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The Struggle to Police Foreign Subcontractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

August 29, 2010 — Forseti

Billions at Stake, but U.S. Investigators Stymied by Murky Rules, Enforcement Obstacles

By Nick Schwellenbach – August 29, 2010
To win hearts and minds in Afghanistan and Iraq, military experts want U.S. companies to contract with local firms for a variety of tasks like trucking, feeding troops, and providing security. The U.S. government’s “Afghan First” and “Iraqi First” initiatives increasingly seek to rely on local contractors, often through subcontracts, in part to stimulate their local economies.

But a host of investigations underscore the perils in the murky world of subcontracting with foreign firms, and the difficulties in making sure taxpayer dollars are well spent. Among the current and recent probes by the Pentagon, congressional panels, and federal investigators:

Up to $300 million in subcontracts in Iraq and Kuwait were allegedly tainted by a Saudi-based subcontractor employee’s kickback scheme;
Subcontracted security forces in Afghanistan are suspected of bribing both Taliban and Afghan government officials;
U.S. money for a trash collection program in Iraq, administered by a bewildering array of subcontractors, has allegedly ended up in the pockets of insurgents; and

A former contractor employee alleged that Middle Eastern subcontractors, trying to sway the award of more subcontracts, were sneaking prostitutes into Baghdad’s Green Zone by abusing their security access cards.
Subcontracting is among the most challenging parts of the U.S. government’s widespread outsourcing of war-related tasks. It works like this: A government agency — most likely the Defense Department, State Department, or U.S. Agency for International Development — will award work to a “prime” contractor. That prime contractor, usually a large American company like Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) or DynCorp International, will often subcontract some or even a majority of its work to other companies, including foreign-owned firms. Those subcontractors sometimes then turn around and subcontract part of the work, and so on.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Forecast for LOGCAP Jobs: Continued above average growth

July 29, 2010 — Bruce Diggs

The infrastructure supporting the civilian army now slated to wage a war thought from the beginning to last only a short time, will require a continuation of Civilian Contractor’s on the Battlefield albeit on a smaller scale – initially. Although then President George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, the mission continues to this day with no foreseeable end in sight. With the current draw-down of troops – 20,000 departing by Aug. 31 with a limited presence remaining by the end of the year, and the corresponding mass exodus of civilian contractors supporting them, expect to see a resurgence of ethnic violence in a feudal system dominated society which has been at the core of the Iraqi culture since time immoral. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely – and nowhere does this sage expression apply more aptly than Iraq.

In a country epitomizing the golden rule honed and practiced for millennia, that is, “He who has the gold, rules”, the inevitable and unavoidable ensuing vacuum left by the departure of U.S. troops must and will be filled by thousands of employment-at-will civilians who, driven by the abysmal unemployment rate in the United States will be clamoring for the opportunity of drawing a steady paycheck.

David Isenberg of the Huffington Post in his article appearing June 30, 2010 entitled, The Perils of LOGCAP Job Seeking, observes in part of his assessment regarding my reasoning for the necessity of skilled leadership on LOGCAP, that “Still, his basic point is correct; it is all about the money…”

In the telling article written by Sandra Erwin appearing July 21, 2010 in the National Defense magazine, General Odierno: Iraq Will Be a ‘Civilian-Led Operation’ in 2012, General Odierno is quoted stating, “We are setting the stage from a military-led to a civilian-led operation”. Erwin further reports “Odierno said that more than one thousand “tasks” will be reassigned. Some will be turned over to the Iraqi government, others to U.S. Central Command and the rest to the State Department.” Continuing, “State officials have asked the Army to extend contractor-support services that companies currently provide to the U.S. military in Iraq under the so-called LOGCAP contract. The Army indicated it wanted State to take over the oversight of the contract.”

The Implication is Clear

If the above bears-out, the current Personnel Alignment and Reduction currently taking place in Iraq as recently announced by KBR’s John Cusick, Principal Program Manager of LOGCAP III Middle East, and exhaustively discussed here within the viral blog of the irrepressible Ms Sparky, will not change the long-term goals of the Pentagon in terms of a continuing U.S. presence in the region, irrespective of popular opinion or progressive political objectives.

That being said, in the near-term future, expect an unprecedented surge of Contractors on the Battlefield to continue not only in terms of Private Security Contractors taking over the role of the military trigger-pullers, but also in terms of meeting corresponding logistical and supply demands inherent to supporting the enormous strategic objectives of trying to keep a lid on the boiling cauldron of blood-thirsty tribalism and opposing religious ideologies indigenous to the former lower Mesopotamia.

