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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / More Great Adventures In Contracting

More Great Adventures In Contracting

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Oy.

[T]o arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

Clearly contracting can only be managed by people who aren’t so deeply ideologically invested in it. Believing that the private sector can do no wrong, the GOP repeatedly proves just the opposite.

Reader Interactions

70Comments

  1. 1.

    DougJ

    Clinton sold degraded arms to Afghanis too. But you libruls don’t want to talk about that.

  3. 3.

    dr. bloor

    Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc

    Maybe they just need to stop giving contracts to guys who crib their business plans from “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    If you’re old enough to vote and old enough to serve your country, then you’re damn well old enough to raid the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc.

  5. 5.

    jenniebee

    That weaponry worked so well for the Soviets in Afghanistan, too.

    wait, no it didn’t

  6. 6.

    Porco Rosso

    I wonder if anyone is blogging on False Claims Act/Lincoln’s Law cases. It seems like the Bush administration would be a windfall for anyone specializing in such actions.

  7. 7.

    DrDave

    I think a big part of the failing here is that the Bush Administration has shown a general contempt for oversight within its departments and agencies. Inspectors General under Bush were more likely to be political operatives with little or no auditing experience (as compared with Clinton’s IG’s who were more experienced auditors with less political experience). The result is what you see here and elsewhere.

    Just look at all the unaccounted for funds in Iraq, the overbilling by contractors, substandard work on contracts (cf. news items about soldiers electrocuted in KBR-built shower facilities), etc, etc, etc. It’s all the same thing.

    The fact is, the Bush Administration came into power believing that government doesn’t work well and then they worked overtime to prove it.

    Doh.

  8. 8.

    myiq2xu

    American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

    I’m guessing there will be no happy ending.

  10. 10.

    Porco Rosso

    I wonder if anyone is blogging on False Claims Act/Lincoln’s Law cases. It seems like the Bush administration would be a windfall for anyone specializing in such actions.

    I guess this would be a start: http://www.taf.org/

  11. 11.

    Dennis - SGMM

    [T]o arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

    You have to take a piss test and pass a background investigation to work at WalMart. Sell weapons to the Bush government? No problemo, come on down!

  12. 12.

    cbear

    I’m guessing there will be no happy ending

    Wrong. This story will inexorably lead to some high-placed gooper(s) and a few pet Congresscunts, who will never be prosecuted, never do any jail time, and end up “coming” into millions of our tax dollars.

  14. 14.

    binzinerator

    We’ve been screwed twice.

    Millions of dollars of our taxes went to destroy that stuff, then millions more went to buy a bunch of moldering crap. We paid for it twice.

    I wish they’d test the reliability of some of that ammunition on whoever was behind it all. Load all 6 chambers with suspect ammunition, spin the cylinder, and pull the trigger. If it misfires, the Bushperp still has to face charges, which considering Bushjustice at the DOJ and likely Bushpardons, fat chance but we still might have a chance to recover some of the money.

    On the other hand, if the gun fires we get real justice.

    I advance this suggestion as a fair and righteous means to deal with the Bushco scourge.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    You people have it all wrong.

    The only cure to the free market is more free market. If we eliminate the last vestiges of communism in the US government by making soldiers pay for their own munitions, they’d reward those contractors that provide quality ammo instead of these morons.

  19. 19.

    Scrutinizer

    Speaking of competence in BushCo land:

    WASHINGTON (CNN) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.

    Oops.

  20. 20.

    binzinerator

    It may be possible some may object to the method I suggested above, in that perfect knowledge of every person’s motivations is impossible, and there may be extenuating circumstances behind all this dirtbaggery and outright flim-flammery.

    Therefore I am willing to amend the above procedure to take into account such exigencies of fairness that must be included in any due process of justice.

    To this end, one may leave a single chamber empty among the six.

    Consider this my concession to whatever benefit of a doubt one might have for these Bushcrooks.

  21. 21.

    Halteclere

    But the best part of this article is:

    [A] young woman sought an order of protection from him in the domestic violence division of Dade County Circuit Court… Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.”

    Why am I:
    A) in the wrong business and
    B) too moral to be a Bush war profiteer?

  23. 23.

    SpotWeld

    How does this happen?
    It’s like contracts are assigned solely on the fact that someone in the Bush administration got a “good feel for the guy” while on the golf course?

