Amanda Terkel / Huffington Post & David Wood / Politics Daily & The News Lies.org – 2011-02-05 22:27:53
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27400.htm
Pentagon Paid Billions To Contractors Suspended For Fraud
Amanda Terkel / Huffington Post
WASHINGTON (February 3, 2011) — The military paid a total of $285 billion to more than 100 contractors between 2007 and ’09, even though those same companies were defrauding taxpayers in the same period, according to a new Defense Department report.
What’s perhaps most shocking is that billions of dollars went to contractors who had been either suspended or debarred for misusing taxpayer funds. The Pentagon also spent $270 billion on 91 contractors involved in civil fraud cases that resulted in judgments of more than $1 million. Another $682 million went to 30 contractors convicted of criminal fraud.
The analysis was mandated by a provision that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) inserted into the defense bill last year. The measure also requested that the Defense Department recommend additional ways to punish the violating contractors, but the Report to Congress on Contractor Fraud concluded, “The department believes that existing remedies with respect to contractor wrongdoing are sufficient.”
“It has been said that insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” replied the Sanders staff in an analysis of the findings. “It is clear that DOD’s current approach is not working, and we need a much more vigorous approach to dealing with contractor fraud.”
Sanders underscored the importance of reining in contractor abuse by pointing to the US fiscal situation, saying that the deficit cannot be reduced without looking at the waste, fraud and abuse in the Pentagon’s budget.
“With the country running a $14 trillion national debt, my goal is to provide as much transparency as possible about what is happening with taxpayer money,” he said. “The sad truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.”
On Monday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get the military’s books in order, saying he would “continue to push for a budget freeze of all base budget non-military personnel accounts at the Defense Department until it complies with the law regarding auditable financial statements.”
(c) 2011 Huffington Post
Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud
David Wood / Politics Daily
(February 3, 2011) — The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud — in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report.
At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments — and in some cases criminal fraud convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the report said.
The contractors identified in the report include such blue-chip entities as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, IBM and even the Yale medical school.
The Pentagon said its own sloppy bookkeeping, missing records and inadequate training of acquisition officials were to blame for the mess. The Pentagon also acknowledged that the data in the report, which covers only 2007 through 2009, are probably incomplete because the Defense Department cannot accurately track individual contractors or how much is actually spent. And the report only tracks those fraud cases of over $1 million.
At least $682 million was paid in error to 30 companies that had been convicted of criminal fraud, according to the report, including $29.6 million to Herley Industries, an electronics manufacturer, and $66 million to AEY Inc., a military surplus and sporting goods firm.
The number of fraudulent contractors identified in the report is relatively small — some 120 companies out of the 235,000 contractors that work for the Defense Department. But the dollar amounts are significant, a continuing drain on taxpayers and on the military’s combat readiness.
Military contracting fraud, which first plagued Gen. George Washington during the Revolutionary War, has long bedeviled the American armed forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is only the latest of a long succession of defense chiefs to try to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in the Pentagon’s giant acquisition bureaucracy.
Under the pressure of two hot wars and a defense budget that has mushroomed to its current $700 billion size, the Pentagon has set up a Procurement Fraud Working Group. But in the six years the task force has been at work, fraud seems to have expanded even as the Pentagon’s ability to detect it has increased.
With the data in the new report, the Pentagon acknowledged, came “recognition that additional guidance and training . . . is needed” for its contracting officers.
The report was released by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who had demanded a Pentagon accounting of fraud. “The sad truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” he said in a statement.
“It is clear that DOD’s current approach is not working and we need far more vigorous enforcement to protect taxpayers from massive fraud,” Sanders said.
Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud
The News Lies.org
(February 4, 2011) – The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud — in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report.
At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments — and in some cases criminal fraud convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the report said.
The contractors identified in the report include such blue-chip entities as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, IBM and even the Yale medical school.
TVNL Comment: And in the case of Dick Cheney’s buddies…the Pentagon awarded multiple NEW contracts to companies convicted or accused of massive fraud.
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