Army wants more private contractors to avoid accountability for Bush war of Choice

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An Army contracting fraud scandal has generated more than 80 criminal investigations. However, higher numbers, better quality and more clout within the Army's contracting ranks are expected to reduce opportunities for fraud, waste and abuse as tens of billions of dollars continue to be spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said.

The panel chaired by former Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler also recommends giving the Defense Contract Management Agency several hundred more personnel to exercise greater oversight of contracts awarded overseas.

Established in August by Army Secretary Pete Geren, the Gansler panel was given a broad mandate to examine how the military branch acquires the gear and services it needs each year to operate.

Since 2001, provisional offices have spring up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Qatar and other locations to buy items such as bottled water, laundry services, barracks, food, transportation, and warehouse services.

But in certain places, such as Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, there were too few qualified people, too little oversight, high staff turnover, and poor record-keeping. In the midst of those shortcomings came a huge flow of dollars for the war, creating an environment ripe for misconduct and inefficiency.

A separate Army task force was assigned to examine a random sampling of the 6,000 contracts worth nearly $2.8 billion issued since 2003 by the Kuwait office in a search for rigged awards and sloppy work. That review is to be completed by the end of the year.

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