What does it take to get a defense contract in the Bush Administration? After awarding a $300 million contract to a 22-year-old man, Efriam E. Diveroli, who sold defective arms to our Afghan allies, it has now been reported that the Defense Department has awarded an $80 million contract to indicted Saudi financier Gaith Pharaon. The level of sheer incompetence in such contracts is staggering.
The Defense Department gave Pharaon the contract as another federal agency, the Justice Department, is taking to prosecute him in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (costing US tax payers $1.7 billion).
The FBI has put out alerts internationally to locate Pharaon, click here. While the FBI could not find him, he was apparently contracting openly with a sister agency.
we should stop supporting the defence industry.
Just one more crime of the Bush Administration. This support of a possible felon who just happens to be a Saudi it the norm for the Bush family. Their ties to the Saudi’s runs deep and obviously money talks to them. Even in National Security defense issues, the Bush Mantra is “Show me the money”!
The US Military contract is to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery that may or MAY NOT BE owned by Gaith Pharaon. I hardly think you can blame the Military for not knowing the true ownership of the thousands of corporations, foreign & domestic, especially considering the fact the media is still not sure who owns this Pakistani corporation.
I wonder if those that complain about the military inadvertantly having contracts with bad people ever bother to check on the ownership of the Indian, Pakistani, & Indonesian companies that make the cloths they wear & goods they use….because they would be surprised.
Badger:
The difference is in scale. I can’t remember the last time I bought $80 million of clothes from a Laotian sweat shop. Oh yeah, I never have. And if I did, I’d look into the ownership and working conditions.
The military has a duty to understand the ownership BEFORE they make a deal of this size.
Huhg writes: “The military has a duty to understand the ownership BEFORE they make a deal of this size.”
The media saying someone owns a corporation doesn’t necessarily make it so. I rather doubt the voluminous corrections that never seem to make the paper’s front page would be interesting anyway; if the media even prints them in the first place.
God Bless America.
badger,
What does “God bless America” mean to you in this context? How is Hugh’s point invalidated by what you said above?
Thanks for clarifying.
Jill
This is only tangentially related but Blackwater just received a judgement in its favor to build it’s counterinsurgency training center in CA.
Badger:
“The media saying someone owns a corporation doesn’t necessarily make it so.”
Since when is the news media supposed to be the source of this information to the military? They can’t independently look into it? This is what happens when contracts are awarded on factors other than lowest price/highest value (you know, the bidding process, right?) and when you do not encourage (or allow) the contract negotiators to negotiate and ask pertinent questions of the potential vendor.
Badger:
Never mind, I get your point. You don’t believe the story is true in the first place. What evidence do you require?
Now THIS is shocking.
Hugh
He only requires that the media stop exposing the ongoing and continual ineptitude and corruption of the current administration.
And in conclusion (my friends) this why we must bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran.
It is the circular logic the dominates the neocon ilk, as perpetuated here by our colleague with the Mustelidae handle.
It is not incompetence. This was done on purpose.
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