» 2010 » March Ms Sparky

Many Dyncorp LOGCAP IV employees disgusted

Posted on: March 31st, 2010 at 6:30 pm — by Ms Sparky

I can’t even count the number of complaints I’ve received regarding the pay issues and the working and living conditions for Dyncorp LOGCAP IV employees in Kandahar, Afghanistan. All in all it has to be close to 100% that being an new American expat working for Dyncorp sucks. Many are saying it’s worse than working for KBR. But I’m sure if you’re Scott Mount, Jeff Archie or Conrad Cannon your living conditions are premium. Below is an email from a Dyncorp employee.

Friends,

If you are thinking Dyncorp for your job, let me give you some true blue facts. I know everyone at one time or another has ask, “what have you heard about Dyncorp”, well you are hearing it from the horses mouth.

Dyncorp is not what you expect from a company of this size and reputation. The HR is as bad as it gets. The finance (pay) is a hit and a miss. Some people get paid others are not paid for up to three months. The living conditions are as poor as there is. We start out in a circus tent with 300 people double bunked with 2 foot of space between bunks. Then we are moved to an 8 man tent but they have placed bunks in for 20 people. The top bunks are only 2 inches from the top of the tent and the lights. We are given 3 to 4 foot between bunks and this is our permanent living assignment, even for Supervisors. There are CHU’s(Civilian Housing Unit) with TCN’s (Third Country Nationals) running everything. There is no such thing as a waiting list for CHU’s and nobody can explain why most xpats are in tents. I can see most xpats demobing once they all get their clearances.

The laundry goes this way…you turn your laundry in with an issued bag which holds 2 sets of clothes. It takes 72 hours to receive your laundry back. They wash your clothes without removing the clothes from your bag. If you do not put the soap powder in your bag your clothes are washed with dirty water only. When you receive your clothes back they smell, most have dirt stains on them (which were not there to start with) and they are waded up and wrinkled beyond belief.

The chow is bad, C-Rations are better. The working conditions are bad, I will not go into this. Think the worst and then add more bad things to it and you have the work conditions.

There is no safety or any kind of QAQC around the company.

We all share the bathrooms with the TCN’s. These guys are from all over the world. They are doing their laundry in the showers and sinks. Absolutely disgusting people. There is nobody around to enforce rules or regulations in the camps. It looks and smells like a group of animals just spent 24 hours in the showers. Nasty to say the least.

One of the Transportation Managers (name edited out) here just got busted with drugs and having classified material in his computer. Real class act management. I thought KBR was bad until I came here. I found out some supervisors and managers that KBR fired – are here. It’s hard to get away from idiots.

Stay away from DynCorp Intl.

I know this will guarantee some hate emails but I stand by my opinion there are inherent safety issues with American expats living in close quarters with unvetted TCN’s from SE Asia, India etc. At least Americans get a back ground check and you know there are no convicted felons sleeping in the next bunk. With regards to TCN’s you have no idea who the person is sleeping next to you and then there are health issues. Diseases such hepatitis and tuberculosis are near epidemic conditions in some countries and it’s a well known fact that labor contractors lie about getting these people vetted including medical checks.

Ms Sparky

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP-Dyncorp. Tags: Afghanistan, DynCorp*, LOGCAP, LOGCAP IV Transition. 249 Comments »

KBR continues their assault of rape victim

Posted on: March 31st, 2010 at 5:02 pm — by Ms Sparky

KBR Says Jamie Leigh Jones Was Asking For It

(note: any reference to 2007 as the year Jamie was raped is incorrect. The year is 2005 and the quoted court documents are being amended )

KBR Says Jamie Leigh Jones Was Asking For It Jamie Leigh Jones worked for KBR when she was brutally gang raped and imprisoned by co-workers and later rescued by her Texas-based Congressman. Today, KBR dropped its fight to deny her justice. But it’s not all good news.

KBR would like us all to know that, like all rape victims, Jamie Leigh Jones was asking for it, because she had a couple drinks and a pleasant conversation with the man who later raped her. In a press release on their website nauseatingly labeled “Facts About Jamie Leigh Jones Litigation,” they state

Also in Congressional testimony (and in several media interviews), Ms. Jones stated she only took two sips from a drink. However, several witnesses present at the social gathering outside the barracks observed her having several drinks and flirting with one particular firefighter whom she had socialized with the night before. She was also seen leaving the gathering with this firefighter.

