Anyone see it? I saw it last night. Very interesting. Devestating to KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) and other other contractors.
Now, having said that, it was 100% from a left wing point of view with no balance whatsoever so I have to take some of it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, they did a very good job of pointing out all the problems with KBR, CACI, Blackwater and some of the other contracting firms.
And Halliburton, et al, thank you for that.
Halliburton sends special thanks for their no-bid contracts from Dubai.
Having been over there twice and seen the kind of money these guys are making sitting on their butts is incredibly frustrating. When they actually do complete a project those no-class Iraqi's destroy it. Case in point: We spent about $500,00 refurbishing some Iraqi barracks. Once we were complete and had turned the building over to the Iraqis they burned all the furniture inside (Beds, dressers, chairs, etc) and then proceeded to rip all the copper wire out of the building as well as remove alot of the plumbing. What a waste...
Sounds like they really want us there.
Quote from: muarmy81 on August 27, 2007, 05:46:34 AM
Having been over there twice and seen the kind of money these guys are making sitting on their butts is incredibly frustrating. When they actually do complete a project those no-class Iraqi's destroy it. Case in point: We spent about $500,00 refurbishing some Iraqi barracks. Once we were complete and had turned the building over to the Iraqis they burned all the furniture inside (Beds, dressers, chairs, etc) and then proceeded to rip all the copper wire out of the building as well as remove alot of the plumbing. What a waste...
Sounds like some of the projects built here in the States....I can name a few similar incidents in Chicago, East L.A., and New York.
MUarmy - is it a total mess over there?
Quote from: mviale on August 27, 2007, 12:39:33 PM
MUarmy - is it a total mess over there?
Depends who you ask....depends where you are stationed....depends on many things mviale. My niece and nephew are in a situation over there where things are pretty darn good, but other places not so much.
I have ranted on this before so I'll keep this one brief:
IMO, things are about as fine as they will be with our assistance. The cliché rings true about the media covering all the messy events and not the good events. What you don't read or see is that for every IED that goes off we find and defuse about 40 and when you calculate the fact that maybe 1 inf 3 or 4 of those IEDs that go off actually causes physical damage it really isn't so terrible. Between my first year (2003-2004) and my second year (2005-2006) in Iraq I observed huge improvements in the country both in the political sector as well as in the military sector. During my second year I worked/trained an Iraqi Army unit and it was a real eye opener in terms of how the culture/society had changed and how the Iraqis were beginning to operate within their new found freedoms. Unfortunately, those in power tend to abuse that power since they haven't had experience with having power. My Iraqi unit had some corruption in the higher ranks that is something that we'll have to come to terms with. Right now the Iraqis are basically trying to do what we tell them when it would probably behoove them to act more like the dictators they were accustomed to under Saddam. Instead of enforcing law and order they're trying to coax law and order so that they don't look bad in the eyes of their American advisors. They want to seem sophisticated and cultured not barbaric and criminal when, in fact, they need to instill some fear in the insurgents trying to operate in Iraq through their old "barbaric" ways. All in all it really isn't that bad, you just have to temper your expectations and realize that no matter how hard you work or how much effort you put into improving the country Iraq will never reach the developed level of the united states...tribal allegiances play more of a role than national allegiances therefore people look out for their little clans and not necessarily the good of the nation. With all that being said I think a lot of those contractor dollars can be spent back home in our nation rebuilding some of our infrastructure or improving some of our programs rather than being abused or wasted in Iraq.