Fifty-one years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his final, prescient warning about the rising power of the military industrial complex. More than half a century later, we find ourselves in a political system which has ignored Eisenhower’s sound advice as the influence of the war industry on our society reaches a crescendo. Nowhere is this “disastrous rise of misplaced power” more apparent than in the debate about the Pentagon budget taking place in Washington, D.C.

Eisenhower’s final speech is worth quoting at length:

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

“[I]nfluence…sought or unsought” is certainly a generous description of activity of war industry giants, which was already under way as Ike gave his speech. Were he in office today, Eisenhower likely would have foregone this nod to the possibility of naive goodwill from war profiteering companies. In the first three quarters of 2011, the military aerospace sector spent more than $46 million on lobbying, with war profiteering giant Lockheed Martin accounting for almost a quarter of that spending. In no way can we imply that today’s war industry is acquiring “unsought” influence. They’re working to buy our elected officials outright. [cont'd.]

What’s more, this massive (yet “legal”) corruption yields results. During the deficit committee debates, everyone from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) cried very public crocodile tears at the thought of reducing the Pentagon’s spending to even the bloated levels seen at the height of the Iraq War. When the Pentagon announced a spending plan that allowed the military budget to continue to grow despite the massive economic and unemployment crises, McKeon took to the op-ed pages to raise the specters of a “hollow force,” a broken Internet, closed sea lanes and threats to our access to outer space thanks to a slowing of the growth of the military budget (along with the profits of some of his biggest contributors…I mean, c’mon, it takes a lot of money to keep your friends in the richest 0.01 percent.).

Eisenhower’s speech was so prophetic that even he could not have anticipated just how deep the rot would be in 2012. Some of his warnings, which seemed dire at the time, sound downright quaint compared to the disastrous diversion of national wealth to the war profiteers. For example, in a separate speech to the Society of Newspaper Editors, Eisenhower said:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. …We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.”

Those were the days, eh? Today’s war industry has perfected the pillaging of the hungry to an absolutely repulsive level by comparison. At best, each modern Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jet costs the taxpayers $137 million, or 22.6 million bushels of wheat in today’s market. At worst, the jets–which have yet to fly in combat–have a lifetime cost of $678 million, or 112 million bushels of wheat. This massive theft takes place as the highest numbers of American households ever are now classified as “food insecure.”

The Pentagon’s plan protects the profits of the war industry–whose leading CEOs make so much from taxpayers that they put Goldman Sachs CEOs to shame–under the euphemism of “preserving our industrial base.” That’s total garbage language. If the U.S. were interested in protecting our industrial base in a way that put most people to work, we’d be heavily investing in civilian research and development to help our manufacturing sector gain and maintain a competitive edge (And, by the way, if the war industry actually cared about American jobs, they’d stop lobbying against “buy American” provisions in military spending legislation.). Viewed in this light, the Pentagon’s plan is just a profit protection scheme for war profiteers.

Eisenhower was right to be worried. We’re living in his nightmare. The most immediate thing we can do to get out of it is to push back–hard–against this latest attempt by the war industry and their allies to protect their profits at our expense. But the real work we have to undertake is the cultivation of “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” so we don’t keep getting manipulated into handing over the bread of our mouths and the sweat of our brows to people who have more than enough.

Our War Costs campaign is working hard to get the truth out, and we hope you’ll join us.

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Rudy Giuliani (source: Wikipedia)

Speaking of material support for terrorism, David Cole uses the recent trip by Rudy Giuliani and others to suck up to the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) as an opportunity to explain the idiocy of the Holder versus Humanitarian Law Project SCOTUS verdict.

DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support. And, according to the Justice Department under Mr. Mukasey himself, as well as under the current attorney general, Eric Holder, material support includes not only cash and other tangible aid, but also speech coordinated with a “foreign terrorist organization” for its benefit. It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

[snip]

But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity. Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that a terrorist group might use human rights advocacy training to file harassing claims, that it might use peacemaking assistance as a cover while re-arming itself, and that such speech could contribute to the group’s “legitimacy,” and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends.

Cole goes on to note the hypocrisy of the government, which has given exceptions for humanitarian purposes to corporations seeking to sell cigarettes, even while arguing NGOs cannot provide food and water.

