That first link for NYT goes to a story about a TX court denying a stay of execution. That intended???

In time to come, these corporations will be hired by the American government/military and patrolling the streets of America against American citizens.

It's coming.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

They used this as an excuse to loot the treasury. Unreal.

You fight a war with the corrupt, criminal thugs that you have, not the ones that you wish you had.

Once upon a time, militaries, including ours, provided their own "food, fuel, and potable water along with critical services ranging from complex engineering to cleaning out the port-o-potties."

It's like this Administration only had one criterion for making military decisions. If asked "should we do x?", the civilian leadership asked, "I don't know. Tell me, are there were patently obvious disastrous consequences that will occur within a timeframe of a few years?" If the answer was, "yes sir, there certainly are," then the answer was "Great! Full speed ahead!"

Just another reason to end the war. We are being blackmailed, hijacked, and ransomed by our own corporate giants.

Lest we forget, the US military's current dependence on outside contractors was dreamed up by Dick Cheney way back when he was SecDef. Then he went into the private sector, at Halliburton (which owns KBR), from which he continues to draw a paycheck.

It would be foolish to look at it only in these terms, but the Iraq war has been an excellent make-work project for Cheney's company.

I meant WWII!

Lest we forget the KBR is now headquartered in Dubai, UAE.

Aren't privatization and outsourcing of government services wonderful? Those Republicans are so clever!

Osage, the entire "defense" establishment in our country is a make work project to keep the wealthy becoming ever more wealthy. We have spent nearly a trillion dollars (that is 1000 times bigger than a billion, which itself is 1000 times bigger than a million) on Bush's Iraq crimes. Virtually all of that went to the "defense" industry in this country. The part that didn't go there, went to Cheney's cronies and their personal crime syndicates.

We don't need all of this "defense". There isn't a single enemy of our country in the whole world that could begin to mount an attack on us. No other country in the world spends even a fraction of what we do on their defense. Do you see any other countries being attacked as a result of their weak defenses?

When the grand empires of the past have shifted to dependence on mercenaries, they were all on their last legs.
Who will do the hiring when China invades in 40 or 50 years?

In January, President Obama and the Democratic Congress should put an immediate hold on further payments to contractors until they provide an account of how all funds were spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The honest contractors (assuming there are any) will be able to comply - those who cannot will have their contracts canceled. Then when KBR, Blackwater, etc. pack up and leave, there will be no alternative but to bring the troops home; we can't leave them unsupported.

Enron is KBR's hero. Make sure they get all of KBR's investigation files and records in the next building they decide to destroy.

Our own military is being blackmailed by a foreign group of underpaid employees with profiteering bosses. Just pathetic.

Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to pay the troops more money to cover meals and cleaning services on their own rather than the billions it wastes on KBR and Blackwater. Stop privatizing our democracy and our government. Stop selling us off to the lowest bidder.

It is interesting the DoE, NASA and DoD can replace service companies onshore but can't do it offshore. Case in point, UC Berkley has lost many of its contracts for Sandia labs through a bid (ha) process. NASA bids for major maintenance and engineering operations for its many facilities such as Ames Research Center. I was going to say it was a big mistake to outsource all the services that KBR et al provide, but as others have posted here, it was deliberate. Whether the depletion of and hamstringing of auditors was also deliberate, only time will tell.

Lest we forget the KBR is now headquartered in Dubai, UAE.

That's true.
But keep in mind, now that KBR is in UAE, there's no SCOTUS issues with using GBUs on them.

I've got a simple idea: Draft KBR.

From the CEO to the last laundry worker, draft them into the newly invented US Army Support Corps. All are subject to US military law, all are paid on military scale, all are in for the next 2 years minimum, and subject to whatever the term of art is for the perpetual servitude the Dick and the Bush are subjecting our REAL soldiers to, tour after tour.

No, it's not nationalization: it's a choice between patriotic service and treason for war profiteering.

This is America, the super power? Cheney was right in the '90s when he made the case for not going into Baghdad. Then he becomes VP and is all gung ho to invade Iraq? And what changed in between? Halliburton.

This is without a doubt the BIGGEST problem with the Bush adminisration and will be exactly the same big problem with McCain.

AND it's not just KBR - it't the whole unbid contract mess in Iraq - it's plain and simply war profiteering big time.

It's not ONLY completely non-consevative - it's completely criminal so why doesn't Nancy Pelsoi put impeachment BACK on the damn table?

Josh Marshall should keep these unbid contract BS front and center like he did with the fired US attorneys thing - because the MEDIA doesn't care about this very blatant evidence of GROSS war-profiteering going on in Iraq.

The NYT, WP, the TV media, they are hardling SAYING a damn word about it and yet we have those people telling congress on C-Span so truly horrible stories, one horrible act right after another about these unbid contractors.

This is why I don't buy the damn newspaper any more - I hope they go bankrupt because they are NOT doing their damn jobs anymore. They don't seem to be in for the money but the mis-information business.

If KBR isn't willing to pay back the over-charges, the United States government should take it out of their corporate hide and absorb the company wholesale.

It's based out of the UAE, sure, but how many of the executives live there? Where are the main offices? What is the citizenship of the management directing operations with the U.S. Armed Forces?

This would solve three problems with one move: re-integrate support services into the military, recover stolen U.S. money, and punish the perpetrators of what amounts to treason.

It's actually much much worse than is portrayed in this article. I worked as a contractor for KBR for three years and witnessed some pretty sketchy stuff. At the camp in Mosul, the sewage trucks would back right up to the river and dump what they had just sucked up from the porta-potties. Another time while on a fuel convoy, we needed to empty out the tanks so we could re-load with a different type of fuel. So the convoy-commander had us pull over on the side of the highway and just open up our outlet pipes. We were then told to drive along close to the side of the road. Hundreds of gallons of raw fuel (from multiple trucks) poured right out onto the soil.

Now these were just a couple of the shocking things I experienced myself. I can guarantee that much worse happened all over the place. It is still the case that the US can do pretty much whatever it wants anywhere in the country. The Iraqis know who is really running the show and just let us do what we want.