Bureau Recommends: Welfare for Dictators
The Bureau recommends a Newsweek investigation into US funding for overseas military bases.
While officially the US does not pay governments for the right to set up bases on foreign soil, the investigation has found that the Pentagon has spent up to $14bn on exactly that.
The study indicates that the monies have been paid in sole-source contracts to companies directly controlled by ruling families across the Persian Gulf.
Beneficiaries include the Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi, home to the Al Dhafra US Air Force Base. The family, which controls the state oil company, also makes $5.2 bn a year in fuel sales to the US, a transaction which directly flouts the 1984 Competition and Contracting Act.
In Kuwait, the desert state that hosts the US Arifjan base, the al-Sabah clan has received some $4bn in Pentagon contracts since 2005, according to the analysis.
And Bahrain, scene of voracious Arab Spring protests this month, and home to the US’s Fifth fleet, has become one of the chief suppliers of fuel to the US military to the tune of billions of dollars. The desert state, run by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, also happens to be the host for the regional headquarters of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) which handles procurement for US forces.
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