» LOGCAP IV – KBR Ms Sparky

That bird won’t fly and other news

Posted on: January 30th, 2012 at 4:25 am — by Forseti

Hold that Revolving Door! Four-Star General Coming Through
Dana Liebelson – (POGO) – January 28, 2012 – The revolving door that carried former Department of Defense honcho William Lynn III to a well-paying job with an Italian defense contractor keeps on spinning – now Gen. James Cartwright, who retired as the nation’s second-highest ranking military officer in August, is following Lynn into the private sector.

Cartwright is joining the Board of Directors at Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor. Earlier in the week, DRS Technologies named Lynn as its chief executive officer. (Coincidently, before Lynn was tapped as deputy defense secretary, he was a top lobbyist for Raytheon.)

“General Cartwright’s deep understanding of defense and broad experience in military operations and matters of national security will be of great value to our Board,” Raytheon Chairman and CEO William H. Swanson said in a press release.

Well, Cartwright certainly has a deep understanding of defense: He’s a four-star general with 40 years of service in the Marine Corps, including four years as the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But then there’s that sticky “great value to the Board” comment. And that’s where the problem with the well-oiled revolving door that leads from the Pentagon to the defense industry rears its ugly head. (Click HERE for article)

Former United Nations Employee Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison
(DoJ) – WASHINGTON - January 27, 2012 – Jeffery K. Armstrong, 52, of South Riding, Va., was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for obtaining more than $100,000 in salary payments by fraudulently holding concurrent jobs at the United Nations (U.N.) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He was ordered to serve a three-year term of supervised release following his sentence and to pay $128,153 in restitution.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Civilian Contractors, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, LOGCAP III - KBR, LOGCAP IV - KBR, Security Contractors, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Tags: Alpha Technology Group, Andrew Bigelow, Andrew J. Nusbaum, Charles R. Priestley, Department of Veterans Affairs, Dick Cheney, Dina Rasor, DoD Contractors, Donald Rumsfeld, DRS Technologies, EyakTek, Finmeccanica, Gen. James Cartwright, Giuseppe Orsi, Halliburton, Harold F. Babb, Hummingbird Aviation, Jeffery K. Armstrong, John Benson Wier III, Joshua R. Nusbaum, KBR, Kerry F. Khan, Lee A. Khan, Lee Allen Tolleson, LOGCAP, Mark S. Newman, Michael A. Alexander, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC, Pankesh Patel, Pentagon, Raytheon, Retired General's Club, Robert A. Riddell, Robert L. McKinney, Ryan International Airlines, United Nations, United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), Wayne E. Kepple, William J. Lynn III. No Comments »

David Isenberg: Gun? Check. Radio? Check. Lawyer? Check!

Posted on: January 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am — by Ms Sparky

David Isenberg – (Huffington Post) – January 20, 2012 – Some things just seem to go together: day and night, bread and butter, Romeo and Juliet, Abbott and Costello, Crosby and Hope, Batman and Robin, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Cheech and Chong, Sonny and Cher, Beavis and Butthead and sharks and suckerfish (remora) for example. In light of that last pair, another symbiotic pair is private military and security contractors and lawyers.

When historians try to calculate the various benefits that the past decade of privatized contingency operations has brought, one hopes they won’t forget to include the huge number of billable hours that various law firms representing various plaintiffs and defendants have amassed. Firms like KBR, Blackwater and DynCorp alone have doubtlessly enabled scores of lawyers to pay for their children’s education all the way up through doctorates.

For example, earlier this month the security company once known as Blackwater, now Academi, agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by six victims or their families in the Sept. 16, 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square, an incident that remains a lightning rod over the use of private contractors in war.

According to Charlotte, North Carolina law firm Lewis & Roberts, who represented the victims in this case, the lawsuit was the “last active civil suit stemming from the incident,” in which five Blackwater guards were accused in 14 deaths of civilians.

Also this month the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), announced that DynCorp International, a Falls Church, Va.-based private military contractor and aircraft maintenance company, will pay $155,000 and furnish other significant relief to settle a sex-based harassment and retaliation lawsuit.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Iraqi government detaining foreign civilian contractors with greater frequency

Posted on: December 28th, 2011 at 12:19 pm — by Ms Sparky

Photo credit: Handout | U.S. Army veteran Alex Antiohos was released after being detained in Iraq since Dec. 9, said Rep. Peter King.

