War contractors run wild

Orlando Sentinel: Call it bad timing. As President Bush added $46 billion to his latest spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this week, two reports emerged of inexcusable negligence in the administration’s oversight of private contractors that have profited from those conflicts.

A State Department review blasted the department’s poor management of security contractors, including Blackwater USA. That’s the same company that has been involved in nearly 200 shootings, including one last month that killed at least 11 Iraqis and provoked fury across the country.

‘Waste and fraud’

And the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the department had just two employees overseeing as many as 700 employees of another security contractor, DynCorp International, creating “an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud.” The department couldn’t even document what it received in return for $1.2 billion it paid DynCorp to train Iraqi police.

Poor oversight of police training is especially inexcusable. Mr. Bush has long said that U.S. troops will stay in Iraq until its forces can secure the country.

Before cutting another check for the war, Congress needs to be shown that all private contractors in Iraq are being closely managed.