» 2011 » June Ms Sparky

Kabul Brothels Continue to Service NATO

Posted on: June 30th, 2011 at 12:28 pm — by Ms Sparky

An unidentified Afghan prostitute fixes her head scarf to cover her face

U.S. Embassy blames Afghan Government!
Monday 20 June 2011, by Matthew Nasuti

The unofficial message from the West to victims of oppression is:

“We will liberate you as long as your women agree to service our officials and contractors.”

That is a sad reality of both NATO and United Nations peacekeeping missions.

The U.S. State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons Report 2010” highlights the continuing growth of brothels in Kabul following the U.S. invasion in 2001. Many of the victims are poor Afghan women. A press release issued on January 13, 2011, by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul blamed the scandal on lax enforcement against traffickers by the Afghan Government, with no recommendation that the “johns” or clients be prosecuted (because many of them appear to be NATO and U.N. officials and their contractors). The most that the U.S. Embassy would meekly say is that:

“Some international security contractors may be involved in the sex trafficking of these women.” (it is interesting how ineffective U.S. intelligence agencies seem to be at determining brothel ownership in Kabul, despite the importance of the issue due to the use of these facilities by NATO officials) (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, Rape, Hazing, Discrimination & Harassment, Reports & Investigations, Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Violations. Tags: ArmorGroup, Human Trafficking, Kabul, NATO, Prostitution, TIPs, Trafficking In Persons, U.S. Embassy Kabul. 3 Comments »

CENTCOM rewards KBR’s dismal LOGCAP performance with $3.8 billion MATOC Contract

Posted on: June 30th, 2011 at 7:38 am — by Ms Sparky

KBR Awarded U.S. Central Command’s Multiple Award Task Order Contract

BusinessWire – June 30, 2011
KBR (NYSE:KBR) today announced that it has been awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Middle East District the U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC). This new MATOC program has an overall value of $3.8 billion, with a period of performance currently at two base years, with one-year options available for the following three years.

Under the previous CENTCOM MATOC program, KBR successfully executed $620M worth of projects across 32 separate task orders, thereby establishing a longstanding history with this client. The current MATOC program will support design-build and construction projects throughout the 20 countries of the CENTCOM area of responsibility, including Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, U.A.E., Uzbekistan and Yemen. A large majority of the task orders anticipated for this MATOC program include vital projects directly supporting the U.S. Military and U.S. Government in the various regions.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, KBR Contract. Tags: CENTCOM, KBR, Mark Williams, MATOC, USACE. 9 Comments »

Sallyport Wins KBR LOGCAP Contract and Transitions in 60 Days

Posted on: June 29th, 2011 at 7:50 am — by Ms Sparky

(PRWEB) June 29, 2011

Sallyport was awarded the Fire and Emergency Services contract for Iraq under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP III). The Prime contractor for the LOGCAP in Iraq is Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc, who provides basic life support services to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and civilian contract personnel.

Fire and Emergency Services is categorized as a “High Risk” job, and has many critical components. Recognizing Sallyport’s reputation in this critical sector, KBR sub-contracted the entire Fire and Emergency portion of the BLS to them. This allowed KBR to focus on what they do best, whilst benefiting from Sallyport’s industry-wide experience in protecting lives, fighting fire, and mitigating property damage.

The transition for this contract was exceptional; within 60 days, Sallyport had established an HQ in Baghdad, transitioned 21 sites across the country – an area the size of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama combined – and built an operational capacity of over 500 firefighters. This made Sallyport the largest contract fire department in the DoD, and the 78th largest fire department nationwide.

Steven Foster, the Program Manager for the Fire and Emergency Services Division in Iraq said:
“Many factors led to Sallyport being awarded the LOGGAP contract; a competitive market and the ability to do more with less, was certainly primary. The ability to hire personnel with the skills to do extraordinary jobs, in extraordinary environments, is also key; as is a “Can Do!” attitude, and a reputation for being able to mobilize anywhere on the globe. With 145 years of combined experience in Fire & Emergency Services on the transition team, and a second-to-none support team, there were very few organizations in this business that could dedicate that amount of knowledge and experience to a project. “ (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP III - KBR. Tags: KBR, LOGCAP III, Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, Sallyport. No Comments »

Zero prosecutions = zero effort in enforcing the law against trafficking in persons

Posted on: June 29th, 2011 at 5:19 am — by Ms Sparky

Pentagon Contractor Employee Investigated for Human Trafficking, Fired… But No Prosecutions or Contract Terminations

NICK SCHWELLENBACH – (POGO) – June 28, 2011 – Yesterday, the State Department released its latest annual report on combating human trafficking. The report said that although one Department of Defense contractor employee was investigated and dismissed in the last year, there have been no prosecutions and no contract terminations:

Allegations against federal contractors engaged in commercial sex and labor exploitation continued to surface in the media. During the reporting period, allegations were investigated and one employee was dismissed by a DoD contractor. The Inspectors General at the Departments of State and Defense and USAID continued their audits of federal contracts to monitor vulnerability to human trafficking and issued public reports of their findings and reparations. USAID also created an entity dedicated to proactively tracking contractor compliance with the authority to suspend contracts and debar contracting firms, a positive step toward increasing enforcement in this area. No prosecutions occurred and no contracts were terminated.

