11. Linda Bilmes, “Who Profited from the Iraq War?” EPS Quarterly 24, no. 1 (March 2012), 6. The Federal Procurement Data System that’s supposed to track government contracts “often contains inaccurate data,” according to the Government Accountability Office (“Federal Contracting: Observations on the Government’s Contracting Data Systems,” report, GAO-09-1032T, Washington, DC, September 29, 2009). For example, my research showed hundreds of thousands of contracts with no “place of performance” listed. On the other hand, some of the contacts included in the list are unrelated to the provision of goods and services for overseas bases; however, the simultaneous omission of base-related contracts means this methodology provides a useful portrait of where contracts and taxpayer dollars are going overseas. Still, the totals listed should be treated as rough estimates.

David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Milit…, loc. 1551