Af/Pak Stabilization Strategery: The Missing Number

The Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan released its Af/Pak Regional Stabilization Strategy (January 2010) last week.  Briefly -- nearly 1,000 personnel on the ground by early 2010 and some 20-30% additional staffing after that.  I’ve dug up an OIG report from last year that talks about staff expansion of protective service in Afghanistan.  If the OIG number actually means 14 FSOs to each of the new consulates in Mazar and Herat plus 67 protective service personnel in each location – that amounts to almost 5 security contract personnel for every direct hire employee.  And we’re not even talking yet about the additional protective service and life support requirements for the 1,000+ surge personnel.

The $400 million indicated below as resource requirement is probably nowhere closed to the actual amount when personal protective service and life support services are taken into account.  Since we unavoidably are going to “surge” the contractors into Afghanistan – shouldn't we have those numbers?  Just because we can’t see them, doesn’t mean we’re not paying for them. 

By the way, you must see this numbers from Sam Stein about how the Top Defense Contractors Spent $27 Million Lobbying At Time Of Afghan Surge Announcement. Ugh!

Excerpt from Af/Pak Stabilization Strategy: PDF | HTML

Hundreds of civilian experts have answered that call to service, and we are now in the midst of the most significant deployment of U.S. civilian expertise to a war zone in decades. The increase, coordinated by the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew, includes some of the top experts from 10 different U.S. government departments and agencies. Many have previous experience in Afghanistan or other conflict environments. U.S. civilian experts contribute to the mission in field, especially in the East and South where a majority of U.S. combat forces are operating and many of the additional 30,000 forces announced by President Obama will deploy. They partner with Afghans to enhance the capacity of national and sub-national government institutions, and to help rehabilitate Afghanistan’s key economic sectors. When their tours are complete, permanent civilian experts are encouraged to continue service on Afghanistan or Pakistan, in Washington or abroad, as well as to help in training their successors. Our goal is to create a cadre of civilian expertise on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Enhanced Civilian Presence: The vast majority of civilian experts deploy to Afghanistan for a minimum of one year. Under the first phase of this uplift, the civilian footprint in Afghanistan will triple from roughly 300 personnel on the ground in January 2009 to nearly 1,000 on the ground by early 2010. We anticipate further increasing our civilian staffing in 2010 by another 20 to 30 percent, concentrating experts in the field and at key ministries that deliver vital services to the Afghan people. Each U.S. civilian hires or works with an average of 10 Afghans and other implementing partner personnel. Additionally, civilians act as force multipliers for military personnel, helping build relationships with local community leaders and coordinate military civil affairs projects with civilian programs. Civilian personnel will remain deployed in significant numbers even after the security situation improves and our combat troops come home.

Expanded Presence in Ministries and Outside of Kabul: Responding to the Afghan government’s request for targeted technical assistance, we are placing more than 50 additional civilian advisors in core Afghan ministries. Outside of Kabul, we are deploying several hundred additional personnel to more than 50 locations. In addition to staffing PRTs, civilians are living and working alongside forward deployed military units in District Support Teams (DSTs). Civilians will also extend our permanent diplomatic presence outside of Kabul by staffing new consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, which will serve as assistance platforms for the North and West and also symbolize our long-term, increasingly normal relationship with Afghanistan.

Resource Requirements

Resources available to meet requirements from FY 2010 and prior year appropriations: approximately $400 million.           

* * *

A publicly released OIG audit of USTC/Blackwater/Xe’s performance in Afghanistan in 2009 includes this item:

"The Department has decided to open consulates in the north of Afghanistan at Mazar-e-Sharif and in the west at Herat. According to Department cable 027341 of March 29, 2009, 14 Foreign Service Officers will be deployed to these locations in 2009. USTC has submitted a proposal to add 67 personnel to each location. The RSO in Kabul has reported that the security threat in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat is considerably lower security than in Kabul."



This IG report was prepared last year; before rockets were fired on the new consulate site in western Afghanistan.  

Related Items:

-01/21/10 Af/Pak Regional Stabilization Strategy (January 2010) HTLM

-08/31/09   Performance Audit of the U.S. Training Center Contract for Personal Protective Services in Afghanistan (MERO-A-09-08) Aug 09

Snapshot: USTC/Blackwater/Xe in Afghanistan

2,730 missions | 0 casualties | 0 incidents with deadly force

This is the personal security contractor that everybody loves to hate. State’s Inspector General’s Office conducted a performance audit of the U.S. Training Center (a Xe company) contract in Afghanistan last year and had some good things to say:     

“In 2008, USTC conducted 2,730 personal protection missions in support of staff from the Department of State, including the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, USAID, and various Congressional delegations (see Table). In 2008, 257 (9.4 percent) of the missions were performed for USAID. During the entire time USTC has operated in Afghanistan, no one under USTC’s protection has been injured or killed, and there have been no incidents involving the use of deadly force. OIG observed personal protection missions and interviewed various representatives from the Department of State and USAID who regularly use USTC’s personal protective services. The representatives reported that USTC employees are professional, make them feel secure, and are respectful to both officials under chief of mission authority and their Afghan counterparts.”

