U.S. hires firms with questionable pasts for Afghan jobs

U.S. hires firms with questionable pasts for Afghan jobs
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2010

WASHINGTON — For years, the U.S. government has entrusted Michael Drannan with one of its most important foreign policy efforts: rebuilding Afghanistan.

Yet as Drannan's company won millions of dollars in government contracts in the war-torn country, he was never questioned about his unpaid U.S. taxes or his four months in a Florida jail over unpaid child support.

Drannan's troubled background exposes the U.S. government's failure to thoroughly vet companies that are winning contracts in Afghanistan.

In all, McClatchy found nearly $4.5 billion in contracts that were awarded to companies even though they violated laws or had high-profile disputes over previous projects. Such legal or financial troubles could indicate that a company isn't prepared to finish a project or is prone to wasting taxpayer money.

The lax scrutiny, critics say, has created an American contracting culture where almost any past indiscretion can be overlooked.

So far as I know, their contracts were never even suspended for that one. Still getting 90% of revenues from the federal gov't via security contracts, naturally.