Audits Rip Fed Oversight of Security Firms, Costs

Lax controls, slopping accounting

By Peter Fearon, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 23, 2007 7:20 AM CDT

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Audits Rip Fed Oversight of Security Firms, Costs — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gestures during a news conference at the State Department in Washington in this Sept. 21, 2007 file photo. Rice on Friday, Oct. 5, 2007, ordered a major overhaul of U.S. diplomatic security practices in Iraq following an internal State Department review of the Blackwater... (Associated Press)

A State Department internal review of its own security practices in Iraq is sharply critical of the lack of oversight of private contractors Blackwater, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. A second report due today says officials can't say what the government got for $1.2B paid to DynCorp since 2004, reports the New York Times.

Serious flaws exist with every aspect of the department’s practices, especially in Baghdad, where Blackwater has responsibility, the audit concludes. “They don’t have the right communications, they don’t have the right procedures in place, and you’ve got people operating on their own,” said one official. (More State Department stories.)

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