Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War

I know from first-hand experience that it can be shockingly difficult to nail down the facts behind stories that took place in a war zone, even when the documentation is readily available and the participants are happy to discuss events. That Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman have been able to assemble the stories they have for "Betraying Our Troops" is almost amazing, considering the current environment surrounding the Iraq war. In an environment where government and corporate secrecy prevails, and where people resist speaking out for fear ruining their careers or becoming the targets of corporate, legal or government retaliation, just getting the stories on the record is an impressive feat. Were the stories included here simply unique anecdotes about scattered problems - contaminated water made worse by contractors, troops whose worn boots are duct-taped together because replacements are nowhere to be found, troops in the field living in squalor while others in the green zone enjoy flat-panel TVs and Xbox 360s, safe houses abandoned because contractors won't venture out to repair their generators - they would be infuriating. When these are put in the context of an armed forces supply framework that has no fiscal controls, and apparently no concern for the well-being of the troops it is supposed to serve, it is downright criminal. The contracting companies cited in this book - Kellogg Brown & Root, its parent Halliburton, Blackwater Security and the comically, tragically inept Custer Battles, among others - have two things in common: an almost gleeful eagerness to steal taxpayer's money through any means necessary (including the threat of a work stoppage), and a blatant disregard for human life, whether it's that of Iraqis, GIs or their own employees. The book has a few flaws; tighter copy editing and a greater emphasis on the writing could have given the presentation more finesse. But the rough edges are more than made up for by the first-hand accounts of the effects of this disastrous logistics system. The whistleblowers who go on the record here have little more to gain than helping out those still stuck in Iraq suffering at the mercy of this hopelessly mangled supply system. This is the kind of book that usually comes out only after a war's end, when it is too late to do anything about the injustices described inside. The authors do a huge service by providing a nearly "real-time" look at a tragic situation exacerbated by greed, cronyism and simple callousness when there is still opportunity to address it.

The book "Blood Money," one I reviewed for [...] some time ago, by T. Christian Miller, laid out some of the same items this book catalogs. Indeed, this book's authors quote Blood Money at least once. Indeed, they quote from an organization the hierarchy of which I met where I purchased "Blood Money" from its author. (That organization feels not only that the "war" was over a long time ago, but that it's about time that war become more privatized. That's a little oversimplified, but essentially that group's claim). What are those items? Some other reviews have mentioned them: companies overcharging for their "services" to the US military, no DOD oversight, violence on Iraqi civilians done by many who couldn't even be prosecuted using the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And on and on. These authors, however, put these criminal activities into the context of, yes, betrayal of the troops. Among the hardest dimensions of this "war" to deal with is that the conservatives--the same individuals who whine ad nauseum about government spending when they're not making any money off of it--are not FURIOUS at these criminal activities. The other is that those who insist we "support the troops"--with their bumper stickers, rhetoric, and votes--are clearly those most responsible for the troops' betrayal. And this book makes that just a tad clearer. The book seems almost like a redundancy of Blood Money, but not really. It actually rubs in the facts listed in the former book--they are, alas, things we need to think about, and hold those responsible for them criminally accountable! And the last chapter of this book was worth its weight in gold. The authors pointed out at a few points in the text that critics insist that the "war service industry," i.e., those outfits to which services to our military have been literally outsourced, is here to stay. But the authors challenge that based, for example, on whether those who're cheating us blind would be liable under UCMJ, and other criminal codes subject to, say, the Geneva Convention. Read this, and Blood Money. Then ask yourself where your taxes are going and how are we going to hold these criminals accountable.

Excellent book. The information is clear, objective, precise, well documented, and makes the reader learn for a fact where we are with the war in Irak concerning the utilization of contractors for logistic support for our troops. It reveals the huge money being paid to contractors and the lack of accountability and appropriate auditing of their operations in Irak. It also shows the unnecessary and high risks that our soldiers have to endure due to having entrusted private contractors with operations previously and traditionally performed by the army during a war. I highly recommend this book to all.

