CorpWatch sent my weekly email. I opened it with anticipation of what new,exciting and utterly outrageous crappola someone was pulling on us in the name of God and Country.

I wasn't disappointed my dear reader.

I discovered that fine government contractor, L-3, has been providing the Feds with a 300-person intelligence support operation in Chantilly VA. According to the article  over at CorpWatch,"Government Services Incorporated (GSI) supplies staff for an operation that spreads over 22 military bases in the Middle East."

Now, I wasn't aware that our Federal Gov't was farming out our intellgience needs to that extreme. I thought the CIA, NSA and a host of military intelligence departments in the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy were doing the heavy lifting.

Apparently not. According to CorpWatch this is a walk into the offices of L-3 and its subsidiaries: "Walk through the entrance and to the left of the reception desk, next to a glass case showcasing electronic surveillance gear, is an announcement congratulating employees on a $426.5 million intelligence contract from the Pentagon last year.

GSI is a major subsidiary of L-3 Communications, a Fortune 500 company. Retired Lieutenant General Paul Cerjan took GSI's helm in May, after spending a year running Halliburton 's multi-billion dollar military logistics contract in Iraq and around the world.

GSI is only one of several L-3 subsidiaries enjoying the Bush administration's largesse. On March 10, Titan won a no-bid contract worth $840 million over 12 months to supply translators for intelligence and regular military operations in the "global war on terror." Yet another L-3 subsidiary, MPRI, manages the recruitment of U.S. military advisors to key Iraqi ministries such as defense and interior."

Nice..a Halliburton alumn that knows, first hand, how to screw the Government out of major cash. Why not hire the best when your looking to hose the Feds, right?

Anyway..one part that just blew my mind was this snippet: "The government is desperate for qualified interrogators and intelligence analysts so they are turning to industry," says Bill Golden who now runs IntelligenceCareers.com, one of the biggest intelligence employment websites in the business. "Over half of the qualified counter-intelligence experts in the field work for contractors like L-3."

Why are the "qualified counter-intelligence" folks working OUTSIDE the federal government? Just curious..aren't you? What do we have running around in the halls of intelligence known as the CIA and NSA? Mentally challenged boys and girls? Are they hiring the handicapped over there now? Its a sweet gesture, but for the love of petunia..shouldn't the Fed's keep this kind of stuff inside the government and not outside of it?

I guess not, because this part of the writeup caught my eye next: "Over the last five years, the Pentagon, in an apparent turf war with the CIA, has been expanding its intelligence work and relying increasingly and heavily on private contractors. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, for example, created a new high-level office where 100 private contractors work with 130 government employees to oversee domestic counterintelligence, long-range threat planning, and budgeting for new technologies."

A turf war..wonderful. These guys are having a pissing contest on OUR DIME? By that, I mean our tax dollars. The other nice bit of info was that Rummy has a case of the ass against the Pentagon and is treating them like the proverbial mushroom..you know..keeping them in the dark and fertilizing them with baloney.

Well, I started grinding my teeth right about then..so I got up and walked away from the computer screen. I wanted to know why in the blue hell we were privatizing military intelligence so heavily, so I went back to my computer screen and continued reading...

"The military intelligence bureaucracy is incompetent; many intelligence general officers are mere bureaucrats who are incapable of dealing with real world intelligence problems. Also, many of them are so wrapped up in their own careers that they are afraid to do anything that might be controversial and won't think outside the box,"

Who is this guy talking bumpkus about my favorite oxymoron, "military intelligence"? Why it was none other than W. Patrick Lang, the former head of the Defense Intel Agency. If your not familiar with Pat, he wrote the article "Drinking the Kool-Aid" and Wiki has a nice writeup about him here. Patrick is such a nice man, to still have an interest in our safety, don't you think? Not that he's not making a killing cash-wise..don't kid yourself my dear reader.

The background on L-3 is short and sweet. That's because they have only been around for 10 years. They are a real good pick for the Feds too, because they are keenly aware of how to screw the government without even kissing them first. Put your baby blues on this blurb:

"In April 2005, the Pentagon placed L-3 subsidiary Interstate Electronics Corporation under criminal investigation for concealing test failures and providing flawed parts for emergency radios used by Special Forces and Air Force teams in Iraq and elsewhere. The investigation is ongoing." Then there was that nasty investigation about those camera's they sold us for the border that didn't work.

Why hell, whats $200 Million between friends? Add to that the $426.5 million they are getting for the Iraq Intel contract and the $800 Mil for Titan(a no-bid contract mind you)..and what do you have?

You tell me, I am busy being pissed off that this type of nonsense is all hinging on the "war in Iraq", making these corporations rich, and draining our tax dollars off.

But the best part is that John Ashcroft..our former, fearless AG is now showing companies how to get into this huge profit-making monstrosity.  He lobbies for and invests in the private security sector. Here is a nice quote out of todays WaPo article on Ashcrofts new job: "Ashcroft is building a lucrative consulting company helping security and other firms find business with federal agencies. Federal spending on homeland security is expected to reach nearly $60 billion in fiscal 2007, according to the Office of Management and Budget."

thats with a "B"..and thats the governments numbers..