the Host Nation Trucking contract when it expires in September, will be announced in a few weeks. Based on the findings of the investigation, the new contract will expand the number of companies from eight to at least 30 and change the security system for the truck convoys. It will require detailed information on all subcontractors and supervision by military units in the field rather than headquarters-based contracting officers.
In the meantime, interim steps have been taken to improve oversight and accountability within the murky web of companies and individuals involved in the shipment of more than 70 percent of all U.S. military food, fuel, weapons and construction material within Afghanistan, said the official, who was authorized to discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s still ugly,” the official said. “But it’s getting better.”

Problems with local vendors
Unlike in Iraq, where the U.S. military favored using American contractors who made millions providing security, reconstruction and training, local hires have performed the bulk of those tasks in Afghanistan. During the first quarter of this fiscal year, the U.S. military’s Central Command reported that 53 percent of more than 87,000 contract personnel it employed in Afghanistan were locals.
The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department together signed nearly 1,000 contracts with non-U.S. vendors in Afghanistan last year.
The employment, under a government-wide policy called Afghan First, is an integral part of the Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy and calls for promoting Afghan capabilities, businesses and infrastructure.
The extensive military use of contractors for tasks such as transport, security and construction is also designed to free U.S. troops for warfighting and, in most cases, is deemed far less expensive than using American resources.
But “awards to local vendors in Afghanistan pose particular challenges,” according to a General Accountability Office report issued last month, because of the large size of the U.S. effort, the great distances that must be traveled on often-dangerous roads and “the potential for fraud, corruption, or the siphoning of funds to organizations hostile to U.S. forces.”
The GAO report concluded that the number of contracts was so huge that it was impossible to vet them all, and it recommended assessing only the most risky. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department, the GAO said, have no vetting system in Afghanistan, and the Defense Department’s practice is to vet contractors only after contracts have been issued.
The GAO noted that one Defense Department vetting system averages 15 vendors per week and would take until March 2012 to vet the 1,042 Afghan vendors awarded new military contracts in fiscal 2010. The estimate did not include a backlog of contracts from previous years or any contract valued at less than $100,000.
Weak contractor oversight
Massive amounts of food, fuel and warfighting material are needed to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan; their number has more than tripled to about 100,000 since President Obama took office. Most supplies are brought by ship to neighboring Pakistan and transported by truck to central military depots in Afghanistan.
From there, the goods are trucked to hundreds of military installations across the country, usually along desolate stretches of road controlled by or vulnerable to attack from warlord militias and Taliban insurgents. Moving the supplies requires 3,000 to 4,000 trucks per week.
Six of the eight companies chosen as prime contractors under the Host Nation Trucking contract are owned by Afghans or are joint Afghan-international ventures. Two are considered U.S.-owned, including the Washington-based Sandi Group and NCL Holdings, whose founder and president, Hamed Wardak, is the son of Afghanistan’s defense minister. The new investigation, conducted by a military-led task force that included officials from the FBI, Treasury and U.S. intelligence, did not identify which of the companies are implicated in payments to insurgents, nor does it quantify how much money has been misspent or transferred to insurgents.
Wardak, in an interview last year, denied that his company was involved in any kickbacks or indirect payments to insurgents. The Sandi Group did not respond to requests last week for comment.
For the life of the contract — one year, with options for a second year and the recently exercised six-month extension — each company was guaranteed a minimum of $250,000 and a maximum of $360 million. U.S. expenditure was capped at $2.16 billion, although less than $600 million had been paid out through March.
Prime contractors were responsible for furnishing up to 600 trucks and protecting them. But five of the eight prime contractors had no trucks of their own, two had fewer than 200, and all hired subcontractors to provide security, according to the investigation. From the start, the companies have served largely as brokers atop scores of subcontractors.
As early as the summer of 2009, amid frequent reports that subcontractors and middlemen were paying contract money to warlords and the Taliban to guarantee safe passage for the convoys, U.S. Army investigators prepared a briefing for senior commanders that bore the blunt title “Host Nation Trucking Payments to Insurgents.” Investigators estimated that the going rate for protection was $1,500 to $2,500 per truck, paid by contractors and their subs to private Afghan security companies allied with warlords or insurgents — or, in some cases, directly to militias or Taliban commanders.
The military maintained that federal contracting rules did not require, and by some interpretations prohibited, a close look below the level of prime contractors. Investigating the relationships behind the kickbacks and protection rackets would have been expensive, time-consuming and difficult. Many military officials in charge of overseeing the contracts were reluctant to disturb the status quo, believing it was far more important that food, fuel and bullets for U.S. forces were delivered intact and on time.
“These people should be fired and sent home,” the senior defense official said of the military overseers. “The attitude is crazy — it’s okay to pay the enemy because then we have better snacks” if the convoys travel unimpeded. “I think everybody gets that now.”

Concern in Washington
In the fall of 2009, problems with the trucking contract were discussed during a closed-door review by the administration of its war strategy. That December, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates voiced public concern that the United States was funding the very people it was fighting against in Afghanistan.
Since then, Afghan and U.S. officials have made changes on the margins as they tried to unravel the complicated web of actors and track the money. In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai pledged to disband all private security contractors and form a new government security force to guard supply convoys, but implementation has been slow.
In Washington, impatient lawmakers began their own investigations. In early 2010, Tierney charged the military with foot-dragging in its response to the subcommittee’s request for “all documents related to HNT security.” In May, after the military refused to turn over the 2009 briefing prepared by Army investigators, Tierney wrote a letter of complaint to Gates.
The document was supplied in June, along with a redacted copy, in which most or all of every page was blacked out, that the Defense Department deemed suitable for public disclosure. A department lawyer wrote Tierney to warn of “serious consequences” for what were still “open criminal investigations” and “for our relationship with the government and people of Afghanistan” if the unredacted document was publicly revealed.
Last summer, after the release of the House subcommittee report, the then-U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, appointed task forces to investigate contracting and corruption, including Task Force 2010, which carried out the investigation of the trucking contract. In September, he released new guidelines making commanders accountable for monitoring contracts within their areas of responsibility.
The next month, a separate Senate Armed Services Committee investigation into contracting confirmed the House report, concluding that the military had only minimal knowledge of — and exercised virtually no control over — the thousands of Afghans contracted to guard its installations and supply convoys.
Both reports identified the security wing of the Watan group, a business conglomerate run by relatives of Karzai, as involved in bribing officials for control over convoy routes and making payments to Taliban commanders. In the most substantive action by the military, Watan was barred in December from receiving new U.S. contracts. But it has contested the action in court, denying the allegations, and has been allowed to continue its security work so the company could “fully exercise due process,” the senior defense official said.
The House and Senate have adopted measures this year, attached to fiscal 2012 defense spending legislation, giving military commanders additional powers to investigate and cancel contracts in which insurgent ties have been found.
Tierney, now the top minority member of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, voiced sharp criticism of the length of time it took the military-led task force to reach the same conclusions that lawmakers made public a year ago.
“I would hate like hell to think my kid was over there” and the Taliban was “coming after them with something bought with our taxpayers’ money,” Tierney said.