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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Washington Post: Hoping to Keep the fight Alive
By Jan Schakowsky @ 5:36 PM

Sunday, October 7, 2007; A08

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) started pressing for greater congressional scrutiny of private contractors in Iraq not long after the war began. Last week she got lots of company.

The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to hold firms such as Blackwater USA accountable under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act for possible criminal misconduct. Co-sponsored by Schakowsky, the bill included her proposal to require the Justice Department to disclose to Congress the number of complaints filed against contractors, the number of investigations it has initiated and the number of criminal cases it has opened, along with the results of those cases.

The 389 to 30 vote came despite White House opposition and amid rising alarm in Congress about potential contractor abuses after the Sept. 16 shooting by Blackwater personnel in Baghdad that left at least 14 Iraqi civilians dead.

Schakowsky saw the potential for scandal long ago. In April 2006, she wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to explain how his administration was holding private military contractors accountable. At that point, 25,000 U.S. contractors were employed in Iraq. Now the number is roughly 180,000.

"Finally it's really broken through," Schakowsky said of the expanding role of contractors. "And I think once the Pandora's box is opened here about what these people are doing, I don't think it's going to end."

(Click to read the article.)

Comments

You may find FAULT with the companies that you are trying to go after in this way, but in reality most of what they do which is seemingly "shady" is most likely REGULATED and or "entrenched corruption" ~ I have seen it here in AMERICA concerning how many PRIVATE companies operate in with and respect to GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS especially when thre is INSURANCE COMPANIES involved... IN america there are sometimes so many INEFFICIENT gov't operations that there is so much WASTE involved ... operations that produce little real result and or are ARCHAIC in their way...

posted @ Friday, October 26, 2007 5:29 PM by neil kenes

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