The firefighter admits that he and Ms. Jones had consensual sex. However, he is certain that nobody else was present or had sex with Ms. Jones that night.

If you’d like to read Jones’ original filing, you can: she describes in detail being drugged (Oh, wait! Could that be why what she remembers drinking is different than what she was “seen” drinking and why she doesn’t remember leaving with her rapist?) and then waking up bloody and brutalized. To wit:

Tragically, on the evening on July 28, 2007, during her off-duty hours, Jamie was drugged (by what was believed to be Rohypnol) and brutally raped by, on information and belief, several Halliburton/KBR firefighters, including defendant, Charles Boartz, while she was in her room in the barracks. When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants were ruptured, and her pectoral muscles torn – which would later require reconstructive surgery. Upon walking to the rest room, she passed out again. When she returned to the living area, she found Charles Boartz lying in her bottom bed. She asked him what had happened, and he confessed to having unprotected sex with her. Jamie reported the rape to the [sic] Pete Arroyo, one of the operations personnal, who then took her to a KBR medical personnel.

KBR additionally asserts that because she didn’t immediately report the brutalizing rape, charge Boartz and only told Arroyo later that morning, she obviously wasn’t “really” raped.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Bodie Babble, Franken Amendment*, Jamie Jones vs KBR, KBR Investigations, Lawsuits Against KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR, Rape, Hazing, Discrimination & Harassment, Senate & House Committee Hearings. Tags: Bodie Babble, Charles Boartz, Charles Bortz, Heather Browne, Jamie Leigh Jones, Pete Arroyo, Rape. 3 Comments »

KBR Chastised in Iraq Contract Review

Posted on: March 29th, 2010 at 4:45 pm — by Forseti

Contractor Called “Extraordinarily Arrogant” For Asking Government To “Stand Down”

(CBS/AP) The military contractor Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) was chastised as “extraordinarily arrogant” today by the head of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, former Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays.

As part of the company’s ongoing accounting skirmishes with the Army, company executives sent a January 15, 2010 letter asking the military to “stand down” and refrain from using KBR’s performance on containing costs as part of their calculations for their award fees.

Shays called it “stunning” that a company would ask the government to “stand down”. Addressing the military accountants before him Shays said, “Basically a company is telling you to back off.”

In an example of waste, the Department of Defense’s Inspector General calculated that of $5 million charged for tactical maintenance work at a base in Balad, Iraq $4.6 million or 92% was wasted. While KBR says it reported this to the government, the Army did not ask the company to correct it. Commissioners criticized the Army for failing to act despite clear evidence that millions in taxpayer dollars were being wasted.

“We’re paying for services that aren’t needed,” conceded Lieutenant General James Pillsbury, Deputy Commanding General of the Army Materiel Command.

Commissioner Clark Kent Ervin said the case in Balad was not an isolated incident. He pointed to a November 14, 2009 audit from the Defense Contract Audit Agency that found “on average across all sites in Iraq the average contract labor utilization rate was less than 11%,” meaning 89% of KBR’s labor was sitting idle between January and July 2009.

KBR executives testified before the committee that all of their bases have closed on time and complained they often receive “duplicative and competing direction” from multiple branches of the military at once.

KBR’s Principal Program Manager Guy Laboa was asked if KBR executives ever asked him about profit. He responded, “In almost 30 months no one in any leadership position has ever mentioned the bottom line to me,” he said.

KBR, which holds one of the largest military contracts in American history has been under fire from critics for slow-walking the company’s exit from Iraq in order to maximize profits.

In 2009, the company took in $4.8 billion in revenue from the Army’s giant logistics and support contract for Iraq known as LOGCAP. Recently, the company won an additional $2 billion military support contract in Iraq. In total the company has been awarded over $32 billion in military contracts since 2001.

By August 2010, the number of contractors on the ground in Iraq will outnumber US troops by 20,000 with 70,000 contractors working alongside 50,000 soldiers. About 30,000 of the 70,000 contractors will be KBR employees.

