“Contracting is a necessity,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be an evil necessity.”-Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, former Missouri state auditor and contractor watchdog
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Ok, here is number three folks. A veritable trifecta of shockingly pro contractor statements!! (lightning will soon strike my laptop and burn my fingers–ahhhhhhh)
To hear Senator Claire McCaskill say that little gem up top, is like hearing that Code Pink was sub-contracted by Triple Canopy for convoy operations in Afghanistan. lol It is refreshing to hear that folks are starting to finally figure out why this industry matters.
Now to be somewhat critical of the article. The historical context of contractors needs to go back further, if in fact the author is going to even bring up history in this article. Contractors have had way more of an impact on this Nation’s history, than just today’s wars or our contributions in the Balkans conflict. I have continued to bring up that history time and time again, all with the point of providing that context in today’s discussion about this industry. It is wrong not to include that context, and it shows a certain degree of either naivety, laziness or worse yet, journalistic bias.
That’s ok, because us New Media warriors will certainly fill that void. –Matt
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New rules due on defense outsources
By: Jen DiMascioOctober 26, 2009 04:54 AM EST
In an Oct. 3, 2007, speech in Iowa City, Iowa, several weeks after Blackwater security guards allegedly shot 17 civilians in an incident in Baghdad, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama made it clear what he thought of the use of contractors to perform essential jobs in Iraq: “We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors.”This week the White House Office of Management and Budget is expected to release a new round of guidelines for contracting that may shed light on when the Pentagon thinks it’s appropriate to go outside the government for contractors and what sort of work the government considers “inherently governmental.”But none of the new OMB guidelines are likely to change the fact that contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much of a fact of life for the Obama administration as they were under President George W. Bush.During the campaign, Obama pledged to reduce the number of battlefield contractors in Iraq — which two years ago numbered 160,000 — and he’s on the way toward meeting that goal. In Iraq, the number of contractors is down to nearly 120,000, but that’s been offset by an increase in the number of contractors in Afghanistan as the war effort grows there. As of June, the last time figures were released, 243,735 contractors were serving across the U.S. military zone known as Central Command. That number includes the hiring of thousands more of the often-scrutinized private security contractors for Iraq, where they are helping as the military draws down its presence and in Afghanistan, as more troops enter the country there.As campaign rhetoric met the day-to-day realities of waging two wars, the new message from the Obama administration has become: Contractors assisting in the fight are probably here to stay.The focus has been on increasing oversight. Back in March, the president directed OMB to come up with guidance on some of the top problems facing government contracting — including oversight of contractors and guidance on when to look for help in the private sector. In July, the administration released interim guidance with the goal of bringing in $40 billion in savings on contracting reform. “We all knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight,” said Tom Gavin, an OMB spokesman. “I think we’re going to see more as these changes get put in place.”The rest could come this week. Jeffrey Zients, OMB’s deputy director for management, will testify at a relatively new subcommittee on contracting oversight led by Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, a former Missouri state auditor and contractor watchdog.The trend toward using battlefield contractors predates even the Bush administration.Contractors made up half of the U.S. deployed force during the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s — about the same proportion of contractors as during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service.Security contractors make up only about 8 percent of the contracting force. The rest provide a range of services — starting with the multibillion-dollar logistics support contracts won early in the wars by Kellogg, Brown and Root.The latest iteration of those contracts is divided among DynCorp and Fluor. But thousands of other contractors are doing maintenance, transportation and translation work overseas on contracts in the millions of dollars — an amount so small for the Pentagon, which deals in the billions, that it often escapes the notice of top officials.
These days, even McCaskill, who worried earlier this year that the military would wind up with more contractors than troops in Iraq, acknowledges that contractors are an unfortunate reality of today’s wars. Contractors, she said, do the work of draftees like her father, who “peeled potatoes in World War II.”Today’s all-volunteer military receives superior training, lifelong health benefits and pensions. In the cost-benefit analysis, spending all those resources on soldiers’ cooking in the mess hall would be wasteful, she said. “Contracting is a necessity,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be an evil necessity.”Contracting debacles in Iraq are helping watchdogs like McCaskill ask better questions about contracting in Afghanistan, she said. Organizations like her subcommittee on contracting oversight, special inspector generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, a House panel on acquisition reform and the Commission on Wartime Contracting that she helped establish with Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), a fellow member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, keep the pressure on.She sees the fix to ongoing problems with defense contracting as instilling a culture of oversight within the military, which it hasn’t had. Typically, the military is focused on its mission — not contracting oversight. “That’s got to be a part of the mix,” she said. “The question is, will it happen quickly enough?”Another issue, McCaskill said, has to do with the short attention span of lawmakers. Contracting, she said, “gets lots of attention when there’s a scandal,” and then everyone moves on.McCaskill added that systemic problems such as those at the Defense Contracting Audit Agency and the Defense Department remain “pernicious and widespread.”The State Department has struggled to come to terms with contractors as well, with the Commission on Wartime Contracting recently issuing a statement urging the department to allow contracts to be let on a best-value basis — rather than lowest price.But despite the 2007 incident in Baghdad, in which 17 civilians were allegedly killed by guards from Blackwater, the State Department continues to use its successor company Xe for aerial transport — and may through January of next year, until DynCorp can get its helicopter fleet up to capacity, according to a department spokeswoman.In September, allegations about misconduct by ArmorGroup employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul led to firings, but the company is still working there, and recently the Navy renewed a contract for the company in Bahrain after investigating the team’s conduct there. The inspector general of the Diplomatic Security Service is looking at the ArmorGroup allegations, according to Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, during a recent hearing by the Commission on Wartime Contracting.But getting rid of problem contractors isn’t that simple. Without evidence of deliberate fraud or working through the process of legally “debarring” a contractor, canceling a contract is difficult, said Doug Brooks, the head of the International Peace Operations Association, an organization representing many private security contractors.“You can’t just pull the rug out from under a company,” Brooks said.“There’s a bit of hostility toward contractors because of the awful things published in the press lately,” he said, referring primarily to allegations of misconduct by ArmorGroup contractors at the Kabul embassy.Still, administration officials are waking up to the fact that contractors can’t go away, as they realize “you’re doubling the bill if you go in house,” he said.Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president of the Professional Services Council, added that most companies do a good job of contracting, but even with that, more horror stories are likely to surface.“There are expectations of perfect performance, and that’s not an environment where you can expect perfect performance,” Chvotkin said.
Story here.