Let me first go back and fill in some background from a post I made back in January of '05 (on another blog service) called FBI just can't catch a break.
A new FBI computer program designed [by SAIC] to help agents share information to ward off terrorist attacks may have to be scrapped [...]
The project was originally scheduled to be finished by the end of 2003. It seems that the Justice Dept had tried using the same computer program and scrapped it, too. Why would the FBI take on a program (Virtual Case File software), costing upwards of $600 million to put in place, that the DoJ already decided was no good?
And then there's the failed contract with the NSA...
SAIC won the initial $280 million, 26-month contract to design and create this [computer] system, called Trailblazer. Four years and more than a billion dollars later, the effort has been abandoned. [...] Happily for SAIC, it will get the chance for a comeback in the second half. The company has been awarded the contract for a revised Trailblazer program called ExecuteLocus. The contract is worth $361 million.
Amazing, isn't it?
But, that's not all. The Defense Department also had some problems with a SAIC software contract.
March 25th, 2004Defense contractor Science Applications International Corp. has agreed to pay $484,500 to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act when designing a computer system program for the U.S. Department of Defense.
The allegations included misrepresentation of project progress and overpayment for services.
SAIC also fell down on its contracts in Iraq to create an Iraqi Media Network (modeled on the BBC). That particular contract was a $15 million giveaway with no competitive bidding, nor even an acquisition plan. It was awarded in March of 2003, and by September, the cost had risen to $82.3 million. Ooops.
At the time I wrote that '05 post, I had wondered "how this company keeps getting contracts."
Quick review: Wolfowitz was Deputy Defense Secretary in the run-up to the Iraq invasion and until his appointment to the World Bank presidency in 2005, during which time he was intimate with Ms. Riza, who was consulting for SAIC while working for the World Bank (and without the requisite permission from the Bank to do so).
Who are the people at SAIC who are reaming the U.S. taxpayers, aided and abetted by the U.S. government?
Christopher "Ryan" Henry left a senior position at SAIC in February 2003 to become principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy.[...]
Executive vice president for Federal Business and director Duane P. Andrews served as assistant secretary of Defense from 1989 to 1993, when he joined SAIC.
Robert M. Gates, the new secretary of defense, whose confirmation hearings lasted all of a day, is a former member of SAIC's board of directors.
The Associated Press describes Science Applications International Inc. (SAIC) as "the most influential company most people have never heard of." The Asia Times calls it "the most mysterious and feared of the big 10 defense giants."[...]
The company's ranks overflow with former or retired government person, many from the military and intelligence agencies. Much of SAIC's work is highly classified.
[...]
[William] Owens also served as president, chief operating officer and vice chair of SAIC. And, Owens is a member of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's internal think-tank, the Defense Policy Board.
[...]
At any given point in time, SAIC's board of directors represents a Who's Who of former military and intelligence officials.
SAIC personnel were instrumental in pressing the case that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the first place, and that war was the only way to get rid of them. Then, as war became inevitable, SAIC secured contracts for a broad range of operations in soon-to-be-occupied Iraq. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, SAIC personnel staffed the commission that was set up to investigate how American intelligence could have been so disastrously wrong.
SAIC has a long line of fraud and deception charges (which are enumerated in the Vanity Fair article), but still gets the big government contracts.
Now, let's shift gears just slightly. SAIC is also involved in the electronic voting business.
"The American vote count is controlled by three major corporate players, Diebold, ESS, and Sequoia. There's a fourth, SAIC, Science Applications International Corporation, coming on strong. These companies, all four of them, are hard-wired into the Bush power structure and they have been given God knows how many millions of dollars by the Bush regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines that were just used in the 2004 election.
These ostensibly competitive businesses interconnect with one another and with major corporate sponsors, especially the famed Carlyle Group, of the Bush administration. Their people are his people, so to speak. And vice versa.
Bush appointed Wolfowitz to the World Bank presidency in 2005, at which time, he felt it necessary to move his girlfriend out of the World Bank offices and over to the State Department, while still keeping her on the Bank payroll (with a fat raise, $47,300 - 35.5% - to $180,000, followed by a second rase of 7.5% to a total salary of $193,590 ). (Wolfowitz lied that the Bank board had approved the raise.) During the lead up to the Iraq War, and continuing, Riza at the World Bank was acting as a consultant to SAIC.
It may be coincidental, but there is also connection between the Wolfowitz/Riza story and the Attorney Purge story, and that is the issue of voter repression and control over the machinery of voting in America. While the Bushies in the DoJ were reshaping voter fraud issues to make it harder for Democratic votes to be cast and counted, the Bushies at the Defense Department were coming and going through the revolving door at SAIC, one of the top four companies in the control of the voting machines, with Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Riza in the middle of it.
Oh, and one more thing...
In January of 2005,
burglars managed to break into SAIC's headquarters, pry open 13 private offices, and walk out with one desktop-computer hard drive and four laptops. By SAIC's account, the computers contained personal data on thousands of present and past employees, presumably including the company's many former C.I.A. operatives, N.S.A. executives, and Pentagon officials. To date, the burglary remains unsolved.[...]
[T]the building "is patrolled by DOD certified security" and that "the interior lights are on motion sensors and would have been activated by the suspects."
[ed: the Vanity Fair article has an in-depth look at SAIC's history. And there's another comprehensive account at Scoop.]
And don't expect SAIC to be suffering any time soon, not even with a change in administrations.
As one former SAIC manager observed in a recent blog posting: "My observation is that the impact of national elections on the business climate for SAIC has been minimal. The emphasis on where federal spending occurs usually shifts, but total federal spending never decreases. SAIC has always continued to grow despite changes in the political leadership in Washington."
Although it's possible their interest in the voting machine business might indicate they figure their chances are more favorable with a Republican administration.
And the revolving door never stops spinning. One of the biggest contracts ever for SAIC is in the works right now. It's for a Pentagon program called Future Combat Systems, which is described as "a complex plan to turn the U.S. Army into a lighter, more lethal, more mobile force" and also as "the most difficult integration program ever undertaken by the U.S. Department of Defense." The contract runs into the billions of dollars. The man who helped craft this program at the Pentagon was Lieutenant General Daniel R. Zanini. Zanini recently retired from the army, and he now has a new job. Can you guess where it might be?
P.S. A bit off topic, but speaking to the question of whether Wolfowitz should be permitted to remain president of the World Bank, and indeed whether the U.S. should be the appointer of Bank presidents, the old combsucker denied a loan to Uzbekistan after that country kicked the U.S. military off the Uzbek base used for operations in Afghanistan. Apparently, the gross human rights abuses of the Uzbek government weren't problematic enough, but the refusal to let us keep the base was (although Wolfowitz claimed the reason for denying the loan was indeed human rights violations - interestingly timed).
Since taking office, Wolfowitz has spearheaded a campaign to fight corruption, cronyism and promote good governance in Bank projects and loans in developing nations.
It would seem he's just the man to do it. At least he's intimately familiar with the problem.
Tomorrow, I'll try to get to a post on the rest of the story about Paul Wolfowitz' egregious behavior at the World Bank. Come back then.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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