Mind you, I’m actually with Cole: Rudy and Mukasey and Fran Fragos Townsend and Tom Ridge ought to be able to go make speeches sucking up to Iran’s version of Ahmad Chalabi (oops! I forgot that Chalabi was Iran’s!), a bunch of liars who have invented intelligence to try to justify war with Iran. That’s what Republicans do, after all: promote hucksters who can justify the next war.

But it’s really time for either some consistency in the way the government pursues its war on terror violent extremism, or an admission that the war on terror has disintegrated into a war on those who oppose U.S. empire. The government is still investigating a bunch of peace activists for material support. And yet four prominent Republicans can offer the same kind of material support as the peace activists — but this time in service of war or U.S. hegemony or oil — with no similar consequences?

image courtsey of Tracy O

Back in March, Obama ordered the Office of Management and Budget to take a close look at the government’s contracting procedures, especially the use of outside contractors. Cost-plus contracts came under particular scrutiny, as did sole-source contracts.

One of the first agencies to make changes to their use of major outside contractors was the IRS. In April, they declined to renew a contract to outsource debt collections. Why? Partly because it overstepped the line of using private contractors for inherently governmental functions, but mostly because government debt collectors were a better investment when it came to getting more back for your buck:

The decision followed an extensive IRS review of the program, which showed that private collection agencies recouped less money per case than federal employees, closed fewer cases and were more expensive than in-house collectors.

The study, conducted by the IRS and reviewed by MITRE Corp., found that the cost of the IRS’ in-house program averaged $0.07 per dollar collected, while that of private debt-collection agencies was $0.24 per dollar recovered. The IRS program recouped 11 percent of debts assigned for collection and moved 28 percent of taxpayers into payment status, compared to 4 percent and 11 percent for private collection agencies.

Claire McCaskill is pushing DHS to get their contracts under control, and now the DOD is also stepping up. While everyone else in DC was watching the health insurance reform bill get passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve, Walter Pincus was poring over the the fine print of the DOD appropriations bill:

The Defense Department estimates it will save an average of $44,000 a year for every contractor it replaces with full-time federal personnel to perform critical defense jobs, according to the House-Senate conference report on the fiscal 2010 defense appropriation bill.

A week ago, OMB reported that it has found $19B in savings on acquisition contracts as a result of the studies they ordered in March. For eight years, the Bush administration used the war in Iraq and the mantra that privatization is best to justify expanding the use of contractors in all aspects of the government. Now we’re seeing the fruits of that folly, with excess spending for private profits and a poor return to the government for their investment.

I’m sure all the deficit hawks in the GOP who were screaming about the cost of the health care proposals will be jumping for joy at this about face in government contracting.

Jeremy Scahill expands the explanation he gave Rachel Maddow last night about what Erik Prince was doing with the Vanity Fair article admitting his role in the CIA (primarily) operations.

The in-depth Vanity Fair profile of the infamous owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, is remarkable on many levels–not least among them that Prince appeared to give the story’s author, former CIA lawyer Adam Ciralsky, unprecedented access to information about sensitive, classified and lethal operations not only of Prince’s forces, but Prince himself. In the article, Prince is revealed not just as owner of a company that covertly provided contractors to the CIA for drone bombings and targeted assassinations, but as an actual CIA asset himself. While the story appears to be simply a profile of Prince, it might actually be the world’s most famous mercenary’s insurance policy against future criminal prosecution. The term of art for what Prince appears to be doing in the VF interview is graymail: a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be. In short, these operatives or assets threaten to reveal details of sensitive or classified operations in order to ward off indictments or criminal charges, based on the belief that the government would not want these details revealed.

I’m most interested, though, in what Scahill says about the JSOC side of this.

While much of the focus in the Vanity Fair story was on Prince’s work with the CIA, the story also confirmed that Blackwater has an ongoing relationship with the US Special Forces, helping plan missions and providing air support. As The Nation reported, Blackwater has for years been working on a classified contract with the Joint Special Operations Command in a drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, as well as planning snatch-and-grab missions and targeted assassinations. Part of what may be happening behind closed doors is that the CIA is, to an extent, cutting Blackwater and Prince off. But, as sources have told The Nation, the company remains a central player in US Special Forces operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.[my emphasis]

Those JSOC issues, of course, would be far more inflammatory than the stuff he already revealed about the CIA.

