Newshoggers Comments
Let's not forget the corporate troughs on the home front:
Defense, Homeland Security can’t pass audits
Disorganized records leave big-budget agencies vulnerable to waste, fraud
Kat
The taxpayer is paying many times over for the services provided by contractor employees in the war zone while the contract companies reap the rewards with no skin off their backs.
The Defense Base Act Insurance coverage that each contract company must provide relieves the company of any responsibility of any kind to the employee or their family.
The premiums are 10% or more of the employees salary and are included in the contract (taxpayer pays). When an employee is injured or killed the
DBA insurance company is reimbursed all medical, repatriation, lost wages, and death benefits they pay out by the Federal Government (taxpayer) plus a 15% admin fee under the War Hazards Act.
The wounded contractors and the families of the deceased have to litigate for the most meager benefits due them. The taxpayer also pays for the lawyers on both sides of these court cases.
There are currently over 180,000 private contractors working US Government contracts in Iraq.
Well over 13,000 have been wounded and well over 1000 have died. These numbers are obtained by filing FOIA's with the Deptartment of Labor which overseas the DBA program.
It will years before the public gets a clue as to how much this side of the war is going to cost them.
www.dbacomp.com www.iraqinfections.org
Marcie...
V. informative! I checked out the DBA via your excellent site.
It seems possible then that the Serco contract here ( and it is clearly a contract ) may be superfluous.
Kat..indeed, al part of the biggest fraud in history.
There's a new book out on the contracting-out of formerly military activities, and an interview with the authors somewhere around these intertubes. I just came across it last night or this morning and now can't find it anywhere. Will post link when I do.
Nell...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_200...6/
091507A.shtml
The Spoils of War: Billions Over Baghdad
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
Vanity Fair
It speaks volumes of the secrecy that is being maintained around this subject, and its extent. It's important for us not to let this get swept under the carpet. Look forward to any links you have.
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