Ms Sparky the Superhero - fighting corrupt contractors...
Other than our very own Ms Sparky being recognized for her tireless efforts in print, on the airwaves and by fellow bloggers; here are some of the other events that made the news. The David H. Brooks trial is wrapping up and yet another contracting official, from Camp Arifjan, was sentenced. The DLA is under scrutiny for awarding a contract across the pond, instead of putting Americans to work. Here are those stories and other headlines that made the news.
~Forseti
DC’s spy establishment in panic mode over Washington Post expose
By Daniel Tencer – July 16, 2010 – Washington’s intelligence establishment appears to be in panic mode over an upcoming Washington Post series about runaway growth in defense and intelligence spending.
A State Department email has accused the Post of planning to make public “top secret” information about defense and intelligence contractors working for the US, despite an admission in the same email that the Post’s information came from “open sources.”
The series, by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dana Priest, will include a TV partnership with PBS’s Frontline and is expected to consist of three articles and an online database of military and intelligence contractors and their projects.
It’s that database of contractors that seems to be worrying Washington the most. Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reports that the State Department sent out an email Thursday warning all 14,574 Washington-area employees of the upcoming reports. (Click HERE for article)
Speak No Evil: A Post-McChrystal Press Clampdown
By Tim Arango – July 16, 2010 – BAGHDAD – On Tuesday night at an air base in Baghdad a unit of soldiers from the Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division waited for a flight that would take them first to Anbar Province, then to Germany, then to Fort Drum in upstate New York. The soldiers were going home, this time for good.
Reporters were invited to visit, to speak to soldiers and take pictures of packed rucksacks and troops boarding the plane, images that would convey the military’s message that the United States is leaving Iraq. The press was told that the waiting area was theirs to work in.
So I started to chat up soldiers. Just as I had finished the formalities of name, age, rank and hometown with a young private from Michigan, I was interrupted by an officer who explained that a handful of soldiers had been chosen to speak to the press, and that the remainder of the group was off limits.
He pointed to a group of four or five soldiers, who awaited media interviews.
The Pentagon’s new dictum to control news coverage, issued in the wake of the controversy over a Rolling Stone article that resulted in the dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, seems to have reached the lower levels of the chain of command in Iraq. (Click HERE for article)
Updated: July 18, 2010: I just received the text of the 
Zhi Ying Ng - Thursday, 15 July 2010 – 