But what I’m most interested in is who the target of this threat is: yes, Blackwater’s role is scandalous (and might make Leon Panetta regret revealing Blackwater to Congress). But there are a whole lot of people who are more worried about what Prince would have to say than Panetta.

Sen. Dan Iouye (D-HI)

Will Sen. Inouye be first Democratic member of Republicans for Rape?

The sad story of Jamie Leigh Jones has been used as a catalyst to try to achieve reform of employment contracts for employees of government contractors working for the Defense Department. As stated on the website for the Jamie Leigh Foundation:

We believe that United States civilians who perpetrate crime while working in foreign countries should be held accountable for their actions under an enforceable law. We are dedicated to protect Americans working for government entities overseas by pushing for more stringent laws that umbrella criminal contractors.

Holding government contract entities accountable requires that including arbitration clauses in government contracts as being unlawful. When an employee is injured abroad he/she is forced into a mandatory arbitration which is not subject to appeal. The arbitration proceeding is private and discrete and the outcome of arbitration cannot be disclosed to the public. Unfortunately, these contracts are stacked in favor of businesses, making it harder for individuals to prevail in a dispute. The Jamie Leigh foundation will assist victims through advocacy, education, legislation, and referral.

As reported by acquarius74, a significant victory in this effort was achieved on October 6, when an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 by Senator Al Franken was passed by a vote of 68 to 30. The stated purpose of the amendment was:

To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.

The 30 Republican Senators who voted against the Franken amendment have been subject to much very well-deserved derision for their votes, and there now is even a website dedicated to their abhorrent votes: Republicans for Rape.

Today, Tracie Powell, writing in CQPolitics, informs us that Republicans for Rape may get their first Democratic member:

But get this: Reports emerged Thursday that the proposal, introduced by Sen. Al Franken , D-Minn., may be stripped away by a fellow Democrat, not a Republican.

The third longest-serving senator in history, Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, is reportedly considering altering or removing the provision that is part of the fiscal 2010 Defense appropriations bill. A spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Inouye, said in an e-mail that the committee does not comment on ongoing conference negotiations and emphasized that the White House supports the intent of Franken’s amendment.

Powell links this story at Huffington Post as the source for Inouye’s possible course of action.

The telephone number for Inouye’s Washington office is (202) 224-3934. I wonder if a few calls might bring him around to honoring the intent of the huge majority of Senators who voted for the Franken amendment. It is very important for Inouye to hear from us, because as Sam Stein reports in the HuffPo article, Inouye is under incredible pressure from defense contractors:

“The contractors are putting on a full-court press on this amendment… they are all doing it,” said the latter source.

To the phones!

An article in the Washington Post by Karen de Young (H/T Spencer Ackerman) highlights the determination to race to catastrophe by the Obama administration. In an ever-ending reconsideration and analysis of Afghanistan, the Obama administration is said to be internally assessing the progress of the Afghan-Pakistan War over the next few weeks. (Has anyone but me noticed the insidiousness with which the Afghanistan War has morphed into the "AgPak War"?)

While Spencer has an article at The Washington Independent that highlights the role of Congress, and especially members of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, the Washington Post article article has little to offer opponents of the strangely obsessed Obama escalation.

"I don’t anticipate that the briefing books for the principals on these debates over the next weeks and months will be filled with submissions from opinion columnists," the senior official said. "I do anticipate they will be filled with vigorous discussion . . . of how successful we’ve been to date."

But this official and others, who agreed to speak about the upcoming national security discussions on the condition of anonymity, gave no indication that withdrawal would be seriously considered. "There’s not a lot of rethinking that the strategy we have pretty much worked on to go forward with needs some drastic or dramatic revision," a second official said.

