Back in August, I did a blog entry on the court decision to set aside the conviction of contractor Custer Battles, the first corporate fraud case to emerge from mess that's Iraq.

At the time, I said it would send a signal to the other contractors who have been raking in big profits from a war that doesn't end and which has produced a death toll of 655,000 Iraqis since the 2003 invasion, according to reports via Lancet magazine.

But the profiteers are cleaning up in Afghanistan too.

What we're seeing in Afghanistan is a system that allows lucrative open-ended contracts granted without competitive bidding or with limited competition to many of the same politically connected corporations which are also cleaning up in Iraq: Kellogg, Brown & Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton ), DynCorp, Blackwater, The Louis Berger Group, The Rendon Group and many more.

All this is revealed in a chilling investigative report from CorpWatch.

Consider this scenario described in the report: contractors are walking away with millions of dollars in US taxpayers money while highways crumble before they are finished, clinics are put up with faulty plumbing and leaky roofs and hospitals are built, only to collapse and kill people.

When USAID solicits bid from corporations, it's supposed to choose the lowest bidder. What really happens is that the decision usually comes down to contacts and lobbyists. Usually, it's an American firm that wins the job.

It's not just corrupt. There is a real failure here of compliance and systems that results in mismanagement and profiteering.

The report quotes Jean Mazurelle, the World Bank director in Kabul who estimates that 35 to 40 per cent of international aid to Afghanistan is badly spent:

"In Afghanistan, the wastage of aid is sky-high: there is real looting going on, mainly by private enterprises. It is a scandal. In 30 years of my career, I have never seen anything like it."

Earlier this week, I did an entry saying that the profiteers in Iraq might be shaping up as the next big financial scandal.

The CorpWatch report suggests Afghanistan should be added to the list.