Image via WikipediaGovernment reform orgs. deliver news on major events within their areas of expertise. From: POGO - Project on Government Oversight
[This sounds like a Washington defense earmarks scheme that brings home money to future voters. -ed.]
-- Beverley Lumpkin
October 15, 2008
Last Sunday's New York Times carried a story by Eric Lipton that should be required reading for everyone and anyone involved in the defense procurement process in Washington, particularly those who think adherence to government rules and regulations is somehow an affront to freedom, or that transparency in government operations would bring the system down. It's such a great story, I almost feel I'm detracting from it by writing about it at all.
It's a fascinating saga of how an Army engineer from Huntsville, Alabama, completely gamed the procurement system and managed, in the words of the NYT, "to turn America's missile defense program into a personal cash machine."
Michael Cantrell, the engineer on a piece of the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI, a.k.a. President Reagan's Star Wars program, figured out early on how to keep money flowing to his program so that he could keep his job. He learned to bypass all his superiors and go straight to Capitol Hill, where he made friends with powerful members of the leadership as well as appropriations and defense committees. "He cultivated lawmakers, who were eager to send money back home or to favored contractors and did not ask many questions. And when he ran into trouble, he could count on his powerful friends for protection from Pentagon officials who provided little oversight and were afraid of alienating lawmakers."
Cantrell only fell into disgrace when he decided it was time for him to cash in personally. Along with his deputy, Doug Ennis, Cantrell concocted a kickback scheme under which the two ultimately garnered $1.6 million, for which they pleaded guilty earlier this year: "Mr. Cantrell readily acknowledges concocting the crime. But what has drawn little scrutiny are his activities leading up to it. Thanks to important allies in Congress, he extracted nearly $350 million for projects the Pentagon did not want, wasting taxpayer money on what would become dead-end ventures."
Had he not gotten greedy on his own behalf, Cantrell would surely be out there still, pimping for the various members of the iron triangle of Congress, the military, and contractors.
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