Outsourcing war, joys of

From ABC News via HuffPost:

Exclusive: Whistleblower Claims Many U.S. Interpreters Can't Speak Afghan Languages
Says Translators Failed Language Tests, Were Still Embedded With US Troops In Afghanistan
By MATTHEW MOSK, BRIAN ROSS and JOSEPH RHEE
Sept. 8, 2010
More than one quarter of the translators working alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan failed language proficiency exams but were sent onto the battlefield anyway, according to a former employee of the company that holds contracts worth up to $1.4 billion to supply interpreters to the U.S. Army.
...
[Paul] Funk outlined his claims in a whistleblower lawsuit unsealed earlier this year against Mission Essential Personnel, saying the company turned a blind eye to cheating on language exams taken over the phone and hired applicants even though they failed to meet the language standards set by the Army and spelled out in the company's contract. He alleges that 28 percent of the linguists hired between November 2007 and June 2008 failed to meet the government's language requirements.
...
"There are many cases where soldiers have gone out into the field and have spoken to elders [who] handed messages to the interpreter that a possible ambush three miles up the road would occur. The interpreter cannot read the message and they are attacked," Funk said. "We're talking about soldiers lives here."

Thanks again, W!
Blackwater/Xe, Parsons, KBR... and now Mission Essential Personnel.

This is what happens when GOP ideologues insist that the "miracle of the market" guarantees that private contractors can do better than the Government providing BASIC SERVICES IN WARTIME!