Our report is not an attack on contractors. In general, contractors have provided essential and effective support to U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the costs have been excessive, largely because of a shrunken federal acquisition workforce and a lack of effective planning to use contractors and the discipline of competition.
That is great that the CWC made this distinction, because it is very easy for the government to place blame on private industry (agent), and not blame the Pentagon (principal) for any of this. I should also note that in the second article below, the author correctly placed blame on President Obama for not following through with his campaign promises. Here is the quote:
President Obama weighed in on the problem both as a candidate in 2008 and in a presidential memo in 2009. The center also cited a memo promising efforts at greater use of “multisource, continuously competitively bid” contracts issued in 2010 by Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s senior procurement chief.
But “campaign pledges and memos have made little headway in combating the problem,” wrote analyst Sharon Weinberger, whose team studied a dozen government reports and investigations and interviewed eight former government officials and experts.
And this is the statistic that really stands out. This administration has had plenty of time and opportunity to make things right and follow through with promises, and they have not done this.
Meanwhile, the Center for Public Integrity’s research findings, which it will unfold daily this week in a series called “Windfalls of War,” include an analysis of federal data concluding that “the Pentagon’s competed contracts, based on dollar figures, fell to 55 percent in the first two quarters of 2011, a number lower than any point in the last 10 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.” The center noted that the issue of noncompetitive contracting practices has been examined many times by the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department’s inspector general, and the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
I can’t tell you how frustrating this has been to watch. The US government has so many reports and data points to draw conclusions from. We have been contracting for the last ten years and have numerous lessons learned to apply to our contracting machine. How many more reports or suggestions or critiques does it take?
Now one thing that I noticed in the first article that I wanted to point out, is this quote:
Projects that are or may be unsustainable are a serious problem. For instance, U.S. taxpayers spent $40 million on a prison that Iraq did not want and that was never finished. U.S. taxpayers poured $300 million into a Kabul power plant that requires funding and technical expertise beyond the Afghan government’s capabilities. Meanwhile, a federal official testified to the commission that an $11.4 billion program of facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces is “at risk” of unsustainability.
Unsustainable projects, equipment, or weapons systems are an area of conflict that just kills me. We threw so much money at these conflicts, and the war planners and strategists determine projects that must be built to support the war effort. These projects create jobs and they give the local population something to do, other than picking up a gun and joining the insurgency.
But what happened to commons sense in this planning? Why build a prison that Iraqis do not want? Why build a power plant that would require money and expertise that a country does not have? It’s like giving some kid without a drivers license and makes 500 dollars a year, a Porche, and expecting them to be able to pay for the insurance, gas and maintenance of the thing. Let alone thinking they have the skills necessary to drive that vehicle safely. It is just irresponsible, and that is the way we should be looking at war planning and how we help these countries.
I would also be interested to read how many of these types of wasteful or unsustainable projects were the contributors to this $30 billion dollar figure? Of course I will concede to the fact that there have been wasteful or fraudulent companies, but over all I still put the blame on those leaders that came up with this war planning and oversaw this contracting process.
Finally, here is the list of suggestions that the CWC put up as a teaser. This is an interesting list, but I do disagree with the inherently governmental portion.
Security Council meetings to ensure that the many agencies involved in contingency contracts or grants are properly resourced and coordinated;
-Making more rigorous use of risk analysis when deciding to use contractors, rather than assuming that any task not on a list of “inherently governmental function” is appropriate for contracting;
-Requiring that officials examine current and proposed projects for risk of unsustainability, and cancel or modify those that have no credible prospect of operating successfully; and
-Creating a permanent inspector general for contingency operations so that investigative personnel are ready to deploy at the outset of a contingency, and to monitor preparedness and training between contingencies.
To me, contractors are certainly capable of doing anything the military can do. To include offensive operations. I have brought up examples of this kind of offensive capability, both American and other. Companies like the AVG’s Flying Tigers, our early privateers, or companies like Executive Outcomes all showed the potential of privatized offensive operations. So private industry can do the job, and to me, the decision to use private industry for such a thing should be based on the national security of a country, and of the military leaders tasked with protecting a country, and not on some false idea that industry is not capable of such things. Private industry is a tool in the toolbox of national security, and the survival of a country is ‘inherent’. –Matt
Reducing waste in wartime contracts
By Christopher Shays and Michael Thibault,
August 28, 2011
At least one in every six dollars of U.S. spending for contracts and grants in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, or more than $30 billion, has been wasted. And at least that much could again turn into waste if the host governments are unable or unwilling to sustain U.S.-funded projects after our involvement ends.
Those sobering but conservative numbers are a key finding of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will submit its report to Congress on Wednesday. All eight commissioners agree that major changes in law and policy are needed to avoid confusion and waste in the next contingency, whether it involves armed struggle overseas or response to disasters at home.
Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted through poor planning, vague and shifting requirements, inadequate competition, substandard contract management and oversight, lax accountability, weak interagency coordination, and subpar performance or outright misconduct by some contractors and federal employees. Both government and contractors need to do better.
Our final report shows that the costs of contracting waste and fraud extend beyond the disservice to taxpayers. The costs include diminishing for U.S. military, diplomatic and development efforts; fostering corruption in host countries; and undermining U.S. standing and influence overseas.
