I am watching this right now, and it is fascinating. They talk about ‘Snack Pack’ (dressing like Afghans and going outside the wire to do a recon) and the hazing stuff. Lots of interesting little tidbits being covered in this deal.
The overall impression that I get, is that this hearing is bashing the crap out of State for not doing anything about this stuff when it was brought up, time and time again over the years. This contract has been a joke for awhile, and State could care less about squaring it away. –Matt
Edit:
The most profound thing in this whole deal was Samuel Brinkley alluding to the idea that the Snack Pack was condoned by the State Department. (Snack Pack was the group that did the recon outside the wire–big no, no, and definitely not in the contract)
I will applaud him for the apologies to the industry, and that is the least he could do. Although I am not too convinced that he is the right guy for that VP job with Wackenhut. He didn’t even know what a Gurkha was, and he actually thought that all of his Nepalese guards on the contract at the Embassy were Gurkhas. LOL
Oh, and the AGNA supervisor that put together that Rat Poster (friends do not rat on friends…..), is an idiot. You know who you are, and guys like you do not deserve to be in management or even in this industry. –Matt
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Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq
9:30am to 3:00pm EST
Product ID: 7662-1
Format: Public Hearing
Last Airing: 09/14/2009
Event Date: 09/14/2009
Length:
Location: Washington, DC, United States
Summary Organizer Airings People Tags
Witnesses testified on the U.S. State Department’s selection,
management, and oversight of security and other contractors.
Panel 1:
* Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary of State for Management,
probably with two DAS as subject-matter experts.
Panel 2:
* Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government
Oversight. * Terry Pearson, former Operations Supervisor in
Kabul, Afghanistan, for RA International.
Panel 3:
* Doug Brooks, President of the International Peace Operations
Association. * William Ballhaus, President and CEO of DynCorp
International. * Samuel Brinkley, Vice President, Homeland
Security and International Security Services, Wackenhut Services,
Inc. (parent company of ArmorGroup North America).
Watch the Show Live here.