While the Afghan version of the Army’s giant logistics contract has now been competitively bid to three companies, commission members criticized the Army for taking so long to transition LOGCAP from a no bid KBR contract to a competitive and cheaper version. Commissioner Ervin told military officials the “the public would have a right to be appalled.” (Click HERE for original article)

Posted in Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC), LOGCAP III - KBR, Reports & Investigations. Tags: Clark Kent Ervin, Commission on Wartime Contracting, Doug Horn, Guy LaBoa, James Pillsbury. 12 Comments »

You’re Suspended ! You’re Debarred! Here’s another contract!

Posted on: March 29th, 2010 at 1:37 am — by Forseti

There is a lot of talk these days about suspending, debarring and the government “reigning in contractors.” It appears to be a toothless threat and the ones left holding the bag are ultimately the US taxpayer and the unfortunate troops being serviced by these rogues. I have said it before and I will say it again the DoD & the DoS will spank their unruly contractor, in public, then turn around and award them millions, sometimes billions, in new contracts.

A perfect example of this is toxic and costly relationship was the Pentagon making a very public display of withholding $25 million in award fees, from KBR on February 25, 2010, then on February 26, 2010 notifying KBR that they had been awarded the $2.3 billion dollar CTP contract from guess who; that’s right, the Pentagon. I have to wonder what KBR is holding over their head, do they have compromising photographs or is it just plain old fashioned threats and intimidation. I would hope that the Secretary of Defense, who is charged with keeping America safe, is not being held hostage by greed driven corporate bullies.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, LOGCAP III - KBR, Politics, Qui Tam, Reports & Investigations, Senate & House Committee Hearings. Tags: Agility/PWC/GCC, BAE Systems, DDKS, DoD*, DOS*, FCPA Violations, Senator Claire McCaskill*, U.S. Dept. of Defense*, U.S. Dept. of State*. 52 Comments »

Surprise! Another War-Zone Embassy Poorly Guarded by Contractors

Posted on: March 26th, 2010 at 8:09 am — by Ms Sparky

By Spencer Ackerman - The Washington Independent March 26, 2010

Last time, it was the lascivious behavior of ArmorGroup — the private security firm handling the U.S. Embassy in Kabul — that attracted headlines. Those revelations led to disclosures of how contractors knowingly hired guards with poor English skills to save money — something the State Department knew about before renewing the company’s contract. Now it’s Triple Canopy, which guards the gargantuan U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

The Project on Government Oversight, the good-government group that discovered ArmorGroup’s State Department-abetted negligence, has obtained a report from the State Department investigating the department’s management in handling its contract with Triple Canopy for embassy security. POGO was good enough to pass the report on to me. Labor standards are such that Triple Canopy guards often worked ten or eleven consecutive days on average, with some working 39 days in a row without a break.

Here are some highlights of how State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which controls the contract, is managing your money and protecting American diplomats in what remains a warzone.

Embassy Baghdad has not adequately planned for a reduced Department or Department of Defense (DoD) presence in Baghdad, resulting in a projected unnecessary cost of approximately $20 million to the U.S. Government for site security over the next two years. Of this sum, the Department would incur approximately $12 million and DoD would incur more than $8 million in unnecessary costs.

Remember that everything the U.S. is supposed to be doing in Iraq is predicated on the 2011 troop withdrawal. I’ve heard from former administration officials that the embassy is lax in its political mission in Baghdad. Apparently that attitude has some spillover effect.

This will be familiar:

DS does not ensure that [Triple Canopy] personnel have required English language proficiency.

The report further finds that DS did not carry out the random language checks they were supposed to have carried out. True story: when I visited the embassy in 2007, the Triple Canopy guards were very nice people from (if I recall correctly) El Salvador, who made up for their lack of English with warm attitudes. I saw one guard actually reading a Teach-Yourself-English handbook on post in the Green Zone. Clearly DS’s negligence with ArmorGroup’s English-challenged guards is hardly an isolated case.

This might be my favorite:

The contracting officer’s representative in Baghdad does not verify either the guards’ attendance at their posts or the accuracy of personnel rosters (muster sheets) before they are submitted, to ensure contractor charges for labor are accurate. In addition, DS does not ensure that personnel have required English language proficiency.

