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Soldiers were selling the U.S. military’s fuel to Afghan locals on the side, and pocketing the proceeds. When Hightower suggested they start doing the same, Charboneau said, she agreed.
In so doing, Charboneau contributed to thefts by U.S. military personnel of at least $15 million worth of fuel since the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And eventually she became one of at least 115 enlisted personnel and military officers convicted since 2005 of committing theft, bribery, and contract rigging crimes valued at $52 million during their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a comprehensive tally of court records by the Center for Public Integrity.
Many of these crimes grew out of shortcomings in the military’s management of the deployments that experts say are still present: A heavy dependence on cash transactions, a hasty award process for high-value contracts, loose and harried oversight within the ranks, and a regional culture of corruption that proved seductive to the American troops transplanted there.
[Related]: http://www.militarycorruption.com/nguyen.htm
[Also Covered By]: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/u_s_troops_have_stolen_tens_of_millions_in_iraq_and_afghanistan_center_for.single.html
Of course, stealing from the military is not strictly limited to overseas. It wasn't that long ago that a single guy was convicted of the largest domestic kickback and bribery scheme at a cool $32.5Million
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Katastic on Thursday May 07 2015, @01:46PM
I understand the military is a gigantic organization with many levels of abstraction. But how the hell can you be waging war for decades upon decades and STILL be caught with your pants down on something as simple as organizational management? This is not their first war. This is not the first time they've moved money. This is not the first time they've had people in charge of money.
They have proven themselves as unable to learn from their mistakes and the top brass deserve to be sacked. If W. Edwards Deming was alive, he would have punched them in the nuts while screaming, "MEASURE HOW MANY TIMES I HIT YOU!"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @02:30PM
> But how the hell can you be waging war for decades upon decades and STILL be caught with your pants down on something as simple as organizational management?
Easy. Going to war is sexy, management is not. So all the money gets spent on cool toys and training soldiers to be gung-ho. But the boring pedestrian stuff that everything else depends on gets the bare minimum.
This case is small potatoes. We literally air-lifted $12B in pallets of cash to Iraq [theguardian.com] with only the thinnest of controls.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 07 2015, @04:32PM
I'm pretty sure Basic Training includes lots of stuff that blows up and how to make sure it blows up your intended target.
Policing an occupied area and dealing ethically with daily population needs (esp. in the midst of an insurgency) wasn't in the curriculum until they realized they were stuck for longer than expected. Bush's are the longest wars the US has ever been deployed in, there was little need for that stuff before.
Policing is hard, as we might have noticed.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 07 2015, @05:12PM
Apparently the $12 Billion Cash was Iraq's cash to begin with. It's not like we sent $12 Billion of American Tax Payer's Money that way. The money was sent to help boost their Economy. Please read the entire article that you posted. You might not agree with the way it went down, but War is a messy business. The Army isn't Western Union / Paypal.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @05:18PM
> Apparently the $12 Billion Cash was Iraq's cash to begin with.
Which is utterly irrelevant to the question of mismanagement and inadequate controls.
The money was in our care -- we had a duty to manage it responsibly.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Thursday May 07 2015, @03:18PM
The problem with military spending is that it's almost never a "problem" - military spending bills are political anathema to oppose. Arguing for tighter regulation and oversight is arguing for adding "red tape that gets in the way of our troops and puts them in harms way!", so why fight that losing battle?
It's not like these activities actually even harm the troops. Contractors billing for 10 extra people who don't actually exist when building a base? Hey, the base got built. Government getting radically overcharged for basic materials? Hey, you got what you needed - the material is no worse just because we pocketed an extra 20% on the price. Fuel being stolen and sold on the black market? Just order more fuel - as long as there's enough on the base, who cares that we ordered 5 extra tankers we didn't need?
Big military contractors are a small, tight-knit, and very cosy to government group (think Haliburton being lead by Dick Cheney if you want a near-perfect metaphor) - as long as the theft isn't egregious, they have powerful friends and it's unlikely they'll lose out on their cushy no-big contracts. Who's bothering to audit them? And the military itself has a near-bottomless budget in the current climate - if they ask for an extra $100 billion, they get it, and oversight is minimal as long as the report the right numbers in roughly the right place. As long as they keep their heads down when the Inspector General's office comes to town, they're unlikely to get caught.
In short, nobody in a position to change things gives a crap.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday May 08 2015, @02:30AM
What's good for M & M Enterprises will be good for the country.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday May 07 2015, @05:04PM
They, we, everyone, has yet to set up a police force that is not rife with bribery, corruption, and worse. If a country cannot set up a managing police force on friendly domestic soil, how do you expect them to do it on unstable, enemy, foreign soil?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Friday May 08 2015, @06:56AM
Well that's easy. Management is probably more corrupt and what you're seeing here is just the small fishes. Isn't the Bush family build on arms dealing?