Ethics Newsline®

“This is unprecedented. It was considered an all-out imperative by the administration to keep troop levels low, particularly in the beginning of the war, and one way that was done was to shift money and manpower to contractors. But that has exposed the military to greater risks from contractor waste and abuse.”

– Charles Tiefer, a professor of government contracting at the University of Baltimore Law School, speaking to the New York Times about the U.S. government’s reliance on private contractors in the Iraq war zone. A new government report notes, in the words of the New York Times, that “one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of private contractors now outnumber American troops.”

The government’s heavy reliance and high payouts to private contractors have led to allegations and incidents of “overbilling, fraud, and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops,” notes the Times, adding that “the role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the 21st-century battlefield.”

Source: New York Times, Aug. 12.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 7 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 21, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 15, 2004 — Related Newsline story, June 21, 2004.