Getting the Iraq Contractors Under Control: Hearing tomorrow and day of reckoning for the DOD, State and USAID

Tomorrow we will find out how serious the reform bent Democratic Senators are in getting control of Iraq contractors. Tomorrow at 2:30 pm EST (you can live stream it here) the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (who names these committees?), chaired by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) will hold a hearing to see if they can pressure the DOD, State and USAID into getting control of the contractors. Full disclosure ... I will be testifying at the committee.

Freshman Democratic Senators, (Obama, McCaskill (who just endorsed Obama in his commercial), Webb, etc.) along with Senate government affairs subcommittee chair Tom Carper (who went to Iraq with McCaskill just to look at the contracting problem) have passed an impressive group of reforms. (As soon as the vetoed, but now fixed National Defense Authorization passes, these reforms will be signed into law.)

These reforms could, if enacted with good oversight could actually make a difference. Their crowning achievement was to establish a Wartime Contracting Commission, based on the old 1940s Truman Committee with the idea of investigating the Iraq contracting mess while the war is still going on, refer cases to DOJ, and fix the problems that the rush to war created. It will go for two years and the SIGIR (Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) Bowen will be tasked to do the investigations for this Commission. Bowen will be testifying at the hearing.

I will be talking about what we found in the course of writing our book, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War. First is that we have put contractors onto the battlefield and hostile area and tasking them with basic vital logistics. Our book is full of examples of how the contractor decided it was too dangerous to do some of the work and troops did not have vital supplies and services outside the large bases. I will also talk about contractor threatened work stoppages in hostile areas because the bills were slow to be paid, and how contractor employees, who are doing the logistics that troops used to do, can just quit and go home, thus threatening the mission. Robert Bauman, my co-author and former DOD investigator, talk about the lack of oversight and the huge drain of money virtually unchecked to the contractors.

First SGT Perry Jefferies, one of the soldiers prominently featured in our book, will be testifying. He was responsible for the logistics of 1,800+ men at the beginning of the war. His story of lack of even the most basic supplies because of contractor failure and unwillingness to go beyond the bases is stark and frustrating. His men were reduced to rationing water and food because the contractor would not go to their remote base. They were so isolated that even took several months for Perry to find out that Bush landed on the aircraft carrier in the now infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo op.

The Center for Public Integrity recently put out a report with astounding facts. "U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan have grown more than 50 percent annually, from $11 billion in 2004 to almost $17 billion in 2005 and more than $25 billion in 2006."

The Iraq mission, reconstruction, and troop levels have not increased by that percent so why are the contracts growing so fast? The contractor costs are out of control and will keep rising at this rate if nothing is done. This war, in constant dollars, will be the second most expensive war in history, even if we get out in the next two years. Can you believe that it will be more expensive than Vietnam, which lasted much longer and with many more troops?

The hearing will be asking the questions of what to do next. These Freshman Democrats and Carper got the legislation passed but now they have to get the bureaucracy to implement it. I am hoping that Carper and the Freshmen are determined to do the oversight so that these laws just aren't happy talk. They are calling up the oversight people, (SIGIR, GAO) on the panel with me and the second panel will have the DOD, State and USAID administrative people to ask what they plan to do about it.

So in this time where the economy is crashing, bailouts are on the way and there is no seeming end to our commitment in Iraq, these new reformers may have a chance in getting control of some of the money that is flowing to Iraq. There has been much made of Blackwater because of the potential crimes but their contract is only been about a billion dollars. The KBR logistics contract is estimated to have grown to $26 billion.

These hearings may be the beginning of Carper and the Freshman Democratic reformers to show that they can follow up and actually do something beyond the horror stories.

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

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

The Penta$cam all but has a permanent tap into your wallet, well, stands to reason I guess, seeing as how you've got oilmen in office who've spent their careers trying to drill sideways into other people's oilfields, well
money's kind of like oil, it has weight, they speak of liquidity, it's an asset, people speculate about its' value, pay dirt, so forth and so on, the PetroConMe's very underpinnings have to do with people like Rockefeller, Old J.D. and his dimes, there, yes indeedy the way the world is today has indirectly to do with the past, American Standard Oil and so forth,
oh, and there's other people and companies involved, but with oil companies and defense companies the direct recipient of a diesel-fired administrations' largesse, well, that's people REALLY voting money for themselves, did everyone catch that tax move with the oil tankers offshore?

We're owned. It's that straightforward. Or, maybe not. The oil moguls can run the tables for now, but the science is coming that'll put a hurt on em...becau­se if you've got cars that don't need gasoline, homes that don't need heating oil, and people that choose paper over plastic, well, next thing you know you've got A Problem trying to sell your next tanker-ful. Then, all your card buddies quit calling.
Next thing you know, the economy starts leveling out, foreign countries stop trying to influence our domestic policy, and the United States is largely no longer for sale, as it has been for oh, the last 30 years. How's that for 'free trade'? Energy independen­ce=politic­al independence= the end of THIS saga...

[cynara]

"The KBR logistics contract is estimated to have grown to $26 billion." God, thats shamefully close to the cost of the SCHIP expansion that the Republicans keep shooting down...

[raptor]

They could start with CSI Aviation Services in New Mexico.

[Hoosier84]

Folks interested in the topic might want to read the recent Gansler Commission report on contracting. That report has actually done an remarkable job of highlighting some of the key issues related to contingency contractors - especially in regards to improving oversight and accountability. These are issues that IPOA members have been advocating for a long time as well - good oversight is good for good companies.

Nevertheless, we should not lose sight that U.S. operations in Iraq have been the best supported, best supplied military operations in history. And the current LOGCAP III contract under KBR has an amazingly thin 1% profit margin (with a potential 2% bonus). It been an astounding deal for the U.S. taxpayer that has hugely benefited the soldiers in the field. The Pentagon has often pointed out they could not do support of this level at *any* price, and the military folks that I talk to daily widely agree the contractor capabilities and performance has been unprecedented (many like to boast of how many months they survived on army supplied MREs during the First Gulf War!).

Lots of questions can be raised about the conduct of the conflict and the political issues around U.S. operations. Nor does a well-supported military necessarily ensure political success. Nevertheless, we should be careful we do not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' as we find ways to further improve the contracting process. The LOGCAP concept is already being emulated by both the UK and Canada, and other European militaries are looking at doing the same themselves.

Folks interested in an alternative view to Ms. Rasor’s are welcome to visit the IPOAonline web site where we address many of these issues of finding ways to improve oversight and accountability. Not just for Iraq, but for the UN and African Union operations in Haiti, Darfur and other places where our member companies also serve.

Regards,

Doug Brooks
President, IPOA

[Sundialsvc4]

I want a full disclosure of every dollar that any contractor paid to anyone in Washington, DC.

I want a full disclosure of any business dealing, any consultancy relationship, any board membership or any financial transaction over $1,000 made between any contractor and any company with whom any lawmaker or other public official is associated.

I then want Articles of Impeachment filed against every single one.

Congress will have to figure out how it intends to deal with thirty or forty Impeachment proceedings all happening at the same time.

[hopeless277]

Hearings, how funny.

[hopeless277]

Hearings, how funny!