Private Contractors: March 2011

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Private Contractors: March 2011

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Private Contractors

TPM Investigates: Army Tries To Rein In Rampant Afghan Fuel Theft

Susan Crabtree | March 7, 2011, 7:59AM

The U.S. Army is getting rid of its "pen and paper" and "string and stick" method of tracking fuel use in Afghanistan after nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud resulting in what is likely hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in lost fuel, some of which is sold on the black market and has ended up in Taliban hands.

The highest levels of the U.S. military have deep concerns about the rampant robbery, and the U.S. Army this week is beginning to implement, base by base in Afghanistan, a computerized accounting system aimed at making it easier to track the disappearing fuel.

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Topics: Army Petroleum Center, Defense Contract Audit Agency, Defense Contractors, Defense Department, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Iraq Corruption, Iraq War, John McHugh, Private Contractors, War In Afghanistan

Commission On Wartime Contracting

Highway Robbery! U.S. Losing Hundreds of Millions To Rampant Afghan Fuel Theft

Susan Crabtree | March 3, 2011, 11:55AM

After nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud, the U.S. military still hasn't found a way to staunch the flow of what is likely hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars in lost fuel in Afghanistan, some of which is sold on the black market and winds up in Taliban hands, a TPM investigation has found.

With political unrest in the Middle East sending oil over $100 per barrel and Congress more intent than ever at cutting government waste, fraud and abuse in tough budgetary times, the Defense Department is under intense pressure to find a way to monitor and track the flow of fuel in and out of its bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The extensive corruption associated with disappearing fuel in Afghanistan provides another illustration of the problems associated with the heavy use of private contractors on the battlefield. Earlier this week, the non-partisan Commission for Wartime Contracting reported that the U.S. government has spent $117 billion on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and tens of billions of those dollars have been wasted.