DS lacks standards for maintaining training records. As a result, Triple Canopy’s training records are incomplete and in disparate locations making it difficult for the Bureau to verify whether all personnel have received required training.

And yet the IG’s overall conclusion is “The Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) generally manages the Triple Canopy contract well.” The last State Department Inspector General to take such a sunny interpretation of contract security in spite of the accumulated evidence resigned in disgrace.

POGO executive director Danielle Brian comments in a prepared statement, “How could State not have learned their lesson after the public flogging they got for their handling of the Kabul contract?…This report again raises an important point about whether State can properly manage Embassy security contracts in a war zone.” (Click HERE for the original article)

I would like to remind everyone that Triple Canopy located at Camp Olympia in the International (Green) Zone is where Adam Hermanson was electrocuted to death in his shower last year.

Ms Sparky

Posted in Adam Hermanson-TC, CONTRACTOR DEATHS, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Reports & Investigations, Security Contractors. Tags: Adam Hermanson*, ArmorGroup, Danielle Brian, DOS*, Kabul, Triple Canopy, U.S. Dept. of State*, U.S. Embassy Baghdad. No Comments »

Wheels of justice turning slowly in deadly KBR convoy case

Posted on: March 25th, 2010 at 4:55 pm — by Forseti

Oops he lost his cap and lanyard

Judge permits convoy ambush trial, but delays it

By TOM FOWLER HOUSTON CHRONICLE – March 25, 2010
A federal judge ruled today that most of the lawsuits claiming Houston-based KBR should have stopped a deadly 2004 truck convoy in Iraq can move toward trial, but a May 24 trial date is off to allow KBR time to file an appeal.

The case centers on April 2004 attacks on a convoy of supply trucks KBR ran in Iraq, during which six civilian truck drivers were killed and 14 wounded.

The drivers caught in the ambush were delivering fuel under KBR’s multibillion-dollar contract to transport supplies, build bases, serve meals and provide other support services for American troops in the Middle East.

Plaintiffs in the Houston lawsuits — two injured workers and the family of one who was killed in the attack — allege that the company knew of the likelihood of the attacks in advance and had the authority to cancel the convoys.

U.S. District Judge Gray Miller previously dismissed the collection of lawsuits, saying the U.S. Army had control over KBR and thus KBR wasn’t responsible.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Donald Tolfree-KBR, Fisher vs KBR, Good Friday Massacre, KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR. Tags: Good Friday Massacre, Judge Gray Miller, Kevin Smith-Idol, Kristen Martin, Toby Cole, Tommy Fibich. 1 Comment »

KBR’s Idle Hands in Iraq

Posted on: March 25th, 2010 at 8:35 am — by Ms Sparky

-Flickr user Jayel Aheram

The megacontractor’s been making millions from mechanics who put in as little as 43 minutes a month. And as more GIs come home, the waste could get even worse.

By Adam Weinstein -Copy Editor – MotherJones.com
Thu Mar. 25, 2010 4:30 AM PDT

It was just a single contract for a single job on a single base in Iraq. The Department of Defense agreed to pay the megacontractor KBR $5 million a year to repair tactical vehicles, from Humvees to big rigs, at Joint Base Balad, a large airfield and supply center north of Baghdad. Yet according to a new Pentagon report [PDF], what the military got was as many as 144 civilian mechanics, each doing as little as 43 minutes of work a month, with virtually no oversight. The report, issued March 3 by the DOD’s inspector general, found that between late 2008 and mid-2009, KBR performed less than 7 percent of the work it was expected to do, but still got paid in full.

The $4.6 million blown on this particular contract is a relatively small loss considering that in 2009 alone, the government had a blanket deal worth $5 billion with KBR (formerly known as the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root). Just days before the Pentagon released the Balad report, KBR announced it had won a new $2.3 billion-plus, five-year Iraq contract. But the inspector general’s modest investigation offers new insight into just how little KBR delivers and how toothless the Pentagon is to prevent contractor waste. Moreover, the government’s own auditors predict that as the military draws down its forces in Iraq, KBR will keep most of its workforce intact, enabling it to collect $190 million or more in unnecessary expenses. Much of any “peace dividend” from the war’s gradual end—potentially hundreds of billions of dollars—could wind up in the hands of contractors. (Read the rest of the story here…)