Feral Jundi

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Industry Talk: Pentagon Contracting Policy Is Faulted By The CWC And Center For Public Integrity

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.

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Monday, August 30, 2010

Quotes: Michael Thibault On Karzai’s PSC Decree And It’s Threat To The US Mission

    At least someone with some sense is stating the obvious.  Of  course this decree is a threat to the mission and strategy in Afghanistan, and it is also a threat to President Obama’s plan and future election. He, along with his party in the US depend upon a strategy in Afghanistan that will help them politically in the near future.  The economy and war will be front and center for election season, and progress must be shown in Afghanistan for there to be any political capital to be won. That could be why you don’t hear too much about this issue in the media.

    Another thing that is interesting politically, is right now PSC’s or PMC’s are a hot potato issue.  Republicans don’t want to come to the aid of this industry either, just because the Democrats would bash them for it. I do not see support from any independent groups either, and probably for the same reason. Which is all pretty typical for this industry, but in reality, we have been vital for both Republicans and Democrats over the years.

    The way I see it right now, politically we are very important to whomever is in office. Our deaths in war do not mean the same as when troops die. Our usage allows politicians the ability to increase a security presence very quickly both at home or overseas, and without a draft or congressional mandate. All we require is financing, and you have an instant army for whatever you need done.

     We are the ones that will be protecting the diplomatic mission in Iraq and filling any of the security gaps that cannot be filled by the congressionally mandated troop presence there now. We are also important in Afghanistan, because yet again, we fill a security need that would otherwise be filled by troops that are already tasked with important combat missions. There are close to a quarter million contractors of all types in this war, with 1700 thousand plus contractors that have been killed, and yet we are all marginalized as if we don’t matter? The fact is, we do matter. But hey, that will be our own little secret I guess. lol –Matt

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Michael J. Thibault

Michael J. Thibault

Majority Co-Chair, Appointed by Senate Majority Leader Reid and Speaker of the House Pelosi

*****

Michael Thibault, the co-chair of the congressionally appointed Wartime Contracting Commission, which was brought together for the sole purpose of looking at how the U.S. can better manage its contracted workforce, sees a disconnect between what the Afghan government wants and what the U.S. government needs.

“If President Karzai sticks with this timeline, the U.S. mission and objectives will suffer,” Thibault says. “The U.S. military would have to take over those roles, and the mission we have laid out never allowed for this.”

Link to Quote here.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Industry Talk: Wartime Contractors Need More Federal Guidance

     Not the point, said Thibault. “There are two parties that sign the contract: the government, and they have an obligation to keep track of what they’re doing; and the company, and they have an obligation to perform the contract in the most efficient and effective manner. And that’s why I say there’s ample remedial work for both.” 

*****

   The government is being somewhat unfair and kind of stupid about this. I put all of the blame on the feds for any issues that arise with this drawdown.  We have had plenty of time to plan and modify contracts, and there are plenty of reports that spell out exactly what the government should do in order to manage this stuff–but they continue to not do it.

    If folks would get off their butts and see for themselves what the companies are doing, then the government–who are the ones ‘writing the check’, should exercise the right to call BS on anything that is in direct conflict with the contract.  But if there is nothing in the contract about the drawdown, nor has there been any renegotiations with the companies about that drawdown, well then of course companies are going to continue doing what they are doing. So with that quote up top, I think it is backwards. It is the government who should have an obligation to perform contract oversight in the most efficient and effective manner.  The companies are just working off that current contract, and it is on the government to enforce it or modify it if there are issues. Or is this where companies are supposed to be doing their own thing now?  Pfffft.

   My other point with this, is that the government should be very careful in how they go about doing this.  Contractors have families back home, and they also vote.  If you screw over a contractor who signed an agreement/contract with their company, because of your poor planning and managment, well then you have just lost one more constituent. Especially during a time of extreme unemployment back home.

   Everyone working in Iraq knows that things are winding down. But there is a right way to cut away people, and a wrong way.  The right way, is for the government to effectively and quickly communicate to the companies exactly what it wants as the situation develops–and modify the contract to deal with that reality. Communicate, communicate, and communicate!!! The government should have lots of folks out there, looking at the operations of all the companies and work, and continually assessing how things are going.  There should not be any surprises, and it just takes leadership and getting off your ass and doing it, to make sure it is properly managed.

    And in turn, the companies should be honest with their contractors when they get any kind of contract news, and give them sufficient warning when they are to be let go. We just need a heads up, so we know when to start looking for another job. That is the descent thing to do, but somehow I just don’t see it happening that way. –Matt

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Wartime contractors need more federal guidance

March 30, 2010

By Suzanne Kubota

While the military is “aggressively accomplishing its drawdown” in Iraq, industry “is lagging in their efforts” to do so, according to the Commission on Wartime Contracting.

“In fact,” Commission co-chair Michael Thibault told Federal News Radio, “there are come very noticeable examples that were brought out (in a hearing yesterday) where there are a lot of people sitting around waiting to work.”

The problem, said Thibault, involves a lot of finger pointing.

This is one of those deals that’s kind of like “Where’s Waldo?” The military would tell you that they’re communicating reasonably effectively and that the contractor has a responsibility, when they see very substantial numbers of staff idle, to notify them and that it’s not occuring. And the companies will… play the other side out, which is they just weren’t getting the guidance (from Defense) and the only way they can work… I mean if they’re over-staffed, that’s unfortunate, but if the only way they can react is to get guidance from their contracting officer and absent that they’re obligated to keep that staff there.

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