EGLAND: Earmark folly

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By Eric Egland

Op-Ed:

While Congress continues to debate how to reform the practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund pet projects, key reforms are needed in the area of national-security earmarks.

I have seen how abuse of national-security earmarks resulted in lost opportunities on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps even - shockingly - lost lives as well.

Earmarks for contracts at the Pentagon, CIA or elsewhere in the intelligence community are especially ripe for abuse. Operational security requires minimal public scrutiny regarding sensitive or classified programs. Unfortunately, abuse of national security earmarks has occurred too often, with politicians from both parties funneling taxpayer dollars for critical programs straight to unqualified contractors who were also campaign contributors, cronies and even bribers.

In one case, federal prosecutors revealed how Congress used earmarks to give a $132 million contract to one company for CIA aviation activities worldwide. CIA aviation contractors usually have unmatched experience in challenging, dangerous and unconventional flight operations. Yet the contractor who received the money had no experience in aviation - other than hiring corporate jets to shuttle powerful members of Congress around the country.

One of the most egregious examples of national security earmark abuse was a previously classified program called the Counter - IED Targeting Program, or CITP.

CITP was to deliver intelligence support to enable our combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to target enemy networks that employ the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that wound and kill our troops.

In 2004, when IEDs became the number one killer of American forces, counter-IED targeting capability was a top priority request from the military command in Iraq. Thus, the program was quickly funded and implemented.

But Congress used earmarks to ensure the lucrative, expedited, no-bid contract went straight to inexperienced contractors who, as federal prosecutors have shown, enriched the same elected officials with millions in bribes and hundreds of thousands in "legal" political contributions.

Meanwhile in Iraq, CITP proved dysfunctional, leaving our troops without a critical capability to engage the most dangerous threat.