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It is long been Dick Cheney's mission to privatize the military and other Republicans tout the benefits of privatizing other areas of the government. However, to see a prime example of why privatization doesn't work, just look at private military contractors in Iraq like Blackwater.
From Ezra Klein...
Blackwater was a subcontractor to Regency, which was a subcontractor to ESS, which was a subcontractor to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, the prime contractor for the Pentagon -- and each company along the way was in business to make a profit. [...]
According to data provided to the House panel, the average per-day pay to personnel Blackwater hired was $600. According to the schedule of rates, supplies and services attached to the contract, Blackwater charged Regency $1,075 a day for senior managers, $945 a day for middle managers and $815 a day for operators.
According to data provided to the House panel, Regency charged ESS an average of $1,100 a day for the same people. How the Blackwater and Regency security charges were passed on by ESS to Halliburton's KBR cannot easily be determined since the catering company was paid on a per-meal basis, with security being a percentage of that charge.And how does that compare with what the government spends?
An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day.So we're paying Halliburton $1,100 for their rent-a-soldiers, while we're paying General Petraeus less than half that for his services. It's astonishing. And we have less operational control over the Blackwater forces than we have over members of the military.
The Bush administration has discovered that it's far easier to convince Congress to appropriate more funds than it is to convince the American people, much less the military, to send more troops. So we're purchasing extra manpower instead. It's a way of hiding the human cost of the war in the financial cost of the war. It's a way, in other words, of lying, albeit in a uniquely expensive fashion.
Privatization isn't smaller government, it just costs more.
3 comments:
"The Bush administration has discovered that it's far easier to convince Congress to appropriate more funds than it is to convince the American people, much less the military, to send more troops. So we're purchasing extra manpower instead. It's a way of hiding the human cost of the war in the financial cost of the war. It's a way, in other words, of lying, albeit in a uniquely expensive fashion."
It neither hides the human nor financial cost-its very clear in the budget.
I mourn for the bi-partisan leadership that would have had the historic character to tell people that we need to send more like 400k soldiers to Iraq and utterly crush all opposition, just like WW2 in Germany and Japan.
But that possibility was foreclosed in part because of liberal opposition to sending such large forces to Iraq. I said in part because it also was the product of the all to common strategic planning to win the last war with a light weight blitzkreig to Bagdad, which I assume that you will agree went much faster and with far fewer casualties that you more most libs predicted or expected.
We'd better quit messin' around, add about 3 army and 1 more marine division in the next couple of years and hit Iran with more like 7 American divisions.
but we have had sufficient force to maintain historically low, very low, casualties.
You are totally missing my main point in this post. We are paying $1,100 a day for person from Blackwater to do a midlevel job when we could be paying $170 for a person from the military to do the job. If you truly are a fiscal conservative then that should anger you greatly.
Finally, if you want to discuss Iraq then you should have responded to my reply to your comments on my Sept. 9th post about Bill Richardson and Iraq.
Mr. Sporer, we don't have 400,000 more soldiers to send to Iraq.
And I believe that most of the money we've spent in Iraq has not been "in the budget" at all--it has been in the various "supplemental" funding bills Bush has sent to Congress.
desmoinesdem
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