So, talk of assessment is mostly kabuki for those who still think that military contractors and companies profiting off the endless war on terror and its deadly offshoots are going to let this gravy train get away from them. Meanwhile, the right wing propaganda machine rumbles on, unperturbed by the apostasy of the occasional shaky conservative pundit. Consider this jeremiad from the Wall Street Journal, courtesy of the Weekly Standard:

So George Will has noticed that Afghanistan is a backward place ill-suited to nation-building, and Nicholas Kristof thinks that war is a tricky, dirty business, and Tom Friedman is hedging his bets on yet another conflict he once supported but which now disturbs his moral equilibrium. Thus do three paladins of the right, left and center combine to erode support for a war that, if lost, would be to the United States roughly what the battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D. —you can look it up—was to the Roman Empire. Things did not go well for Western civilization for 1,100 or so years thereafter.

Yes, it’s the end of American empire if the U.S. "loses" Afghanistan (just as fifty years ago, the republic chewed itself up over "who lost China?"). And then, a new Dark Ages, where the people who lived off half-trillion dollar defense budgets must go wandering in the wilderness, bereft of a decent standard of living. Never mind that others must suffer.

Take a look at the video above from BraveNew Foundation, and consider the real costs of this war.

What do the Democratic Party politicians have to say? According to the Washington Post article, Obama is channeling the still-warm ghost of GW Bush:

"Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again," Obama said. "If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."

In Congress, Jack Reed, Democratic Senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "thinks that U.S. strategy is on the right track but that there is an urgent need for more Afghan forces." On the left, Sen. Russell Feingold calls for "a flexible timetable for withdrawing our forces" (emphasis added). "Flexible" being a codeword that he won’t get all radical or hard-core about this. After all, this is politics, not principle, right? Nor would anyone want to get the torture-condoning General McChrystal too mad. And while we’re at it, why bother to mention that the recent Afghan election was rife with fraud, or that both domestic and Afghan public opinion is running against the war? Yet despite the "stay the course, full speed ahead" rhetoric of Obama, McChrystal, Gates and others, anonymous officers at the Pentagon are whispering the war can’t be won, that there is no "clearly defined" mission in Afghanistan.

Two atrocities in the past week captured the administration’s problem with pursuing its inherited war. One was the bombing of some gasoline trucks, which killed at least 70 civilians, and has the Americans and Germans pointing fingers at each other. The other had U.S. soldiers ransacking a hospital run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, looking for wounded Taliban to seize. The Committee labeled it "a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict." The Americans said they would investigate and "take allegations like this seriously." But no one takes the U.S. statements on the matter seriously.

The Obama administration and the Pentagon may be lulled by the seeming lack of an antiwar left in this country anymore. But in this, I think they are mistaken. You can hide the soldiers coming home in body bags. You can cite progress and new strategies until you are blue in the face. You can relegate the stories of fraud and atrocities to the back pages. But one thing is sure, this war isn’t going away, and like the financial tag for it, which is being shunted off to some future date, the political price will come due someday, too. And that day may not be as far off as Obama and the Democrats think.

For the BraveNew Foundation video, H/T to Derrick Crowe.

It also concludes that the Army failed to properly oversee KBR’s work, allowing the danger to U.S. troops from KBR’s work to continue and persist not only on Ryan Maseth’s base, but throughout Iraq (PDF) and Afghanistan (PDF).

Up to now, KBR has denied any link between its work and the electric shocks and electrocutions of soldiers on U.S. Army bases in Iraq. This report should make it impossible for the company to continue to deny the facts.

As outlined in the Inspector General’s report, the conduct of both KBR and the Army is simply unacceptable. Both need to stop making excuses and start taking steps to protect U.S troops and taxpayers.

Staff Sgt. Maseth was a 24-year-old Green Beret from Pennsylvania. In January 2008, he was electrocuted as he showered in his barracks on a U.S. military base in Iraq. The Army first told his family that he died because he took an electrical appliance into the shower. His courageous mother, Cheryl Harris, rejected that explanation.

Mrs. Harris appeared at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing I chaired on July 11, 2008 as we investigated shoddy electrical work by KBR in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also heard from whistleblowers that day, some of them former KBR employees who had first-hand, on site experience with KBR’s electrical work. We found evidence of widespread failure by KBR to take even the most basic steps to ensure its electrical work was safe. Whistleblowers told us KBR routinely hired non-electricians to perform electrical work, and that non-electricians were routinely hired to supervise their work.