  24. 24.

    Thepanzer

    Epic fail. 22 year olds get a 300M contract.

    Maybe the real Bushco goal is to go into the history books as a twofer. One for most incompetent regime to rule a great empire ever and the 2nd for running a great empire into the ground in under a decade. Someone call Guiness.

  25. 25.

    Thepanzer

    As I side note, I’m obviously in the wrong line of work…

    300M you say? Was that in cash? Unmarked bills? Teh awesome!

  27. 27.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    Speaking of competence in BushCo land:

    WASHINGTON (CNN) —Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.

    Oops.

    You go to war with the missile fuses you have, not the missile fuses you accidentally shipped to Taiwan.

    I know the military is a gigantic bureaucracy, and I realize stuff gets lost or misdirected all the time, but it would be nice to think that some materials merited tighter accounting procedures.

  28. 28.

    cbear

    Let’s start a blog-pool on which gooper Congresspricks were involved in this deal.

    I’ll go with the Diaz-Balart brothers of Miami as an opening pick.

  29. 29.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    Thinking about the missile fuses some more, that was a twofer; not only did we lose track of the fuses, we sent them to fucking Taiwan, ensuring a hissy fit on the part of the PRoC.

    The guiding principle behind this administration appears to be “if you’re gonna fuck up, fuck up big.”

  30. 30.

    JC

    You know John, the group here is smart enough to get a piece of this action.

    Let’s start a company – Zooropa Munitions – and then let’s just go to town, using the group’s Kevin Bacon-ish connections – I’m sure we’ll be able to nail down a 100+ million contract.

    Others have been doing it, while we’ve been sitting here, bitching.

    No one wonder they call us idiots!

  32. 32.

    Jen

    The guiding principle behind this administration appears to be “if you’re gonna fuck up, fuck up big.”

    Well, they could have sent them to Iran. Chin up!

  34. 34.

    myiq2xu

    You know John, the group here is smart enough to get a piece of this action.

    Maybe we could headquarter in Bloom County.

  35. 35.

    DR

    AEY was not started by this kid, but by his father. The father is Israeli, even if the kid seems to have been born in the U.S. An Israeli, with strong connections to Albania and Switzerland, with ties to companies with checkered records…?

    Smells like a Mossad operation, possibly financing black ops…

  37. 37.

    Halteclere

    Thinking about the missile fuses some more, that was a twofer; not only did we lose track of the fuses, we sent them to fucking Taiwan, ensuring a hissy fit on the part of the PRoC.

    Nuclear missile fuses sent to Taiwan, nuclear missiles flown across the US.

    As many as six nuclear warheads, each with a destructive potential almost 10 times that of the Hiroshima bomb, were mistakenly flown across the US, Pentagon officials conceded yesterday.

    Hell, maybe it is good that we are sending munitions of dubious background to our allies.

  38. 38.

    DougJ

    Just because you libruls were dropping acid and smoking doobies when you were in your early 20s, you hate these kids for getting off their asses and getting their hands on obsolete weapons they could resell at a huge profit.

  39. 39.

    cbear

    Smells like a Mossad operation, possibly financing black ops

    This has the aroma of a Richard Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, (and all the other Likudniks) deal to me.

  40. 40.

    tofubo

    …you hate these kids for getting off their asses and getting their hands on obsolete weapons they could resell at a huge profit…

    http://www.lindsayfincher.com/2008/03/efraim_diveroli_has_no_friends.html

    for the moment im basically just working and chilling with my boyz when im not, im looking for some hobbies…

    Well of course im a super nice guy!!! , i know what i want out of life but not exactly quite sure how to get it yet. I was born and bred in miami beach and have no immediate plans to leave but i have thought about it…

  41. 41.

    LiberalTarian

    dropping acid and smoking doobies when you were in your early 20s

    If you look at the kids’ pics I’m pretty sure acid and pot are on the menu, not to mention crack, meth and ecstasy.

  42. 42.

    SammyB

    DougJ Says:

    Clinton sold degraded arms to Afghanis too. But you libruls don’t want to talk about that.

    Clinton is ripped on constantly here. Maybe ur a first-timer.

  44. 44.

