Bob CollinsIn this he said-she said world of news, there’s an actual story out there today getting almost no attention, which is odd since it was broken by the New York Times on its front page today.
The ammunition the United States is providing to its allies in Afghanistan is junk.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
The company is run by a 22-year-old kid.
You’ll need a scratchpad and a well-sharpened pencil to add up all the possible violations of law.
Here’s the money quote from, “a senior State Department official:”
“A lot of us are asking a question: How did this guy get all the business?”
It’s a fabulous piece of reporting.
