Captain Dusek (left) is presented with flowers on arrival in port during a visit to Muroran, located on the northern island of Hokkaido
Dusek is that first on he left. And it’s an old photo, where he is a Commander of course. Fraud in the provisioning of ships is of course as old as the navy itself. Getting ranks wrong though…..in he old days that second mistake would probably have created more letters to the editor….
The bright side about having fewer writers that have been in the military is that we haven’t needed the same manpower as in WWII. If this mistake is a cost of not having thousands of soldiers dying every day, not to mention the civilian losses, I can live with it.
What I don’t understand is how the Captain Daniel Dusek was a golden boy of the US Navy, commander of an amphibious assault ship and tipped for higher things. had control over where other ships docked. The claim is: Captain Daniel Dusek admitted helping steer American aircraft carriers to ports run by a contractor known as “Fat Leonard” in return for cash, lavish trips and prostitutes How does this happen?
Someone, somewhere, decides where ships dock, where they get supplied and by whom. It’s been a source of peculation since at least Pepys day, if not long before. Who sells them avgas, diesel, food, water? whose dock do they tie up next to? Whose tugboats are used?
I can understand a captain having control over when his ship goes into port. What I don’t understand is the power he would have to steer another ship into that same port.
In the 1970s, the Royal Navy Supply branch had a contractor scam going. Which was uncovered and then you had to buy everything through NAAFI. In UK ports, at least.
“He was Deputy Director Operations” for the 7th Fleet …
The state is corrupt.
The style, manner and extent of that corruption changes a little from age to age.
But the corruption is always there.
There will be a group which deals with such arrangements for a fleet. Not so much captain detailing his own ship, but the provisioning arm detailing where the whole lot goes. This was a 7th Fleet scam as far as I can see. It would be (in English parlance, the Pursers, dunno what you Yanks call them) that resupply group, and whoever commanded that, which would tell ship captains where to go.
Any sort of large-scale procurement or supply exercise is susceptible to corruption. Maintenance, less so. It’s why you see lots of new kit lying about in third world countries which has either never been commissioned or worked only for a short time before breaking down and never repaired. The supply chain corruption in Nigeria, even in a company which swore it was against it, was as blatant as it was rife.
Thank you, I missed that part.
In other news naval officers are humans. This group got caught stealing from the cookie jar so well done. Hopefully future attempts waste less of my tax dollars.
“Liberal Yank
March 27, 2016 at 9:19 am
I can understand a captain having control over when his ship goes into port. What I don’t understand is the power he would have to steer another ship into that same port.”
As an O-6, he’s the head of a regional contracting unit that is responsible for ensuring that the ships operating within his region get the civilian logistical support they need.
Individual warships normally don’t do this themselves (though they can, when operating independently and/or in an area with out a regional contracting command) – they send out logistical requests (I need fuel/water/food/etc) and specify roughly when and where they’ll be making port. The RC office then arranges a supplier/s who are either based where the ship is going to make port or will truck/subcontract supplies to be there.
And to simplify things, many fleet commanders specify a limited number of ports for their assigned vessels to resupply in.
The CO of a US Navy warship is in no way in absolute command of anything. Its always a negotiation between what he wants and how much effort is available to satisfy those wants.
In the case of an actual war suppose the best possible course of action is to head to an unlisted port. Does the individual captain have the power to provide any type of payment for goods and services in the event of a communications outage?
I know that this is not a very likely situation currently. I assume that an agency that likes to try to plan for everything would have a procedure for this scenario. Since for most of history ships were often out of communications range I’m sure there are plenty of models to pick from.
Do people actually give a toss?
Nobody’s going to stop him, LY. If it turns out it was inappropriate they’ll discipline him later but that’s unlikely if it turned out to be the sensible thing to do.
Interesting photo. He certainly has his eye on that girl.
Arnald: not about you.
Abusing power to steal large sums of money from the government? I think even the usual moronic leftists would agree that’s not a great thing.
Se,
The gravamen of Tim’s critique seems to be a technicality about the rank. I agree with Arnald here.
15 of Tim’s 54 words relate to fraud.
Interesting photo. He certainly has his eye on that girl.
I agree, a sailor having his eye on a girl is indeed noteworthy.
dearieme – “Interesting photo. He certainly has his eye on that girl.”
I think he may have an eye on the flowers. I don’t believe, from first impressions of his photo, that he is the sort of man who has an interest in pretty Japanese girls.
And, yes, once we would have relied on the MSM, with their expertise and, where they didn’t have it, researchers to get things right.
Whereas now, an economics blogger with minimal naval connections, can point stuff out that they have got wrong. It’s not very important of itself (unless you are an O6 – the pay difference is about a thousand, dollars per month for Yanks, and pounds per month for us) but it is indicative of a decline in the concern for basic accuracy.
And if they can’t be accurate in things that are of minimal impact to their worldview – the precise rank of a convicted fraudster – how can we trust them to be accurate about stuff where they clearly have, to use an Americanism, “skin in the game.”
Like, for example, the “gender pay gap”.