U.S. Wasting Billions While Tripling No-Bid Contracts After Decade of War in Iraq Afghanistan Democracy Now- Daily Digest for 09/02

U.S. Wasting Billions While Tripling No-Bid Contracts After Decade of War in Iraq, Afghanistan
As the war in Afghanistan approaches its 10th anniversary, a pair of new reports reveal how the Pentagon has squandered tens of billions of dollars while tripling the amount of no-bid contracts. The bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting concludes that between $31 billion and $60 billion spent on projects in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years has been lost to waste and fraud. A new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity says no-bid spending has ballooned from $50 billion in 2003 to $140 billion in 2011. We speak with Charles Tiefer, a member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a professor of government contracting at the University of Baltimore Law School, and with Sharon Weinberger of the Center for Public Integrity, author of the investigative series "Windfalls of War." Watch/Listen/Read
As Turkey Freezes Israel Ties, Critics Decry "Whitewashed" U.N. Report on Gaza Flotilla, Blockade
Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and frozen military cooperation ahead of a long-awaited United Nations report on Israel’s deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in 2010. We speak with Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including "'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion." We are also joined by Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement. Watch/Listen/Read