{^_^}

…how private corporations employ former high-ranking federal government and military officials to generate huge profits from secret contracts with the CIA, NSA and various baronies in the Defense Department.

What crap! Where was USA Today during the ’90’s, and Algore’s Reinventing Government schemes?
There were many instances in which a position held by a full time federal employee was not filled by a full time federal employee, and a contractor was essentially hired the next day to do the same work…often by the same federal employee who was recently in the position.
It didn’t matter how good of a job the contractor would do, all that mattered was that Algore was then able to claim the size of the federal workforce was being reduced.
At times contractors can do a job better, but as with any employee, federal or otherwise, it comes down to oversight of the work done.
With Algore’s Reinventing Government, it didn’t matter.
USA Today certainly wasn’t concerned with contracting then.

On the whole, though, I am inclined to agree with sonofdy (#11) “It saved us 10’s of millions in the 90’s and now those cuts are costing us 100’s of millions.”

I have to argue with that statement. I am a civil servant/government worker. I have a PhD in history and work as an historian for the Air Force and have deployed to Southwest Asia as a civilian to write operational histories of units in Southwest Asia. While there are many civil servants who should be fired due to incompetence, there are many of us who are well-qualified and produce quality work.

[Contractor]SAIC has received millions of dollars (that arguably could be used instead to improve public schools or feed the hungry) that paid for failed systems.

That quote raised my irony alarm as well. When someone says the words “failed systems,” nothing leaps to mind quite as readily as “public shools”

. . . that paid for failed systems. Shorrock relates the saga of Project Trailblazer, “designed to capture communications traveling on cellphones, fiber optics and across the Internet.”

It probably failed because they couldn’t get a search warrant.

Seems like with Bush/Cheney cronyism and the opportunities for corruption in Iraq that are perhaps unparalleled in history in scale, Washington has been converted into a sort of Chicago, but where corruption is on a national scale now.

http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/print/coverprint.html

On May 28th, 2008 at 12:11 pm, sonofdy said:

While i agree that the cuts hurt, look at it in this light…

When the state wants to repave the road in front of your house, normally (as is the case in many places), they subcontract out to a paver in the area. The same holds true in this case.

As far as typical security (and anyone who is over there, like truesoldier can attest and describe), these things including escort duty for VIP’s and other dangerous situations that normally, our military does not cover. Imagine if we had to divert our soldiers for body guard duty. That would be a mess.

However, those with prior military experience are valuable members of the private contracting community. They bring specific training, have verifiable service records, and are paid well for their time and inherent risks and sacrifices (of family, as well as sometimes life and limb)

Those contractors are vital to the success and smooth operation of these situations.