The task of utilizing a civilian-led army will be mind bogglingly complex and it will require leaders of uncompromising moral and ethical principles, but if that is what the Pentagon wants, then rest assured that as sure as God made little green apples, that is what the Pentagon is going to get.

Think tanks, along with inside the beltway MNC’s and military industrial complex defense contractors aligned with the Pentagon’s contingency plans for present and future wars, ensures long-term job security for those willing to take a walk on the wild side for a big fat paycheck. LOGCAP is as inextricably joined at the hip with war strategists of today in supplying Contractors on the Battlefield as much as it ever has been – only now, it is going to become dramatically apparent and it is going to create an entirely new meaning to the definition of the Privatization of War. It’s the ultimate model in outsourcing conflict resolution on a global scale, custom made for a brave new world.

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP IV - KBR, LOGCAP-Dyncorp, LOGCAP-Fluor, Security Contractors. Tags: Bruce Diggs, David Isenberg, LOGCAP 4 Jobs. No Comments »

CWC hearing – Subcontracting: Who’s Minding the Store?

July 26, 2010 — Ms Sparky

On July 26, 2010 the Commission on Wartime Contracting co-chaired by Commissioners Christopher Shays and Michael J. Thibault held a hearing on subcontracting risks in combat zones entitled Subcontracting: Who’s Minding the Store? I think this Commission could be one of the best things that has happened to contractor oversight!

Co-chairs’ opening statement

Panel 1 (click HERE for Panel 1 vide0 02:00)
Edward Harrington, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Procurement) Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology)
Patrick Fitzgerald, Director Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)
Cathy Read, Department of State – Office of Acquisition Management
Drew W. Luten III, Bureau for Management, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (Read the rest of the story here…)

David Isenberg: The Perils of LOGCAP Job Seeking

June 30, 2010 — Forseti

I have often mentioned the logistics side of private military contracting. It would be difficult not to, as it constitutes the overwhelming share of the industry

And when you talk about logistics work, at least for the American military, you can’t avoid talking about LOGCAP, the mother of all logistics contracts. Although it has been awarded to DynCorp in the past it is primarily associated with KBR, which has been implementing the contract in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Djibouti, and Georgia. Currently LOGCAP is split between KBR, DynCorp, and Fluor Corporation.

Over the years, there have been lots of problems with LOGCAP contracts, ranging from cost over runs to flagrant examples of fraud waste, and abuse, not to mention things like rapes of various LOGCAP workers. One has only to go to a site like Ms. Sparky to get the latest on various misdeeds by KBR and other contractors.

Is this the result of inept workers or indifferent mismanagement, or something else? I frankly don’t know but it is worth taking a moment to ponder the process LOGCAP job seekers go through in their quest to get employed.

According to Bruce Diggs, who runs the LOGCAP 4 JOBS site this is not an industry for the naive.

There have been countless scores of ill-prepared people seeking to better their lives, who whether by naïveté or wide-eyed innocence, have come onto the LOGCAP project with the misguided notion that there would be an atmosphere of patriotism, camaraderie, or esprit-de-corps of cooperation and professional consideration.

An environment in which one would interact with colleagues and enjoy support, mutual collaboration — even friendship. One team, one fight… that sort of thing.

LOGCAP is not this kind of environment

Anyone who arrives on the project with this Pollyanna attitude is an ingénue in denial and will quickly discover that, for the most part, the stark reality on LOGCAP is totally the opposite of a collaborative environment. Unquestionably, these people are destined to become fodder for the blood-thirsty opportunists who will step on the backs of whoever is necessary, in order to climb what they perceive as the corporate ladder. Are you feeling me?

Be Warned — You Will Deal With Very Difficult People.

You will encounter people in positions of authority who could never be in comparable positions back in the so-called “real world”, as they use bluff and bluster to cajole, threaten and intimidate those around them in an attempt to conceal their own ineptitude and inability to perform the job.

Compounding the problem is a system rife with favoritism, quid-pro-quo (this for that), back-stabbing, under-handedness and nepotism, in which those who possess genuine talent and leadership skills are dubiously viewed as a threat to be eliminated. This posse is popularly known as “the good ‘ol boys.”

