Feral Jundi

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Military News: White House Confirms Medal of Honor

Filed under: Afghanistan,Military News — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 3:36 AM

   Good deal, and glad to hear this was approved.  I know there are more cases of heroism in this war, and the public needs to know about that. We need to recognize these individuals that gave the enemy hell, and in most cases, gave everything they got by paying the ultimate sacrifice.  Which makes me think, the military and the White House would be well served if they for once gave the Medal of Honor to a living hero, as opposed to just the dead.  Something to think about and rest in peace Sgt. Jared Monti. –Matt

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 Jared Monti

White House confirms Medal of Honor

By Gina Cavallaro

July 28, 2009

Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti, a fire support specialist who was killed June 21, 2006, in Afghanistan, will receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat.

The announcement was made by the White House in a news release Friday morning. The award will be presented to Monti’s parents in a Sept. 17 ceremony at the White House.

The soldier’s father, Paul Monti, told Army Times on Thursday that President Obama had called him Tuesday evening at his home in Raynham, Mass.

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Crime: 8 Killed in $7 Million Baghdad Bank Robbery

Filed under: Crime,Iraq — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 3:19 AM

     Scary stuff and this kind of thing is not cool for the war effort.  Rest in peace to the Iraqi security guards that were gunned down in this.

     Also, the use of suppressed weapons is interesting as well.  Obviously these guys were well equipped and somewhat trained to pull off something like this.  Could it be organized crime, or the insurgency, or a little bit of both?  Who knows, but what pisses me off now is that money will be used to fund future operations, and we will probably see more robberies like this one. Worse yet, this money could be used to fund operations against US troops and the Iraqi forces.-Matt

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8 killed in $7-million Baghdad bank robbery

Iraq police say the overnight robbery appeared to be a sophisticated operation. A recent spate of robberies has aroused suspicion that insurgents are financing their activities through crime.

By Liz Sly and Usama Redha

July 29, 2009

Reporting from Baghdad — Thieves killed eight security guards and made off with nearly $7 million in an overnight bank heist Tuesday that police officials say could have been the work of insurgents.

The deadly robbery came on the day U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates flew into Baghdad on an unannounced visit to get a first-hand look at conditions now that American combat troops have withdrawn from Iraq’s cities.

Gates said he thought the transfer of authority to the Iraqis had gone smoothly.

“I think it’s inevitable given the changes of circumstances that there would be the occasional problem,” he said at a news conference with Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim Mifarji.

“What I think is remarkable is that you have such a dramatic redeployment of American forces and a dramatic change of the rules of operation, and there have been so few problems along the way.”

Iraqi police said the thieves used guns equipped with silencers to kill three guards outside a branch of the state-owned Rafidain Bank in east Baghdad’s Karada neighborhood during the night. They then killed five guards who were sleeping inside the bank before making off with the cash.

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Monday, July 27, 2009

Industry Talk: Audit Finds Contractor Oversight Improving in Iraq

Filed under: Industry Talk,Iraq,Kaizen — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 11:18 PM

   Very cool. Now lets take these lessons learned on over to Afghanistan?  Better yet, let’s have a COR’s surge, seeing how we just love surges, and get some folks over there to monitor that effort so Afghanistan becomes a success story with contracting.  It can happen, but it takes real effort, and not a bunch of talk–so let’s get it done. –Matt

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Audit finds contractor oversight improving in Iraq

By LARA JAKES

July 28, 2009

WASHINGTON — The government has kept a closer eye on U.S. contractors in Iraq since a deadly 2007 shooting by Blackwater guards, but it still needs to do a better job tracking and investigating when private security guards fire their guns, two new Pentagon audits have found.

The reports were released Tuesday by the Pentagon’s special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. They looked at the oversight of at least 13 U.S. firms working for the Defense and State departments between May 2008 and February 2009.

In perhaps the most serious lapse of oversight, one of the audits concluded, contractor watchdogs did not properly report and track the May 2008 death of an Army Corps of Engineers employee who was caught in a gunfight between security guards and al-Qaida suspects near Bayji, in central Iraq.

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Leadership: Amid Reviews, DynCorp Bolsters Ethics Practices

Filed under: Industry Talk,Leadership — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 11:44 PM

     Glad to see DynCorp taking these steps and I hope they make good with their promise of ‘strengthening it’s ethics programs’.  But what DynCorp really needs to focus on, is insuring they hire the right folks into positions of management.  The quality of leadership out there is what will make or break your company out there.  Some ethics program manager posted in a nice comfortable office at headquarters will not be an effective tool for monitoring your management.

     It is a nice visual step, but the focus needs to be on the folks that will implement your ethics policies in the first place–the leaders.  And if your high paid managers suck, then get rid of them.  Matter of fact, get rid of the regional manager in charge of that guy as well, because obviously he didn’t care enough about company policy or doing things right to keep things in check. Remember the Sun Tzu and the 360 Concubines story I posted?  Well have the courage to do what is right, and get rid of your poor managers with authority.

    Send the message to your leadership that you demand excellence, and the rest will follow. You actually have to care about what is happening out in the field, dedicate the necessary resources to monitor what is going on out in the field, and correct things as quickly as possible.

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Afghanistan: Military Weighs Private Security on Front Lines

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 2:50 AM

   Walter and the rest of the media is a little late to this party, but we can deal with that.  Although it would be nice for the Washington Post to add a little balance to their articles about such things.  Like mentioning a crucial quote that Defense Secretary Gates gave in regards to security contractors.  Here it is, and I posted the story below this one as the source.

     “As recently as February, however, Gates called the use of private security contractors in certain parts of Afghanistan “vital” to supporting U.S. bases. A contract for the work also creates job opportunities for Afghans, he said.”

   Also, the article mentions the dangers of these forward operating bases in Afghanistan, as if that is a new thing or something totally unreasonable for a private security company to handle.  Guess what, we have been protecting bases for awhile now.(TWISS, etc.)  I think what this article was trying to get at is that somehow contractors would not be up to the task of actually doing the job they are contracted to do.  As if somehow Afghanistan is ‘too much for them to handle’.  Pffft.

   And then Michael O’Hanlon enters into the discussion with his thoughts on the matter.

“We don’t want to waste scarce Afghan army and police, so we must be creative,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution.

But O’Hanlon also said he is concerned that if contractors were to take over security at forward operating bases, they would be the first to see hostile fire, and they — not soldiers — would have to decide whether to employ weapons against an enemy.

Instead of hiring a private firm, O’Hanlon said, the Americans and Afghans could create a local version of Iraq’s Facilities Protection Service, the modestly trained but government-paid guard force that was pulled together to provide protection for government ministries in Baghdad and the oil fields. “We should create a different branch of the Afghan security forces that has minimal training,” he said.”

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