Econintersect: The final report of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan was released in August but Econintersect was not aware of it until a review of the commission’s work was presented on HD Net Dan Rather Reports on November 15. Dan interviewed the commission co-chairman, former congressman Christopher Shays (R, CT) (pictured at the interview). The congressman said that the commission had hard facts to support waste of $31 billion and softer information that might double that estimate of waste.Some of the major factors involved in the waste that Shays mentioned were:
- No one is responsible for much of the money misspent;
- The areas with the biggest problems were off-budget for the government;
- The presumed enemies in war zones were collecting vast sums in shake-down money – U.S. “protection” pay-offs were said to be second only to opium as a source of revenue for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The show trailer video from November 15 is available below. (Presumably the full broadcast will be available later.) The second section of the program is the interview with former Rep. Shays. At one point Shays says he doesn’t think the Taliban wants us to leave Afghanistan because we are such an important profit center for them.
Source: Final Report of Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan
