Pentagon fumbles as war tide shifts

In the practice of ancient Rome, a triumphant general, apt to forget his mortality amid adulation, heard a reminder in cant, uttered by a slave standing over his shoulder: “Look behind. Remember that you are a man.” Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, steadily accomplishing by virtue of valor a victory almost incomprehensible, need only look toward home to recall a nature which conquest cannot alter.
Beyond the range of sniper fire and roadside bomb blasts, politicians and bureaucrats safely ensconced in the Beltway’s halls of power are carrying out a familiar assault on ethics, lucidity or both. Congressional auditors want to know what became of $2 billion in U.S. taxpayer money paid to Pakistan. A federal grand jury wants to know how a 22-year-old arms dealer acquired an almost $300 million defense contract. Maybe America does not want to know the answers.
In the first case, the Pentagon and Islamabad appear to have established a relationship about which housewives dream. Pakistani officials ask for money and Defense Department officials pull out the federal checkbook, asking no questions.
This process apparently fetched Pakistan $35 million for the construction of army roads and bunkers the existence of which the Government Accountability Office says cannot be verified. The task seems simple, unless of course the roads never were built. Maybe the money went to the spa.
Another $200 million was ticketed for air defense radar, with a proviso. Islamabad was required to apply the money to costs associated with U.S. military operations, not routine business for Pakistan. Auditors found no proof that the condition was met. Perhaps the GAO should check President Pervez Musharraf’s wardrobe. Didn’t he wear new pumps to the last news conference?
While auditors ponder that one, a Florida grand jury wonders over Efraim Diveroli, whom Thomas Frank, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, likens to the “perpetually stoned Jeff Spicoli” of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” fame. Diveroli is accused of pedaling hundreds of millions of dollars in munitions to the federal government. The post-pubescent arms dealer’s trouble is that the wares he sold to the U.S. apparently were manufactured in China. That violates Pentagon rules of which there are many but few obeyed.
The Journal’s Frank uses this case and the scandals over Blackwater security in Iraq and the use of other contractors there to deride public-private partnerships. Cases such as Diveroli’s seem to make his point. Cases such as Pakistan demonstrate that the problem resides not in the concept of government linking with the private sector but in the way government conducts business.
Brazen cons lurk not only in all age groups but both within government and outside it, and beyond our boundaries. The repellent for hucksters is a steady application of common sense. This works for people receiving e-mails from Nigeria and those reviewing contracts submitted by arms dealers who still must provide identification for the purchase of beer and cigarettes.
In the Pakistani and Diveroli cases, government is guilty of incompetence or fraud. This means the service of soldiers and hard work of taxpayers has been disdained by way of neglect or intent. Neither scenario soothes.