They told us that even the most basic work – proper grounding, for example – was either not done at all, or performed so haphazardly it was a clear, obvious and immediate danger.

Meanwhile, KBR continued to deny any connection between its electrical work and the electrical shocks and even deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army continued to churn out excuses like the one initially given to Cheryl Harris.

Following the hearing, I immediately asked for a complete review of KBR’s electrical work in Iraq and Afghanistan and for a new investigation into Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death.

The results are now in.

The Inspector General concludes that KBR failed to ground equipment which contributed to the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Maseth. The IG also found that KBR failed to: employ personnel with adequate electrical training and expertise; report improperly grounded equipment the company had identified; and perform its work in the ‘skillful and workmanlike manner’ required by the contract.

The IG also reports that prior to Sgt. Maseth’s electrocution, there were 230 incidents of electric shocks in KBR-maintained facilities in Iraq from September 2006 to July 2008 – far more than should have necessary to alert KBR or Army officials that there was a major problem that needed urgent attention.

According to the IG, KBR’s shoddy and dangerous electrical work is a widespread, not isolated, problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Inspector General reports that so far, that review has found more than 53,000 sites at U.S. Army bases in those countries that needed urgent, major repairs.

It is outrageous that U.S. troops have been injured and died because KBR, the largest military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, performed its work in a reckless manner.

It is astounding that KBR continues to receive contracts for work in Iraq. Its many failures are now obvious, massive and cover a wide-range of activities.

It is unbelievable that KBR actually received an $83.4 million bonus for its contract for electrical work in Iraq, even though according to the Department of Defense’sInspector General, KBR’s work endangered and even killed U.S. troops.

I am renewing my call for the Pentagon to recoup the $83.4 million in bonuses paid to KBR under LOGCAP III Task Order 139 for its shoddy electrical work.

I also want to know what the Army is doing to improve its selection and oversight of military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. The safety and very lives of U.S. soldiers depends on prompt, corrective action.

The IG’s office delivered its initial report yesterday (PDF). As Sen. Byron Dorgan says:

U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said Monday a new Defense Department Inspector General investigation confirms findings of a hearing he chaired a year ago: the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth was the result of poor-quality electrical work by contractor KBR and that the Army failed to adequately oversee KBR or hold the company accountable.

“This is a damning report,” Dorgan said Monday. “The conduct of both KBR and the Army is unacceptable.”

In the report, the Inspector General concluded that KBR failed to ground equipment which contributed to the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Maseth. . . .

“KBR has repeatedly denied any responsibility for what happened to Sgt. Maseth and other soldiers who were shocked and electrocuted in Iraq. This report makes it impossible for them to do that any longer,” Dorgan added. “Instead of cutting corners and issuing denials, KBR needs to get very serious, very quickly about doing quality work that protects soldiers rather than endangering them.”

The IG report is blunt: KBR failed to ground a water pump that provided water to showers where Sgt. Maseth was stationed, and Army supervisors failed to set baseline standards, inspect negligent work, or hold anyone accountable for shoddy work product — and even for deaths of its own servicepeople — until forced to do so by a public shaming.

Huge kudos to Sen. Dorgan and the other members of the DPC for continuing to force this issue.

Because otherwise, it would have simply disappeared, with family members having been told on multiple occasions that their loved ones either died of natural causes or died of self-inflicted electrocutions. Beyond shameful conduct from multiple actors in this.

Thus far, the ongoing IG review has found that at least 9 electrocution deaths of US troops in Iraq can be attributed to shoddy electrical work and failure to follow proper safety procedures, and failures on multiple layers of supposedly required military inspections which should have caught the errors.

Worse, I’m told there is still a lot to inspect and review, which means that this ongoing investigation may not have caught all the shoddy work as yet. I am currently trying to verify this with DOD sources.

American troops are risking their lives in uniform. Who knew they’d also be risking their lives in the shower because of faulty contracting work?

They deserve a hell of a lot better than that.

