At a congressional hearing on Iraq contracting yesterday, when Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim was asked whether or not it was true that corruption was quite common in the Middle-East, he grinned and replied “I don’t want to cast aspersions.”

We don’t want to either. But, since he started it, we’ll respond by casting just one thinly veiled aspersion his way: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

The Department of Defense’s contracting practices are not exactly distinguished by their exceptional cronyism. Rather, cronyism has become so commonplace in America’s military-industrial complex that there is nothing exceptional about it at all.

These days, finding a contractor who hasn’t sent or received employees through the Pentagon’s revolving door is only a little less difficult than finding an honest politician. This week’s flurry of new contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq demonstrated the degree to which the line between public and private has become blurred:

• Parsons Brinkerhoff, an international engineering and construction company that received a $43.4 million contract, has close ties to the Pentagon’s Program Management Office director David Nash. Admiral Nash worked as a program manager Parsons Brinckerhoff in Detroit where he coordinated the renovation of General Motors Corp.’s technical center in Warren, Michigan.

• Fluor Corp. received a $500 million contract for the construction of power facilities. One of Fluor’s vice presidents, Kenneth Oscar, spent 20 years at the Pentagon working in contracting.

This close relationship between the military and its contractors is often referred to as the revolving door, and while it does not always entail unethical conduct, the potential for leveraging these relationships to win federal contracts is sometimes too good for private companies to pass up. Recently, Boeing came under fire for hiring Darleen Druyun, a procurement officer at the Pentagon, because they began negotiating her position while she was handling contracts involving Boeing.

There are laws and codes of conduct intended to quash such relationships, but the reality of defense contracting is that connections are closely correlated with contracts. Regardless of whether or not these coincidences are above-board, the sheer ubiquity of them makes it clear that we need stronger oversight to reestablish the division between the public and the private spheres.

Cutting down on this all too common practice means stricter standards for federal employees. There should be no gray areas when a public servant becomes a private employee. Working for a company that one previously negotiated contracts with should be unacceptable regardless of the position granted. Moreover, federal employees need better incentives to remain in government. Public jobs should not be viewed as a fast track towards big private payoffs.

Coincidentally, Dov Zakheim will be retiring from his job as Comptroller on April 15th. Keep an eye on America’s corporate rosters – we have a feeling Dov may be looking for a golden parachute of his own.