Bush’s promotion of contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy.

Lowest bidder, or politically connected?

Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans By C. J. CHIVERS To arm Afghan forces to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. has relied on a fledgling company that has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old.

Ammunition supplied by an American contractor to Afghan forces. Some of it was in such poor shape that it was not used.

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.

What?!