Officially, the US war in Iraq is over. On December 18, 2011, the last of our US war fighters crossed the border into Kuwait and all that remains are approximately 150 U.S. troops attached to training and cooperation missions at the U.S. embassy located in what was once known as the International Zone/Green Zone in Baghdad.

Although the vast majority of civilian contractors have left Iraq, most were employed by KBR under the LOGCAP III contract, there are still 1000′s of Americans, and citizens from other countries still employed in Iraq by US government contractors such as Triple Canopy, Dyncorp International and KBR under its LOGCAP IV contract.

Since US troops began exiting Iraq earlier this year, there has been a disturbing trend regarding civilian contractors. It appears the Iraqi government has been arresting and detaining US contractor employees at will.

Recently three security contractors, US Army veteran Alex Antiohos of West Babylon, New York, National Guardsman Jonas March of Savannah, Georgia, and Mark Fisher of Fiji were released by Iraqi army forces Tuesday after being held since December 9. They were working for a security firm named Triple Canopy, when Iraqi Ministry of Defense officials rejected paperwork prepared on their behalf by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. Republican Rep. Peter King of New York and the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security has demanded a full report on the episode.

The New York congressman said he was concerned that U.S. military authorities had not been notified by the U.S. Embassy that the men were being held and that embassy representatives had not visited the men when he learned about it from Antiohos’ wife last week.

“We’re going to have thousands of contractors over there, including many Americans. Can the Iraqis just take them off the street and hold them? This is a terrible precedent. We have to get to the bottom of this,” says King. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP III - KBR, LOGCAP IV - KBR, Security Contractors. Tags: Academi, Alex Antiohos, Blackwater, Blackwater/Xe, Blackwater/Xe/Academi, House Committee on Homeland Security, Jonas March, LOGCAP III, LOGCAP IV, Mark Fisher, Rep. Peter King, Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA), Triple Canopy. 3 Comments »

KBR accused of retaliating against whistleblower George Price

Posted on: October 4th, 2011 at 6:04 am — by Ms Sparky

Glenna Herald | October 3, 2011

A Harris County resident is suing KBR, with an office in Memorial, over claims the company retaliated against him for reporting racial discrimination.

George Price filed a lawsuit on Sept. 23 in the Harris County District Court against KBR, Inc., with an office in Memorial, and Services Employees International, citing violations of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act.

Price says that in February 2009, he filed an internal complaint with his employer, KBR, detailing the racial slurs and racial comments he was forced to endure while working as a heavy truck driver for the Iraq Theater Transportation Mission.

Immediately after filing his complaint, Price alleges his supervisor retaliated against him, singling him out and scrutinizing his work. Within 12 days of the investigation, Price was placed on a corrective action and a path to termination, according to the brief.

The suit alleges KBR’s retaliatory acts forced him to leave his position in Iraq and return to his home in the States.

Price is seeking back pay and front pay, benefits, damages, attorney’s fees and court costs. He is being represented in the case by Houston attorney John Lloyd.

Harris County District Court Case No. 2011-57510. (click HERE for original article)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR, LOGCAP IV - KBR, Rape, Hazing, Discrimination & Harassment. Tags: George Price, KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR, Whistleblower. No Comments »

Fluor Drops Protest of $500 Million KBR Iraq Support Contract

Posted on: September 30th, 2011 at 10:02 am — by Forseti

Tony Capaccio – (Bloomberg) – September 30, 2011 – Fluor Corp. (FLR) has dropped a protest filed last month with the Government Accountability Office challenging a $500 million award to KBR Inc. (KBR) for a logistics support contract in Iraq, according to KBR and a government website.

Irving, Texas-based Fluor withdrew its protest Wednesday, according to the GAO’s website and KBR spokeswoman Gabriela Segura in an e-mail. Fluor spokesman Keith Stephens said the company had no comment.

The contract was on hold until the protest was resolved. The hold has been lifted, said Army Sustainment Command spokeswoman Linda Theis.

