Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud

The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud -- in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report.

At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments -- and in some cases criminal fraud convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the report said.

The contractors identified in the report include such blue-chip entities as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Pratt & Whitney, IBM and even the Yale medical school.

Under the pressure of two hot wars and a defense budget that has mushroomed to its current $700 billion size, the Pentagon has set up a Procurement Fraud Working Group. But in the six years the task force has been at work, fraud seems to have expanded even as the Pentagon's ability to detect it has increased.

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