The contractor workforce in Iraq and Afghanistan has at times exceeded 260,000 people and has sometimes outnumbered U.S. military forces in theater. The roughly 1-to-1 ratio sustained over the years reflects a basic operating truth that Defense Department officials expressed in testimony to the commission: The United States cannot conduct large or prolonged military operations without contractor support.
Defense doctrine has for more than 20 years held that contractors are part of the “total force” to be deployed in contingency operations. Nonetheless, the United States embarked on operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003 without adequate planning or contract-management personnel to handle the enormous scale and numbers of contracts. In that sense and in others, America is over-relying on contractors.
Poor planning, federal understaffing and over-reliance led to billions of dollars of contracts awarded without effective competition, legions of foreign subcontractors not subject to U.S. laws, private security guards performing tasks that can easily escalate into combat, unprosecuted instances of apparent fraud, and projects that are unlikely to be sustained by the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Projects that are or may be unsustainable are a serious problem. For instance, U.S. taxpayers spent $40 million on a prison that Iraq did not want and that was never finished. U.S. taxpayers poured $300 million into a Kabul power plant that requires funding and technical expertise beyond the Afghan government’s capabilities. Meanwhile, a federal official testified to the commission that an $11.4 billion program of facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces is “at risk” of unsustainability.
Many examples of poor planning, bad management, weak accountability, misconduct and the waste that results from them are detailed in our final report. But Congress asked us to do more than describe problems; it instructed us to recommend improvements.
Our final report includes 15 strategic recommendations to improve contingency contracting. They include:
?Designating a “dual-hatted” official to serve in the Office of Management and Budget and to participate in National Security Council meetings to ensure that the many agencies involved in contingency contracts or grants are properly resourced and coordinated;
?Making more rigorous use of risk analysis when deciding to use contractors, rather than assuming that any task not on a list of “inherently governmental function” is appropriate for contracting;
?Requiring that officials examine current and proposed projects for risk of unsustainability, and cancel or modify those that have no credible prospect of operating successfully; and
?Creating a permanent inspector general for contingency operations so that investigative personnel are ready to deploy at the outset of a contingency, and to monitor preparedness and training between contingencies.
These and 11 other recommendations are detailed in our final report, which will be available Wednesday at www.wartimecontracting.gov.
Our report is not an attack on contractors. In general, contractors have provided essential and effective support to U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the costs have been excessive, largely because of a shrunken federal acquisition workforce and a lack of effective planning to use contractors and the discipline of competition.
If Congress and the Obama administration adopt our recommendations, they will find large opportunities to save money in contingency operations and to produce more economical and effective outcomes in future hostilities and national emergencies.
Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut, and Michael Thibault, a former deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, co-chaired the bipartisan federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Story here.
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Pentagon Contracting Policy Faulted in Two Reports
By Charles S. Clark, Government Executive
August 30, 2011
Defense Department contractors in war zones wasted more than $30 billion during the past decade through poor planning and management, the chairs of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan said on Monday in an op-ed previewing a report due out this week.
During those same 10 years, the value of Pentagon contracts awarded without competitive bidding tripled, from $50 billion in 2001 to more than $140 billion in 2010, according to a report the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity released on Monday.
In a critique titled “Reducing Waste in War Contracts” published in The Washington Post, former Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Mark Thibault, former deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, wrote that all eight members of the wartime commission “agree that major changes in law and policy are needed to avoid confusion and waste in the next contingency, whether it involves armed struggle overseas or response to disasters at home.”
The panel chairmen said taxpayer dollars have been “wasted through poor planning, vague and shifting requirements, inadequate competition, substandard contract management and oversight, lax accountability, weak interagency coordination, and subpar performance or outright misconduct by some contractors and federal employees.”
As solutions, they recommended:
• Designating a dual-hatted official to coordinate contracting at the Office of Management and Budget who would participate in meetings of the National Security Council;
• Using risk analysis more in deciding whether a function not inherently governmental should be outsourced;
• Reviewing current and pending projects for evidence of unsustainability, with an eye toward canceling those that don’t appear promising;
• Creating a permanent inspector general for operations during contingencies.
Meanwhile, the Center for Public Integrity’s research findings, which it will unfold daily this week in a series called “Windfalls of War,” include an analysis of federal data concluding that “the Pentagon’s competed contracts, based on dollar figures, fell to 55 percent in the first two quarters of 2011, a number lower than any point in the last 10 years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.” The center noted that the issue of noncompetitive contracting practices has been examined many times by the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Department’s inspector general, and the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
President Obama weighed in on the problem both as a candidate in 2008 and in a presidential memo in 2009. The center also cited a memo promising efforts at greater use of “multisource, continuously competitively bid” contracts issued in 2010 by Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s senior procurement chief.
But “campaign pledges and memos have made little headway in combating the problem,” wrote analyst Sharon Weinberger, whose team studied a dozen government reports and investigations and interviewed eight former government officials and experts.
Coming installments in the series will examine no-bid contracting at the Energy, Homeland Security and State departments, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, all of which, the center says, have better records on the issue than does the Pentagon.
The final report of the wartime commission, chartered by Congress in 2008, is scheduled for release on Wednesday.
Story here.