    Halteclere

    Smells like a Mossad operation, possibly financing black ops…

    Come on. Mossad is supposed to be competent, not so stupid to leave a 22-year old in charge of selling shoddy munitions from ex USSR caches, including some munitions that were originally manufactured by China (major U.S. no-no).

  45. 45.

    Punchy

    There’s just no way some 21 year old nobody shoehorns his way into a $300 mill conty with the US govt without some help from either a congressman or a foreign official.

    Unpossible. There’s got to be a hell of a lot more to this.

  46. 46.

    cbear

    Great catch tofubo.

    BTW, here’s one of the websites our enterprising little gooper is/was using to move product. Notice that this one is for selling tactical and riot gear to U.S. agencies.

    What do you wanna bet that this kid and his partners had a lot more contracts than the $300 mil ammo deal?

  48. 48.

    Jake

    Let’s start a blog-pool on which gooper Congresspricks were involved in this deal.

    Given the age of the company’s president, my money is on Mark Foley.

  49. 49.

    Liberal Masochist

    DougJ – I take issue with both the “early” and “20’s” portion of your last post.

  53. 53.

    Halteclere

    Halteclere:

    You’ve got a point there… Must be a CIA black op then…

    Ok, I’d believe that. Any chance the CIA people left their cell phones on while setting up this operation?

  54. 54.

    DougJ

    albania, algania, it borders on the adriatic, it’s mostly mountanous, and it’s chief export is…

    That was one of the best Cheers episodes ever. The Coach episodes were the best.

  55. 55.

    DougJ

    Let’s start a blog-pool on which gooper Congresspricks were involved in this deal.

    I was thinking of something like predicting which GOP Congressmen get busted by the FBI over the next year. Call it the Fed Pool.

  58. 58.

    sparky

    i can see this clown reselling bad old ammo. but it looks like he’s in waaaay over his head, if he manages to hang onto it till he meets Waxman.

    how exactly he got those contracts, now that’s gotta be interesting. $300M/year out of a windowless office in Miami? we’re in hollywood screenwriter terrain now.

    oh, and he’s out on bond for a dui right now.

  59. 59.

    binzinerator

    Mossad schmossad.

    There was a pic in the NYT of a box of ammunition, and a bunch of the rounds were encrusted with verdigris. You’d think if anyone wanted the op to succeed, they’d supply ammunition that was actually functional.

    This outfit is just another Bushie privatization poster child. Crooked and incompetent. Typical bushies.

  61. 61.

    binzinerator

    we’re in hollywood screenwriter terrain now

    Sparky, we’ve been there since 2000 when the Supreme Court appointed Dubya as president.

  62. 62.

    protected static

    frogspawn: I’m continually stunned by the number of professionals who own a domain name, run real websites, and still use an email address like that…

    [email protected]

    I kind of expect it from my retirement-age parents (despite my best efforts), but a 20-something? Yeesh…

  63. 63.

    Dennis - SGMM

    [email protected]

    For 300 large, you’d think they could afford their very own mail server.

    I just got off the phone with Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, current premier of Vietnam. Made a killer deal on all that M-16 ammo we left behind. Got a buyer for it already – with a bonus for expediting shipment.

    Contact me at: [email protected]

    Don’t bother phoning: I’m leaving for Brazil toot sweet babies!

  64. 64.

    Jake

    a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

    And the transition to fluffing the gubbermint was a breeze.

  65. 65.

    LiberalTarian

    Hm. Do you think Diveroli had a Whitehouse acquaintance in common with a certain gay prostitute reporter?

  66. 66.

    dbrown

    In the NYT piece, it appears he is more a middle man with other characters. The many billion dollars questions are what other contracts are out there … .

  67. 67.

    dr. bloor

    a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

    How much of that $300 million do you suppose was a surcharge for a “happy ending?”

  68. 68.

    AkaDad

    I bet Michelle Malkin is outraged at the misuse of tax dollars, and I expect a brigade of warriors will be deployed on a super secret counter-top mission.

  69. 69.

    slippy hussein toad

    If we eliminate the last vestiges of communism in the US government by making soldiers pay for their own munitions, they’d reward those contractors that provide quality ammo instead of these morons.

    This is the perfect reductio ad absurdum of free-market worship.

    Force soldiers to pay for their own munitions, and you have no-armed forces.

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