Don't Turn Contracting Reform Over to the Generals!

The Associated Press wrote a story, posted this morning as one of the lead stories on Huffington Post, on the Army's efforts to appoint five new Army generals to overhaul and oversee the disastrous contracting problems, especially in Iraq. The OMB at the White House rejected the plan. While I am loathe to agree with this administration, with their utter lack of oversight in Iraq and wasteful scandals that are just beginning to emerge, it is a large mistake to expect anyone in the military's general officer corps to reform this ruinous contracting mess.

As I wrote last Friday for the Huffington Post and in my very first post for the Huffington Post last year, the Army generals have not been willing to stand up to the contractors in Iraq. In these two posts and in my recent book, I outline how KBR was able to threaten and blackmail the generals into paying their overinflated bills under threat that the company would not serve the troops.

Having investigated military procurement fraud for over 28 years, I have seen generals put in charge of weapon systems and other military procurement with bad outcomes. It is bad for the general officer corps because they need to concentrate on war, including what the troops need to fight and the best system to supply them. Putting them in procurement and encouraging them to defend procurement disasters, places them right in the middle of the politics of weapons buying, therefore corrupting their warrior status. If the generals are rated on getting their military weapons through the Congress and the administration, it makes them concentrate on the safe road and to hide all monetary and weapons failures on their watch We have plenty of government civilian bureaucrats to run the money side of the DOD. They are much easier to be called to task or fired over a procurement failure.

I have seen members of Congress over the years call top bureaucrats in all the departments to task for failures but when that top bureaucrat has a row of stars on his shoulders, the members of Congress usually grow timid and fear to put him on the spot because it is unseemly to beat up on a general. It is also harder to relieve or fire a general because the general officers often claim that they represent and speak for the troops.

I don't expect this administration to take the tough steps to even begin to unravel the largest military procurement mess of our lifetimes. The scandals are out there in holding patterns, some in whistleblower suits hung up in the Department of Justice. I believe that 2009 see a cascade of these scandals since many of these lawsuits will emerge and insiders in the DOD will be willing to speak up again. If the Army really wants reform, they need to promote hard nosed managers in their civilian corps who are tough with the contractors instead of coddling them and greatly expand and promote tough, junk yard dog auditors and investigators in the DOD. I know that they are there...they are letting me know their frustrations in confidence. But don't put the generals in those positions. Keep them as warriors, that is their job...don't compromise them with procurement politics.

Follow Dina Rasor on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dinalynnrasor

Comments

[Hoosier84]

The model works, we have the best supported, best supplied military operations in history in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are lots of things that could be improved in terms of oversight and accountability.

The remarkable and innovative Gansler Report articulated exactly what needs to be addressed, and having some serious 'brass' in charge makes a lot of sense in light of the seriousness of the need. Astonishing that Rasor of all people should object!

Best regards,

Doug Brooks
President, IPOA

[mengwise36]

Coming from the President of the Private Military Companies, I am sure the model works for you. But for-profit wars are not working for the rest of us.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

The above comment reads like what you'd expect from a public advocate watchdog, with a mildly alternate perspective.

For another perspective on Mr. Brooks and IPOA:

"Blackwater's Man in Washington
Washington Dispatch: Meet Doug Brooks, whose trade group represents the private military industry's biggest players. He makes hired guns sound like U.N. peacekeepers.
By Bruce Falconer
September 25, 2007"

""Ultimately, if you don't have an effective legal accountability system that's by a government agency, you lose a big chunk of your capability to control these companies." He went on, though, to say there's "too much bullshit" being written about the dangers of "rogue" contractors. "The reality is, you stop paying a company and it goes away; it doesn't take over the government.""

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/09/blackwater-contractors-doug-brooks.html

The problem is the reverse -- that these companies are paying the government, via sympathetic politicians and current generals/future consultants -- to, in a manner of speaking, take over the government, or at least its role in policing the mercs.

The model "works" if redressing billions in fraud is simply a matter of asking the wolves to guard the hen house more vigorously.

[SecretSquirrel666]

Sanctions against companies that cheat the government need to be enforced. If that happens, the companies will eventually learn that they are hurting their bottom line. A senior civilian could probably start to clean things up, or a good General could too. Not all Generals are warriors. Many have never seen anything more dangerous than a paper cut because of their promotion track.

[demfriend]

I think the generals a bad idea but what we have now is so bad we throw money at no bids and we give no one accountability. Bush and co have given more than they should have to friends and Haliburtin over time and we have to have a way to stop the flow out while we have not a lot of money going in. No one will ever know where the shadow project monies go but we have to bring accountability to make sure we do not have the pentagon being the only ones who knows where and how the money goes. They have not done us a good job up to now. A czar appointed would just be another crony now and no outside comapny will ever get close enough to know the reality behind too many projects not known outside of committees and administration officials.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Excellent post. Thanks.

Not sure that empowering low to mid-level fire-able civil servants is the key either. But I agree that performance of the fighting mission and performance of the procurement mission, let alone the contract fulfillment mission, are best served separately.

-- Civil Engineer, and financial manager for large scale public works programs

[hopeless277]

I thought that contract oversight had been contracted out to a KBR subsideary? I mean we let industries write their own regulations, why not have the contractors themselves determine if they have been honest?