Houston, Texas-based KBR announced August 2 it will continue for the State Department its previous Iraq role providing base support after U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw in December.

KBR will support the State Department’s embassy staff, including utilities management, fire fighting, food services, laundry, shuttle bus services, fuel and postal operations.

The one-year contract includes a one-year option.

KBR has not received any similar contracts for Afghanistan. (Click HERE for original article)

Posted in Fluor, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP IV - KBR, LOGCAP-Fluor. Tags: Base Life Support, BLS, DOS*, Fluor*, GAO, General Accounting Office, Iraq, KBR, LOGCAP, LOGCAP IV, U.S. Dept. of State*. No Comments »

T. Christian Miller – Injured War Contractors Sue Over Health Care, Disability Payments

Posted on: September 27th, 2011 at 10:21 am — by Ms Sparky

T. Christian Miller – (ProPublica) – September 27, 2011 – Private contractors injured while working for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan filed a class action lawsuit [1] in federal court on Monday, claiming that corporations and insurance companies had unfairly denied them medical treatment and disability payments.

The suit, filed in district court in Washington, D.C., claims that private contracting firms and their insurers routinely lied, cheated and threatened injured workers, while ignoring a federal law requiring compensation for such employees. Attorneys for the workers are seeking $2 billion in damages.

The suit is largely based on the Defense Base Act, an obscure law that creates a workers-compensation system for federal contract employees working overseas. Financed by taxpayers, the system was rarely used until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most privatized conflicts in American history.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians working for federal contractors have been deployed to war zones to deliver mail, cook meals and act as security guards for U.S. soldiers and diplomats. As of June 2011, more than 53,000 civilians have filed claims for injuries in the war zones. Almost 2,500 contract employees have been killed, according to figures [2] kept by the Department of Labor, which oversees the system.

An investigation by ProPublica, the Los Angeles Times and ABC’s 20/20 [3] into the Defense Base Act system found major flaws, including private contractors left without medical care and lax federal oversight. Some Afghan, Iraqi and other foreign workers for U.S. companies were provided with no care at all.

The lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind, charges that major insurance corporations such as AIG and large federal contractors such as Houston-based KBR deliberately flouted the law, thereby defrauding taxpayers and boosting their profits. In interviews and at congressional hearings, AIG and KBR have denied such allegations and said they fully complied with the law. They blamed problems in the delivery of care and benefits on the chaos of the war zones. (Click HERE for original article) (Click HERE for complaint PDF)

Windfalls of war: KBR, the government’s concierge

Posted on: August 30th, 2011 at 5:47 am — by Ms Sparky

KBR’s umbrella contract to provide everything from showers to rebuilding airfields tops $37 billion. “It’s like a gigantic monopoly,” says one critic.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talks with troops in Iraq. KBR has been paid $37 billion to build infrastructure like this dining hall. Jim Watson/AP

After a decade of war, KBR’s umbrella contract tops $37 billion

Sharon Weinberger – (The Center for Public Integrity – iWatch News) – August 30, 2011 – The rush to war in the months following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 created an urgency in the Pentagon, not just for military operations but also for contracting.

When U.S. forces moved into Afghanistan in 2001, there was little, if any, infrastructure to support and house U.S. troops. The military needed someone to do everything from housing troops to rebuilding airfields. The solution was a contract called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, a type of umbrella contract the Army had been using to support is military bases overseas. In late 2001, the Army, after a competition, awarded LOGCAP III to KBR. The Houston-based firm [3], once a subsidiary of Halliburton, began providing everything from showers to dining halls.

Even beyond single-source contracts, the Pentagon has other types of contracts it can use to quickly award work without having to compete specific jobs. They include umbrella-type contracts, like LOGCAP, that allow the government to buy unspecified goods and services over long periods of time. “It’s the government’s way of saying ‘We don’t know what we want, and we don’t know how much it costs,’” said Laura Peterson, a senior policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. “Instead they say, ‘we’ll put you on retainer and tell you later what we want and when we want it, and you just bill us.’ You become the government’s concierge, and it’s like a gigantic monopoly.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)