Read this book. It's that simple. Then read Fiasco. Then go to the VA hospital and talk to the soldiers sitting in the waiting areas. The truth is there for those who care to seek it out. One way or another, you'll pay for this book. You'll either read it and have your eyes opened, or not read it and have the wasted tax dollars efficiently extracted from your weekly paycheck. It's your choice. You can ignore it, not read it and say it's just `left wing lies' but I'm writing this review to tell you that if you do that, you're only lying to yourself. I know. I was there with the contributors to this book. I served under them. I went hungry when the contractors failed to supply meals and I drank contaminated water with the rest of the US military while they horded bottled water in their supply depots and their 5 star hotels in Kuwait. Lies come from our elected officials both to get elected and to keep their positions of power. Lies come faster from them and make it to TV to decry books like this as `just lies'. But like all lies, eventually the truth comes out. This book sheds light on the real truth that is our military funding system gone amok. Lies now come (sadly) from far too many of our military leaders seeking to protect their careers and their command mistakes and to cover up ever-increasing mission failures because contractors don't have to follow orders, they have to be paid or they leave. Mostly, they leave anyway. I know. I was one of them. I not only quit when the going got tough, I got a bonus for my service! Lies come from criminals seeking to `beat the system'. We all know that. Lies also come from well-connected corporations seeking `any & every means' to increase their business revenue streams for the all-mighty profit. That's what this book is about. It's about the lies that our military lives with now, accepts now, is served by now and is harnessed to by more than 126,000 civilians who live comfortably in combat, not in fox holes with lice crawling on them like the soldiers do, but in air conditioned trailers with TV and internet while they argue with our commanders that they need more ( & Bigger!) contracts. They're arguments would get a soldier thrown in the brig. In wartime, it could get a summary execution. In this war, threatening a contractor leads them to quit when the mission gets too dangerous or causes them to `slow down' to make us learn a lesson. We, the soldiers now know the golden rule: Don't bite the hand that feeds you or they'll stop bringing your food. They did it. We went hungry and convoys stopped coming. Not once, but year after year. They stopped in 2003 while I was in Baghdad and again in 2004 when I was in Tikrit. Lies don't come from the testimonies of the brave souls willing to put their careers on the line for this book. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. I've spoken to one contributor whose career is effectively ended for what he reported. Our first duty is n

This book will make you mad, and you need to read it anyway. In Rasor and Bauman's investigation into the tangled world of private defense contracting, I read about KBR's practice of removing all the spare tires from convoy trucks so that when some of them got flats, the contractor would burn them and bill the government (that's you and me, by the way) $85,000, plus costs, and I thought that was bad. Then I read about the soldiers stuck out in remote bases in the Iraqi desert, running out of food and water, duct-taping their boots; and the contractors who would refuse to resupply them because the roads were dangerous, and I thought that was really bad. Then I read about the disastrous journey through Fallujah, apparently intentionally bungled by a Blackwater contractor attempting to harass an employee who knew too much. The consequence of that bit of "office politics" was the deaths of thousands of people, including the four Blackwater employees, and a grave worsening of the military situation in Iraq. That's when I began to feel mad. But I was really grossed out to read about camp Ar Ramadi in northern Iraq where KBR was discovered to be providing untreated wastewater for soldiers to shower with, exposing everyone in the camp to typhoid, cholera and every kind of water-borne parasite and disease. And I began to wonder what kind of people these were to do this to their own soldiers. How did the military come to be at the mercy of contractors? Why don't contractors provide the services they contract to provide? How did privatizing the Iraq war undermine any chance of its success? Using the stories of real soldiers and contractors, Rasor and Bauman have written a thoroughly documented book about defense contracting in a war zone that is readable and compelling; and it will make you mad. This is a book that anyone who cares about our soldiers or the future of our military services should read. It is a book that should be read by anyone who cares about the future of the United States.