The retired military cashing in with repressive governments
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
A new Washington Post investigation has uncovered the fact that hundreds of veterans have taken lucrative foreign jobs — often for countries with known human rights abuses. U.S. officials approved these contracts — but fought to keep them secret.
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The Post found more than 500 retired members of the military – from helicopter mechanics to high-ranking generals – have cashed in on work with foreign governments since 2015, sharing military expertise and political clout.
Many worked for countries with known human rights abuses and political repression, but the U.S. military approved these contracts anyway. The activity lacks transparency or congressional oversight, and largely remains out of public view.
Those seeking foreign work must first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department. The Post found these requests are largely rubber-stamped: Of more than 500 submitted since 2015, about 95 percent were granted. For military retirees who do this work without seeking approval, few penalties exist.
Correction: A previous version of this episode mistakenly said Keith Alexander was the first head of the U.S. Cybersecurity Command. The correct name is the U.S. Cyber Command.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So General Alexander, I'll turn the podium to you and thank you again for being with us. |
| 0:08.3 | In 2013, Keith Alexander was at the height of his career in military power. |
| 0:16.8 | At that point, the four-star army general was the longest serving director of the NSA. |
| 0:21.7 | You know, the most important thing that we can do is train our people. |
| 0:26.7 | The best in the world. |
| 0:28.5 | That's what the American people expect of our military and of our intelligence community. |
| 0:33.2 | But this is an a story about what American generals do at the height of their military |
| 0:37.0 | careers. |
| 0:38.0 | It's about what they do after. |
| 0:41.1 | In the case of General Alexander, he runs a firm that worked closely with the Saudi government, |
| 0:46.6 | even after the killing of journalists, Jamal Kishoggi. |
| 0:50.4 | It's common knowledge in the United States that many retired military officials, particularly |
| 0:55.2 | senior officers, go to work for defense contractors when they retired. |
| 0:58.8 | They call it a revolving door. |
| 1:00.5 | You work at the Pentagon, you're retired, then you have really good contacts with arms, |
| 1:05.7 | manufacturers, and defense contractors. |
| 1:08.5 | So you go to work for them. |
| 1:10.3 | What we found is that there's sort of a new revolving door that's taken place over the |
| 1:14.2 | last ten years where you've retired military officials going to work for foreign governments. |
| 1:21.0 | Craig Whitlock is an investigative reporter for the post. |
| 1:24.1 | He spent the last two years uncovering this new revolving door from US military service |
| 1:30.1 | to serving foreign governments. |
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