Now, with the domestic economy being what it is, dismal, more people than ever are looking to get a LOGCAP job. Diggs writes:

In a bid born primarily of financial necessity, ten’s of thousands of American citizens increasingly apply to scores of Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) companies contracted to provide logistical support to U.S. and Coalition troops deployed to the war-weary nations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Especially so for Americans, the risk of living and working in a war zone where dangerous and potentially life-threatening conditions exist and are dealt with on a daily basis, are offset by the promise of unrivaled compensation packages in their respective career field, clearly unattainable in the U.S.A.

For example, a truck driver struggling to bring home $40,000 a year in the states can more than triple their income by working on LOGCAP starting at $130,000 a year. With unemployment in the United States at the highest rate in more than two decades, competition for these high paying jobs has only intensified, as hundreds and even thousands of applications are received for each advertised position, particularly with regard to LOGCAP employers known as the Big 3, namely Fluor, KBR, and DynCorp.

….

Now, with the current economic downturn in the U.S., people are clamoring to get onto the LOGCAP project, sometimes in a desperate bid to simply hold on to everything they have worked for their entire life – their house, their land, their cars – all of their physical possessions. Consequently and because of the sheer overwhelming number of applicants, the recruiters tasked with matching candidates with job requisitions can afford to be extremely selective as applicants vie for the tantalizing financial carrot of economic prosperity dangling before them.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be no demarcation of applicants in terms of political affiliation. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, doves, and hawks alike are found in equal numbers working on LOGCAP, as the common bond shared among them all is their elusive quest for financial solvency, or at the very least, equilibrium.

“Back in the day”, if you had a pulse and a passport and were brazen enough, you had a relatively good chance of being hired – but this is not your fathers LOGCAP anymore. Now, you nearly need a Hollywood agent to promote you, and that is where the crucial importance of having a laser-focused resume designed to make one standout from the crowd comes in.

Of course Diggs is promoting his own self-interest by mentioning the resume, as part of what he does for a living is helping people write the type of resumes which LOGCAP recruiters look for when screening potential candidates.

Still, his basic point is correct; it is all about the money and the LOGCAP environment allows for all sorts of manifestly unqualified people to have management jobs they would never have in civilian life. Thus, maybe it is not a surprise that there are many scandals associated with LOGCAP. This, by the way, is not a slam on the average LOGCAP worker. I believe the vast majority do the best job they can in difficult conditions. But they unquestionably deserve better leadership than many of them get. (Click HERE for original article)

~David Isenberg Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq~

Posted in LOGCAP III - KBR, LOGCAP IV - KBR, LOGCAP-Dyncorp, LOGCAP-Fluor. Tags: Bruce Diggs, David Isenberg, DynCorp, Fluor, KBR, LOGCAP. 23 Comments »

The Pentagon takes a hard line on mandatory arbitration for crimes against contractor employees

May 24, 2010 — Ms Sparky

Defense implements sexual assault rule
By Robert Brodsky May 20, 2010

Companies that restrict victims of alleged sexual assault from pursuing legal action will not be eligible for future Defense Department contracts.

On Wednesday, the department published an interim rule in the Federal Register that implements a provision in the fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations Act prohibiting Pentagon contractors from using mandatory arbitration agreements to settle many criminal complaints. The rule is effective immediately.

The provision, introduced by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., stemmed from the experience of former KBR Inc. employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who was allegedly gang raped by co-workers while stationed in Iraq and then physically prevented from receiving medical treatment or reporting the crime.

Upon returning home, Jones learned that her contract with the company banned her from taking the case to court. Instead, it required her to enter into arbitration with the alleged rapists.

The new rule would prevent Defense from entering into new contracts — including task and delivery orders and contract modifications — with companies that use arbitration to settle claims of sexual assault or harassment, assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision or retention.

The law, however, does include a number of exceptions that were outlined in Wednesday’s notice. The provision does not apply to contracts valued at less than $1 million or for the acquisition of commercial items. It also includes a waiver for national security concerns.

The Defense secretary or deputy secretary would have to personally determine that the “waiver is necessary to avoid harm to national security interests of the United States, and that the term of the contract or subcontract is not longer than necessary to avoid such harm.”

Defense is accepting feedback on the rule through July 19. Comments can be submitted through Regulations.gov or by e-mail at dfars@osd.mil with DFARS Case 2010-D004 in the subject line. (Click HERE for original article)