Earlier this month, POGO published an investigation into a case of alleged labor trafficking by a DoD subcontractor in Iraq. In that instance, there were no prosecutions or contract terminations. Last year, I and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig wrote that there have been zero prosecutions or contract terminations ever since a tough-sounding ”zero tolerance” policy that emphasized prosecutions went into place nearly a decade ago. Experts inside and outside the government told us there is little appetite and investigative resources to go after these crimes. “Zero prosecutions,” we quoted attorney Martina Vandenberg, a former Human Rights Watch investigator, “suggests zero effort to enforce the law.” (Click HERE for original article)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, Reports & Investigations, Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Violations. Tags: DFAR, DoD Contractors, DOS*, FAR, Human Trafficking, Nick Schwellenbach, POGO, USAID. No Comments »

Former Army NCO Robert Ashley Nelson pleads guilty to theft

Posted on: June 28th, 2011 at 10:14 am — by Forseti

Former U.S. Army Sergeant Pleads Guilty to Stealing Equipment in Iraq and Receiving Proceeds from Sale on Black Market

Photo by Globalsecurity.org

(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – June 28, 2011 – A former U.S. Army sergeant pleaded guilty today to conspiring to steal U.S. Army equipment related to his work as a non-commissioned officer helping to train Iraqi army personnel in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Robert Ashley Nelson, 46, of San Antonio, Texas, pleaded guilty today before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo in the Western District of Texas to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to steal public property. According to the court document, Nelson was deployed to Forward Operating Base Diamondback, Iraq, as the non-commissioned officer-in-charge of the Ninewa Operations Command Military Transition Team. This transition team helped train the Iraqi Army units stationed nearby.

While serving in Iraq, Nelson agreed with a U.S. Army translator to steal eight generators from a lot on base that held various pieces of used equipment. Once the generators were taken off the base, the translator arranged for them to be sold on the black market in Iraq. Nelson admitted that he received half of the proceeds of the sales of stolen equipment, with approximately $35,000 of the money being wired to (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, U.S. Army. Tags: FOB Diamondback, Iraq, Mosul, Ninewa Operations Command Military Transition Team, Robert Ashley Nelson, SIGIR. No Comments »

Pentagon procurement, a carpetbagger’s dream come true

Posted on: June 28th, 2011 at 6:46 am — by Forseti

How two shell companies duped the Pentagon

Brian Grow and Kelly Carr – (Reuters) – CHEYENNE/ATLANDA – June 28, 2011 – Two companies incorporated at a little house in Cheyenne, Wyoming, won Pentagon contracts after their owner took advantage of the state’s liberal incorporation laws to create the firms using an alias, and then represented them as minority-owned to win favorable treatment as a military supplier. The firms and their owner were later banned from doing business with the Pentagon for providing knock-off parts.

A Reuters investigation has found that more than 2,000 companies are registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue in Cheyenne, the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business incorporation company that specializes in corporate anonymity.

Among the firms incorporated there is a small subset that make their money from government contracts.

A Reuters review of federal contracting databases found nine firms registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue have been awarded 93 contracts worth more than $1.6 million by a half dozen government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

More than 90 percent of the contracts were awarded by the Department of Defense.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Reports & Investigations. Tags: Atilla Kan, DLA*, DoD*, Eagle Logistic Solutions, Eagle Logistics Aerospace, Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), H. Galip Dedekarginoglu, John Ryan, New York Machinery, Parker Hannifin, Pentagon, Wyoming Corporate Services. No Comments »

Subcontracting Substandard Services: Military Contracts in Iraq Still Controversial

Posted on: June 27th, 2011 at 7:09 am — by Forseti

David Isenberg – (CorpWatch) June 27, 2011
Najlaa International Catering Services won a $3 million five-year contract in February 2010 to prepare food for the U.S. Agency for International Development compound in Iraq. The deal was approved despite the fact that Bill Baisey, CEO of the Kuwaiti company, faces numerous complaints and court actions for non-payment of bills and alleged fraud in Kuwait and Iraq.

U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued by private military contractors that have performed poorly or failed miserably in fulfilling their contracts. Some overstated their capabilities or were badly managed and under-skilled, while others committed outright fraud.

Past investigations concentrated on major contractors such as Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), but recently the smaller companies – such as Najlaa – to which these giants subcontract have drawn fire.

“The government has limited visibility into subcontractor affairs and limited ability to influence their actions,” said former U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays at a July 2010 hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting. “This fact presents a challenge to transparency and accountability for the use of taxpayers’ dollars. Poorly conceived, poorly structured, poorly conducted, and poorly monitored subcontracting can lead to poor choices in security measures and damage to U.S. foreign policy objectives, among other problems.”

The United States, however, has become so dependent on contractors who do the laundry, feed the troops, and build and run facilities that it would be difficult if not impossible for the military to continue without them.

Najlaa’s Contracts

Najlaa is part of the extensive web of subcontractors supplying the goods and services that sustain U.S. war efforts, and the Kuwait-based company’s failures and problems fit a common pattern. One of several firms that make up Baisey-owned Eastern Solutions Group, Najlaa has several subcontracts with KBR, which has provided more than $35 billion in base maintenance services to the U.S. military in war zones including Iraq and Afghanistan under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP).

(Read the rest of the story here…)