Exclusive: Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions, Report Says

[kpete]

Source: Wired

Exclusive: Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions, Report Says
By Noah Shachtman EmailDecember 12, 2008 | 4:12:00 PM

While the Pentagon preps for a new administration, a scandal from an earlier era is rearing its head.



A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The "America Supports You," or ASY, program was led in a"questionable and unregulated manner," according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was "inappropriately transferred" by the project's managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.

In 2004, the office of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld set up ASY as a six-month effort to showcase the U.S. public's backing for the troops and their families. "If you're serving overseas, and you watch the mainstream media coverage, sometimes you can't tell if America knows you're there," one official overseeing the program says. America Supports You was seen as a way to counteract that sense.

In time, however, the program grew. Pro-troop rallies were organized. Special wristband and dog tags were made. Special-edition comic books were printed up. Processions were held on the National Mall, on the 9/11 anniversary. Sesame Street characters were enlisted to make DVDs that encouraged families with young children to talk about overseas deployments. America Supports You became a kind of umbrella group for all sorts of charity-related work for service members and military families.

Read more: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/asy.html

[tabasco]

1. Republicans = profiteering traitors.

Bush and his entire criminal administration belong behind bars.

[bjobotts]

3. I would like to vomit in that woman's face

[NoAmericanTaliban]

2. The GOP - Grand Oil Party - strikes again - profiteering patriotism

[SpiralHawk]

4. Freaking chickenhawk republicon wankers treat our troops like shit

...And line their own freaking fatcat pockets with our money.

Ptoooey on republicon chickenhawks and their treatment of our sons and daughters in uniform.

[No Elephants]

5. Okay. Let's get to the part of the article that

actually names names, names like Alison Barber, Susan Davis and Mitch Semel.

"By mid-2007, allegations began to surface that the Pentagon official in charge of the program, Armed Forces Information Service chief Alison Barber (pictured, left), was improperly redirecting millions of dollars in public funds.

From fiscal years 2004 to 2007, the Inspector General's report notes, Barber funneled $8.8 million in contracts to the public relations firm Susan Davis International — to set up the myriad events, and to promote the ASY "brand." The work was incredibly lucrative; Davis' executives made as much as $312,821 to $662,691 per year. "Paying a public relations contractor annual salaries approaching three-quarters of a million dollars does not appear to be a cost-effective means to support the ASY program and the war fighter," the report observes.

But what made it even harder to stomach was that Davis was a friend of Barber's, and a well-known Republican operative, according to former Defense Department lawyer Diane Beaver. Another half-million went to media consultant Mitch Semel, for web work.

Worse still, in the eyes of many, was that Barber used the Stars & Stripes newspaper as a kind of money-laundering service, to pay Davis and Semel. The paper is partially financed by the Pentagon, and was part of Barber's American Forces Information Service. But Stripes has a decades-long tradition of fierce independence. Editors were galled to discover that Barber's office was pouring money into the paper's coffers — and then paying Davis and Semel out of accounts with less congressional oversight and fewer spending restrictions than typical Defense Department funds."