How not to run an occupation — Part MCXXVII

I guess it’s possible to imagine how the Bush administration could have run its Iraq occupation worse than it has, but I’m having trouble picturing it.

Today’s LA Times had yet another disturbing tale of corruption at the highest levels, in which a Pentagon deputy undersecretary exploited his office to win no-bid contracts for companies run by his friends.

A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and documents.

John A. “Jack” Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon’s inspector general in conducting the investigations, sources said.

In one case, Shaw disguised himself as an employee of Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S. military, the sources said.

In that investigation, Shaw found problems with operations at the port of Umm al Qasr, Pentagon sources said. In another, he criticized a competition sponsored by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to award cellphone licenses in Iraq.

In both cases, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems by directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without competitive bidding, according to the Pentagon sources and documents. In the case of the port, the clients of a lobbyist friend won a no-bid contract for dredging.

I’m not sure which is worse, the corruption or the criminal stupidity.

A top Pentagon official investigates an Iraqi port under false pretenses, identifies problems that don’t exist, and then get contracts for his buddies to fix them.

The inspector general’s office — which investigates waste, fraud and abuse at the Pentagon — has turned over its inquiry into Shaw’s actions to the FBI to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the sources said.

Appearance of a conflict? OK, it’s a start.

I should note, of course, that Shaw isn’t just one of those young conservative interns that couldn’t get into the Heritage Foundation that the Bush administration sent abroad to run Iraq. Rather, Shaw is a Republican aide with years of experience in the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations.

Shaw’s actions are the latest to raise concerns that senior Republican officials working in Washington and Iraq have used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and political allies.

Isn’t that putting it rather mildly?