A couple days ago the LA Times reported on how the Department of Defense has turned to hiring civilians to guard military bases here in the United States due to the over-extended military being short-handed.

The profound lack of planning on the part of the DOD coupled with President Bush's inability to build an international coalition willing and capable of putting enough boots on the ground to make a difference has led to this dire problem. But that's not the most interesting part of this story.

The civilian guard contracts went to four firms - two of which were no-bid contracts. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion. And this is where it gets interesting... and disturbing.

But the Army's action has drawn criticism on two grounds: that it compromises domestic military security, and that it amounts to abuse of a law intended to aid impoverished Alaska Natives.


Two five-year contracts worth as much as $1 billion went to two small Alaska Native firms with little previous security experience. The firms, which operate under special contracting laws enabling them to avoid competitive bidding, subcontracted part of the work to two of the country's largest security firms: Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services.

Now think about this for a second. If Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services can put feet on the ground profitably... why in the hell are we paying these two small Alaskan firms to be the middlemen? Ah... but it gets even more interesting here.

Democrats, watchdog groups and independent contracting experts said that the Army's contracting arrangement with the Alaska Native firms amounted to a back-door deal to send taxpayer dollars to Wackenhut and Vance, which lost out the only time they faced open competition against other companies for the security contracts.


"It's a total abuse of the intent of the law," said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Program on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. "The law was designed to benefit companies that need a special boost. At the end of the day, if Wackenhut is benefiting, it's just a blatant abuse of the system."

Now, if Wackenhut and Vance lost out on previous contracts, that means that they were high bidders. Right? So we've got Rumsfeld bypassing the free-market system to funnel money to corporate welfare queens who couldn't make it on their own.

A quick search on Political Money Line reveals that Wackenhut gives extensively and almost exclusively to Republicans. Vance Federal Security Services is actually part of Vance International. Political Money Line didn't have much on them. But OpenSecrets.org did and here again we see the profile of a corporation giving extensively to Republicans. Coincidence? How about the two Native Alaskan firms, Alutiiq and Chenega? Well golly... Alutiiq gives heavily and virtually exclusively to Republicans. Chenega doesn't give much from what I could find. But, more than half of what they do give goes to... Republicans.

Oh... and those two beneficiaries of the law which is intended to help Native Alaskan businesses? Alutiiq is based in Virginia, and Chenega is based in Florida.