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Here are some answers to some common questions about the Custer Battles federal contract fraud trial and its aftermath: 1. Why didn't the US Justice Department join in the Custer Battles lawsuit? The plaintiffs invited them. After investigating under closed seal, the department decided against it. BUT, I did notice a Justice official sitting in the courtroom quietly taking copious notes on the proceedings. Read More

A review of KBR's bills to the Navy by the Department of Defense's inspector general for work last year restoring damage by Hurricane Ivan suggest Halliburton subsidiary KBR may be charging the Navy too much in labor. Read More

Our man in DC, David Phinney, has been covering the upstart private security contractor Custer Battles since long before the mainstream media had a clue who they were. Now the company, which has made millions in taxpayer money in Iraq, has been found guilty of federal contract fraud amounting to nearly $3 million. The firm was ordered pay nearly $10 million in restitution. Read More

US security contractors and regular US soldiers who are evangelical Christians," writes John Geddes, the ex-SAS soldier "see themselves in a crusade against the Muslim hordes. In my view, they're not much different to the Iraqi militiamen and foreign fighters who see themselves at the heart of a jihad against the Christian crusaders." Read More

A total of 61 British companies are identified as benefiting from at least £1.1bn of contracts and investment in the new Iraq. But that figure is just the tip of the iceberg. Read More

Voice for Humanity recently sold tens of thousands of pink and silver audio players to the United States government to teach Afghan villagers about democracy. Critics say that the project was a waste of taxpayer dollars. Others say it is a perfect example of the covert "information war" conducted in the "war on terrorism." Read More

By using contract employees for intelligence work, government agencies lose control over those doing this sensitive work and an element of profit is inserted into what is being done. Also, as investigations have revealed, politics and corruption may be introduced into the process. Read More

A House committee said Monday it would review several post-Katrina hurricane contracts for waste and abuse, citing recent concerns about limited oversight and the haste in which they were awarded. Read More

The UN Climate Change Conference in The Hague (COP-6) last November -- intended to wrap-up three years of negotiations on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol -- ended without result. At the last moment, European environment ministers rejected a compromise proposal that would not only have enabled industrialised countries and their corporations to escape their promised greenhouse gas reductions, but also would have allowed them to significantly increase their emissions. Read More

Officials said they awarded the four contracts last October to speed recovery efforts that might have been slowed by competitive bidding. Some critics, however, suggested they were rewards for politically connected firms. Read More