And so do we all, since we’ve paid "$83.4 million in bonuses that the Pentagon paid KBR under LOGCAP III Task Order 139 for its shoddy electrical work," per Sen. Dorgan’s press release on the IG report. That’s your taxpayer dollars, folks.

For more on the IG report, see the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, CNN and the WaPo. For more on prior DPC policy hearings regarding contractor abuses, see here, here, here, here and here. Just for starters.

(YouTube — Sen. Byron Dorgan demanding accountability from the DOD IG’s office on these electrocution deaths.)

Two U.S. Senators today are requesting a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the mother of a U.S. soldier who has been informed by an Army investigator that her son’s death by electrocution at his base in Baghdad has been re-classified by the Army from “accidental” to “negligent homicide” by contractor KBR and two of its supervisors….

Dorgan noted the Army originally told Harris her son was electrocuted because he carried an electrical appliance into the shower. The Army later retreated from that account, saying Staff Sgt. Maseth was electrocuted by wires hanging above the shower, an account that was also inaccurate….

“Those who receive contracts to serve our soldiers have an obligation to do so responsibly,” Dorgan said. “We want to know what Secretary Gates intends to do to ensure that contractors are acting responsibly, particularly in light of the Army’s reported finding that KBR and its supervisors may have been criminally negligent. We also want to know why the DOD has not pursued a process to debar contractors who are fleecing our taxpayers and putting soldiers at risk.”

Last July, the DPC held hearings regarding the deaths of American soldiers serving in Iraq due to shoddy electrical work done by contractor KBR — work which was known to be substandard at the time of the deaths, but which was not corrected. Since then, the investigation shifted away from allowing KBR to audit itself to having independent forensics be done by DOD personnel…but the contract with KBR for continued electrical work continues because it’s been dubbed too big to terminate.

Would that Staff Sgt. Maseth had been able to make that argument rather than be electrocuted by shoddy, negligent electrical work.

The American public deserves solid answers on this, since our taxpayer dollars are still pouring out to KBR. Good for Sens. Dorgan and Casey (PDF) for continuing to push for accountability.

(YouTube — Sen. Dorgan from the presser on this issue.)

Citing recent meetings, the Navy bulletin warns officials that all bets are off and the service’s FY-10 budget plans — known as the program objective memorandum, or POM-10 for short — could soon see big adjustments.

"As you know, our original planning assumption was that the POM-10 we submitted would undergo only minor changes," the message states. "That may no longer be accurate."

Well, maybe. At deputy defense secretary-designate Bill Lynn’s confirmation hearing last week, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), a former Navy Secretary, upbraided the service for redundant shipbuilding plans, program cost overruns and a lack of overall strategic planning about what sort of fleet the U.S. requires. Lynn, along with comptroller-designate Robert Hale, pledged a thorough review. And all of that falls into line with, as Castelli points out, Secretary Bob Gates’ recent call to better balance the defense community’s irregular warfare needs with its traditional, conventional, big-ticket-item needs. Counterinsurgency advocates and counterinsurgency skeptics alike are waiting to see how that actually cashes out in terms of Pentagon budgeting.

And there lies the prospect for budgeting chicanery. Castelli ends his piece by summarizing that Navy bulletin’s guidance:

Those who work on high-tech information operations, networks, intelligence and space capabilities must advocate for their high-tech programs by tying them to warfighting and using language that warfighters who are not information technology specialists can understand, the bulletin advises.

That sounds a whole lot like the Navy will attempt to redefine its Rumsfeld-era and pre-Rumsfeld era high-tech stuff as irregular-warfare support. In the Rumsfeld Pentagon, defense officials knew to write their budget requests in a way that sounded pleasing to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s amorphous, tech-heavy vision of "transformation." Now it appears that the services may attempt to justify the same old programs by gussying them up in counterinsurgency-friendly language. ("… the DDG-1000 destroyer contributes to full-spectrum operations, facilitating a whole-of-government approach…" — oh, and look who has a huge piece of the DDG-1000 contract: Raytheon, the company that’s given us Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn. Will the program survive, do you think?)

This is a classic defense budgeting trick, and one I’ll be paying very close attention to when the next budget gets released.

Crossposted to The Streak.