Still profiteering after all these years

Anyone who's been reading for a while has undoubtedly come across one of my bitter, angry posts about the billions of dollars that have been squandered by contractors in Iraq. The American public has known for years that we're being ripped off. The House and Senate are certainly aware. The White House is responsible for a lot of it, of course, with their devotion to free-market principles like open competition and bidding. But it continues-- just one more crime courtesy of BushCo. And this one kills our troops.

The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on schedule, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion dollars awarded since 2000 to Force Protection, Inc., and Armor Holdings, Inc.

The auditors found several contracts issued by the Marine Corps on a sole-source basis to Force Protection even though it knew there were other manufacturers that might have supplied the vehicles in a more timely fashion.

That's just two companies, but the article mentions several more (and not even Halliburton of contaminated water, employee Super Bowl party, and imported gasoline infamy). This would be a swell time to bring up Truman's pursuit of war profiteers or Eisenhower's warnings of the military-industrial complex, but instead of that why don't we all just marvel at the fact that while the GOP has known it all along, they just don't care.