Next time someone comes telling you that we have the finest in the world and are prepared to go to war, .. yawn. Fact is, if the bureaucracy doesn't get you, the ... complexity will, two things that are almost invariably underestimated by "leaders", notwithstanding how you assess the readiness of the average GI or of the special forces and their collective, peacetime command-chain.
Apparently, basic law enforcement got left behind when "we" mobilized.
Scott Horton has the gory details, including how it is not fixed yet:
Since June, we have witnessed a parade of further headlines which demonstrate precisely the shortcomings that were identified and addressed in Congressman Price’s legislation, H.R. 2740. And while that legislation overwhelmingly cleared the House—in a 389 to 30 vote—the Senate has not yet acted on a parallel measure. This legislation is urgently needed and should be enacted and signed into law in the near future.
...
The Defense Department and the State Department got into a bit of a squabble over these investigations, a turf battle if you will. The Memorandum of Agreement was supposed to work out procedures for reconciling their differences. It actually contains a number of important advances. But there is one agency with clear primary responsibility for the investigation of criminal conduct and action thereon, and that agency—the Department of Justice—is nowhere to be found.
....
There has not been a single completed prosecution of a crime involving a contractor implicated in violent crime coming out of Iraq, although the reported incidents which would have merited investigation are legion.
...
The Defense Department and the State Department got into a bit of a squabble over these investigations, a turf battle if you will. The Memorandum of Agreement was supposed to work out procedures for reconciling their differences. It actually contains a number of important advances. But there is one agency with clear primary responsibility for the investigation of criminal conduct and action thereon, and that agency—the Department of Justice—is nowhere to be found.
....
There has not been a single completed prosecution of a crime involving a contractor implicated in violent crime coming out of Iraq, although the reported incidents which would have merited investigation are legion.
