RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press
The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse, service officials said Wednesday.
Overall, the contracts are worth close to $3 billion and represent every transaction made between 2003 and 2007 by a contracting office in Kuwait, which the Army has identified as a significant trouble spot.
In a separate probe, a high-level team led by Pentagon Inspector General Claude Kicklighter will travel to Iraq next week to investigate how U.S. weapons intended for Iraqi security forces ended up being used for murders and other violent crimes in Turkey.
Among the contracts to be reviewed by the Army are awards to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which has received billions of dollars since 2001 to be a major provider of food and shelter services to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Original Article)