Words of One Syllable Dept.

New York Times, June 20:

Republicans defeated a Democratic measure calling for an investigation into waste and fraud in military contracts today as the Senate engaged in an emotional debate over the Iraq war.

By a 52-to-44 vote, the Senate rejected the proposal by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, calling for a panel like the one led by Harry Truman when he was a Senator, which uncovered many abuses in military spending during World War II.

New York Times, June 20:

The Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it had canceled a $99.1 million contract with Parsons, one of the largest companies working in Iraq, to build a prison north of Baghdad after the firm fell more than two years behind schedule, threatened to go millions of dollars over budget and essentially abandoned the construction site.

* * * [T]he prison, originally scheduled to be completed this month, appears to be the largest single rebuilding project canceled for failing to achieve its goals under the $45 billion American rebuilding program for Iraq. The corps said Parsons officials had recently estimated that it could not be completed before September 2008, and would cost an additional $13.5 million.

Washington Post, June 18:

Once Point Blank and the military agreed on what body armor to produce, Magee expected that the military might contract with several companies to make it, ensuring that all U.S. troops received them as soon as possible, he says. Instead, Point Blank won an exclusive contract to make the outer vests through "very effective lobbying," Magee says. * * * [I]t was a good deal for David Brooks, the chief executive and largest shareholder of Point Blank's parent company, DHB Industries Inc. His compensation went from $525,000 in 2001 to more than $70 million in 2004.
* * *
By initially hiring just Point Blank, and spreading body armor purchases from the company out over several years, the military created a bottleneck that kept many soldiers and Marines wearing outdated vests unnecessarily for years, Magee says.

See also: All Our Sons