Originally Posted by
larryiah
Contractors are the biggest problem out there. Guaranteed that the military contractors are lobbying to keep these quagmires going. It's just too darn lucrative to quit now. A long but good read is No End In Sight, by Charles H. Ferguson. Nothing but interviews with the lowest grunt up to Rumsfeld. After reading this book, I am convinced that when the civilian leadership under Paul Bremer ( a puppet) took over from the Generals, the decisions that were made from then on we're made to throw the game, to create a quagmire. Why? Because quagmires are so lucrative for the defense industry.
The contractors I (and the article) was referring to are the specialty manpower providers who but hired boots on the ground, and did a boom business over the last decade. They are a minor line item as far as DoD spending goes, but the author feels their existence distorts the public perception of the military.
You're talking about the big military-industrial complex companies...that animal is what it is and has been for thousands of years. You can't defeat it (nor would you want to), you just have to fight constantly to reign it in.