"Fraud, Waste, Abuse, Too Few Qualified People, Too Little Oversight, High Staff Turnover, Poor Record-Keeping, Rigged Awards, Sloppy Work, Bribes"

President Whiny McPoopypants can blame the Congress all he wants for not "keeping America's promise" to the troops in harm's way, and he can pout through a nonillion pressers about how it would "be irresponsible to not give our troops the resources they need to get their job done because Congress was unable to get its job done," and all the rest of his belligerent bullshittery, but it doesn't change the fact that one of the most pressing issues facing the Army under Bitchy Moany Commander-in-Chiefy is a result of—what else?—corruption and incompetence.

The Army, stung by a contracting fraud scandal that has generated more than 80 criminal investigations, needs 1,400 more personnel to deal with the demands of supplying troops in combat, said U.S. officials familiar with a report by federal procurement experts.

…Collectively, 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, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

…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.

The Army Criminal Investigation Command already has 83 ongoing criminal investigations related to contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Nearly two dozen military and civilian Army personnel have been charged or indicted and more than $15 million in confirmed bribes has changed hands, according to the command.

Naturally, this is also a problem of the Bush administration's fervent belief in privatizing war as much as possible. It's not people to deliver basic supplies to the troops that we need, you see; it's people to oversee the people who we've contracted to deliver basic supplies to the troops that we need. Because, you know, private business does everything better than government, of course.

The report, "Urgent Reform Required: Army Expeditionary Contracting," proposes adding 400 military and 1,000 civilian personnel with contract-signing authority to an Army contracting work force that now has just over 10,000 people.

I'm no military expert or anything, but that sounds like it would have a job description of something like:

Job Level: Middle Management

Primary Responsibility: Oversee thieving incompetents to ensure delivery of necessary items to troops in the middle of a war zone

Notes: Urgent task with high expectations and almost zero chance of success

Yeah, good luck filling 1,400 open positions for what's pretty much got to be the shittiest job in the fucking world.