Case shows defense procurement corruption

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The case of a mid-level U.S. Army engineer successfully "gaming" the defense procurement system raises many questions about its integrity, observers say.

Michael Cantrell, a former engineer at the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command headquarters in Huntsville, Ala., along with his deputy, Doug Ennis, pleaded guilty this year to taking $1.6 million in contractor kickbacks after arranging $350 million in funding for the Pentagon's missile defense program, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Cantrell's ability to bypass his military superiors and use personal relationships with such members Congress as U.S. Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Trent Lott, R-Miss., to procure money the Pentagon hadn't asked for reveals a broken system of defense procurement oversight rife with corruption, the newspaper said.

"What they did may have been a scandal," Walter Braswell, Ennis's lawyer, told The Times. "But even more grotesque is the way defense procurement has disintegrated into an incestuous relationship between the military, politicians and contractors."

J. Richard Fisher, one of Cantrell's former bosses in Hunstville, added, "The system needs to change. But it is not likely to do that. There is just too much inertia -- and too much self-interest."