Ms Sparky

Neil Gordon – (POGO) – January 11, 2013 – Mark Thompson posted an interesting federal contracting-related tidbit Tuesday on TIME’s national security blog, Battleland. He looked at a list of recent Department of Defense contract awards and noticed that many of them had received only one bid.

Of the 35 contracts in the list that Thompson reviewed, 20 of them, worth a combined $257 million, either solicited or received just a single bid. On many of them, including contracts awarded to big players such as Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), General Dynamics, Raytheon, and BAE Systems , the government solicited only one bid. Federal agencies are required to award contracts on the basis of full and open competition but are permitted to award non-competitive contracts in certain situations. The U.S. Army awarded 19 of the 20 contracts, which makes us wonder if the Army is perhaps taking its old “Army of One” slogan a bit too literally when it comes to contracting.

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Many western multinational companies have been indicted for paying bribes to Nigerian government officials to secure contracts running into billions of dollars. One of the high profile cases involved former US vice president, Dick Cheney. He was head of the American oilfield services company, Halliburton when its engineering subsidiary, KBR, allegedly paid bribes totaling 180 million dollars to secure contracts worth six billion dollars. Nigerian authorities dropped corruption charges against him after Halliburton agreed to pay a 250 million dollar fine. But anti-corruption campaigners say the settlement is illegal. One of them has gone to court in an effort to make the former US vice president face trial. Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos. ~Free Speech Radio News – September 23, 2011

FOIA Friday: Was the Military the Victim of a War Profiteer Fuel Supplier?
NEIL GORDON – POGO – September 23, 2011 – Last March, the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) released an audit of contracts for the delivery of fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq. Only a summary of the report’s findings has been made available to the public. Yesterday, POGO received the full report (with redactions). DoDIG’s website still promises that the report will be made publicly available “at a later date.”

The DoDIG conducted the audit in response to concerns former House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) had about the competitiveness and prices paid under fuel supply contracts awarded to the International Oil Trading Company (IOTC). In October 2008, Waxman wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that IOTC “appears to have engaged in a reprehensible form of war profiteering” and may have overcharged the government as much as $180 million to deliver fuel to troops in Iraq.

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Mr. Bush is gone now, but that algorithm remains ruthlessly in place. War-oriented companies like DynCorp, Washington Group International, Aegis Defense Services, URS Corporation, BAE Systems, Renco, CACI, Bechtel, General Dynamics, General Electric, and Titan, along with oil giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron, have profited to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars off these conflicts, and are poised to continue doing so well into the future. ~ William Rivers Pitt, Truthout

Troops photograph every grave at Arlington cemetery
Kimberly Hefling – (AP) – Arlington –  August 27, 2011 – Night after night this summer, troops from the Army’s historic Old Guard have left their immaculately pressed dress blues, white gloves and shiny black boots at home to slip into Arlington National Cemetery in T-shirts and flip-flops to photograph each and every grave with an iPhone.

The sometimes eerie task to photograph more than 219,000 grave markers and the fronts of more than 43,000 sets of cremated remains in the columbarium is part of the Army’s effort to account for every grave and to update and digitize the cemetery’s maps. The Old Guard works at night to escape the heat and avoid interrupting funerals.

Last year, a scandal over mismanagement at the nation’s most hallowed burial ground revealed unmarked and mismarked graves. Congress then mandated that the cemetery account for the graves of the more than 330,000 people interred in the cemetery.

The troops taking the photos are from Delta Company of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard – the Army’s official ceremonial unit, which provides escorts to the president and helps put on military funerals.

The photos taken at night are matched with other records to find discrepancies that need to be fixed, and officials say it’s too early in the process to draw any conclusions. Military officials hope they can eventually use the photos to create an online database for the public. Four million people annually visit the cemetery. (Click HERE for article)

This Will Improve KBR’s Image
Mark Thompson – (Battleland Blogs) – August 26, 2011 – If KBR’s one-time management by the autobiographical Dick Cheney doesn’t buff the company’s reputation, this ought to do the trick: KBR is suing a woman who claimed that she was raped while working in Iraq for KBR in 2005. In the crazy world of torts and courts, Jamie Leigh Jones had sued KBR for $145 million, claiming the company let a hostile sexual climate exist in Iraq. Last month, a jury found the company not guilty of the charge.

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…according to newly available Defense Department data, is that more than half the Pentagon’s total budget obligations for contracting last year were spent without effective competition or with no competition at all. That comes to about $188 billion, according to numbers provided by the Pentagon.
-John Donnelly – Congressional Quarterly

Kuwait’s Agility to manage warehouse for U. S.  for 6-months more

DUBAI - (Reuters) – February 20, 2011 - Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility will continue to provide services to a U.S. defence agency until August 2011 after winning a six-month contract extension, with estimated revenues of $19 million.

In a statement to the bourse, Agility said the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) had extended its contract for six months, starting March 1, to provide warehouse management services to support operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

The DLA is part of the U. S. Department of Defence and provides logistics support to military services and to several civilian agencies and foreign countries, its website says. Agility has been embroiled in a long-standing legal dispute with the U.S. government after a criminal case was filed in November 2009 when prosecutors accused it, formerly Public Warehousing Co K.S.C., of overcharging. (Click HERE for article)

Government Controller Arrested for Embezzlement
WASHINGTON – /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – February 18, 2011 – Michael E. Hase, 62, was arrested in Dulles, Virginia yesterday by Federal agents of the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Hase was arrested on an embezzlement charge stemming from his work as a controller for USAID, announced Ike Hendershot, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations.  

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Ex-soldier Danny Fitzsimons awaits Iraq murder verdict
(BBC News) – January 23, 2011 – An Iraqi court has retired to consider a verdict in the case of a British security guard accused of murdering two colleagues in Baghdad.

Danny Fitzsimons, 30, from Rochdale, could face the death penalty if found guilty.

The ex-soldier admitted manslaughter with diminished responsibility, but pleaded not guilty to murder.

The trial has been adjourned until 20 February while judges consider Mr Fitzsimons’ psychiatric report.

One of his legal team, John Tipple, said the situation was “extremely concerning”.

“The court simply must take notice of the psychiatric state that Danny Fitzsimons is in,” said Mr Tipple, a case worker with solicitors Linn and Associates.

“It seems they are paying some attention to his condition. But the death penalty remains a very real possibility.” (Click HERE for article)

Former Marine’s fiancee says he was executed and demands justice
Fiona Young – Sunday Mail – January 23, 2011 – The fiancee of a former Royal Marine shot dead in Baghdad yesterday dismissed claims that his alleged killer was mentally ill. 

Nicci Prestage, 37, said Paul McGuigan, from Peebles, was “executed” in Baghdad and called on an Iraqi court not to be swayed by claims the man accused over his death was mentally ill. 

Private security contractor Danny Fitzsimons, 30, could face the death penalty if he is found guilty tomorrow of killing Paul and Australian Darren Hoare in August 2009. 

The trial has been adjourned several times for psychiatric reports. 

It was claimed Fitzsimons, a former member of the Parachute Regiment who served in Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan, was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before he went to Iraq on a private mercenary mission. 

However, Paul’s fiancee Nicci believes there is little evidence to support this diagnosis, but fears it could result in a reduced sentence or even an acquittal.  (Click HERE for article)

Search goes on for missing Americans in Iraq
KIM GAMEL – The Associated Press -BAGHDAD -  January 23, 2011 – The U.S. soldier was out of uniform when he sneaked off base on a motorcycle to visit his Iraqi wife in central Baghdad. The militiamen hiding nearby weren’t fooled. They were seen seizing him at gunpoint.

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