Feral Jundi

   It’s nice to hear that she is pleased with the job of the folks in Afghanistan.  No word though on if the 600 positions for monitoring contracts have been filled yet, and I am speculating that it has not happened because of the problems going on in Iraq.  Fill the positions, and then get back to us about how well the accounting is going in Afghanistan or Iraq.  Until then, you guys have no one to blame but yourselves if companies are not doing what you want them to do. –Matt

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Contractors under control in Afghanistan, senator says

But Iraq has a way to go to tame its wild west image

By Matthew Weigelt

Feb 16, 2010

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said today U.S. military forces based in Afghanistan are doing a much better job of tracking contracts and purchases than they did in Iraq.

Military officers and officials from other agencies are coming together regularly to look at their auditing work, McCaskill said. Members of what are considered auditing committees are checking their audits to make sure they were done correctly. The committees are hunting for gaps in auditing oversight, but also avoiding the duplication of each other’s work, she said in a conference call from New Delhi, India.

In Iraq, however, contracting oversight has been essentially nonexistent, McCaskill added.

“It was the wild west,” McCaskill said about what she found on a trip to Iraq in 2007. She said she was unsure military officers realized they had a problem with overseeing their contracts.

Today though, the military has improved slightly regarding audits and contracting oversight, according to McCaskill. The military has structures in place and they are now making an effort to track what they buy and keep account of that equipment, she said.

“I don’t think they’ve got a handle on it, but I think they’re working to get a handle on it,” said McCaskill, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Contracting Oversight Subcommittee.

Story here.

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December 3, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following President Barack Obama’s recent announcement of a change in strategy for the war in Afghanistan, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill continued her efforts to track contracts and spending related to the U.S. wars abroad. McCaskill questioned Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen on plans to improve contracting and spending accountability in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.McCaskill acknowledged that progress had been made in improving contracting accountability, citing the fact that when she first arrived in the Senate limited data on contracts related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was not available, but as of June 2009 we were able to know that 75,000 contractors, including 5,200 private security contractors¸ were in Afghanistan and were being tracked in a joint database.Using the information from the database, McCaskill asked if it was intentional that as many as 50,000 general contractors and 5,000 private security contractors were Afghans. Clinton responded that it was somewhat intentional as a means of sending a message to the Afghan people and that, in some cases, it was necessary for the mission. Mullen echoed Clinton by saying that hiring Afghans also helped provide stability to local economies as well.McCaskill also used an example of an evolving contracting situation in Iraq where opportunities for waste exist to follow up from testimony offered in June that suggested 600 positions were vacant for monitoring contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCaskill asked the panel if the military had since filled all necessary monitoring positions in order to track such contracts.Gates admitted he did not know and pledged to ensure McCaskill would receive an answer, but reaffirmed that adequately monitoring ongoing contracts was of the utmost importance to the Department of Defense.Gates said, “As is often the case with these things, you’re probably better informed than we are, but what I will tell you is, I can almost certainly tell you we do not have as many contract monitors in Afghanistan as we want.”

Link to website here.