Staff composition as of April 8, 2009

USTC staff consists of a project manager, personal security specialists, administrative and support employees, and interpreters, as well as local guards who are third-country nationals. As of April 2009, there was one project manager, 75 personal security specialists, 18 administrative and support personnel, 20 local guard force personnel, and five interpreters (94 Americans, 20 Columbians, and five Afghan interpreters).

On the need for a dedicated Contracting Officer’s Representative to Embassy Kabul to provide proper oversight of contractor activities, the OIG reports:

Despite its overall satisfactory contract management, DS could improve its performance in two areas, both of which have been mentioned in previous OIG reports. First, two Assistant Regional Security Officers at Embassy Kabul are currently acting as Contracting Officer’s Representatives (COR). These officers’ many other duties may prevent them from providing adequate oversight of the USTC contract, particularly as personal protective service needs increase in Afghanistan. Second, the current acting CORs do not review or verify the personnel rosters (muster sheets) before they are sent to USTC and then DS in Washington, DC.

The OIG report concludes that “USTC personal protective services have been effective in ensuring the safety of chief of mission personnel in Afghanistan’s volatile security environment. Additionally, OIG found USTC has effective control over government-furnished equipment. Nevertheless, OIG has identified several areas in which contractor performance could be improved.”  The audit provides a 6-item recommendation. You can read it here.

Actually not just OIG.  Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann, our former Ambassador to Afghanistan (2005-2007)  last December also had this to say at a congressional hearing:  "I would like to pay special tribute to the brave and hard working personnel, RSOs and ARSOs, who have protected me and my missions in dangerous times. I would also like to acknowledge my respect for the men of DynCorp and Blackwater who ran my personal protection details in Iraq and Afghanistan. They performed with courage, judgment and restraint and one lost his leg in the process. Whatever opprobrium now attaches to others I owe all those gallant men—State Department and contractor employees--my gratitude and I am glad to have a public forum in which to express it."

Related Item:

OIG Report No. MERO-A-09-08, Performance Audit of the USTC Contract for Personal Protective Services in Afghanistan - Aug. 2009 | PDF

What drove prosecutorial zeal in the Nisour Square Case?

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United States District Judge Ricardo Urbina in dismissing the indictment of Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten [USA v. Paul A. Slough et al. | Criminal Action No.: 08-0360 (RMU)] (security guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide/Xe to provide security services to U.S. government employees operating in Iraq) -- on the Nisour Square Baghdad incident writes:

"Before the beginning of jury deliberations, a judge instructs the jury that it must perform its duty to deliberate “without prejudice, fear, sympathy or favoritism.” A judge has a concomitant obligation. When a judge, upon close examination of the procedures that bring a criminal matter before the court, concludes that the process aimed at bringing the accused to trial has compromised the constitutional rights of the accused, it behooves the court to grant relief in the fashion prescribed by law. Such is the case here."

Perhaps cognizant of the possible impact of this ruling beyond our borders, the judge prefaced his memorandum opinion with this:  

[T]he basic purposes that lie behind the privilege against self-incrimination do not relate to protecting the innocent from conviction, but rather to preserving the integrity of a judicial system in which even the guilty are not to be convicted unless the prosecution  shoulder the entire load.

In its decision the Court did not minced words: “[T]he government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.  Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all of the defendants.”

The Court also faulted the prosecutors’ excessive fervor and disregard of warning that lead to the collapse of the prosecution's case:

Labor Dept Slow to Help Injured War Zone Contractors

T. Christian Miller of ProPublica reports that under Secretary Hilda Solis, the Labor Department has continued to be slow to act in its oversight of medical care for civilian workers injured in war zones (Read Injured Abroad, Neglected at Home: Labor Dept. Slow to Help War Zone Contractors | December 17, 2009). The report states that DOL has failed to pursue sanctions against corporations accused of ignoring federal requirements to purchase such insurance, according to a ProPublica review of court cases, federal records and interviews with worker advocates. Quick excerpts below:

The department has also taken no action in cases where insurance carriers allegedly provided false or misleading information to the federal government to terminate medical benefits for injured civilians–another potential crime under the law, known as the Defense Base Act [2].

The lack of enforcement has allowed carriers and contract companies to abuse the system by avoiding or blocking payments, forcing contractors to spend months and sometimes years battling carriers in court for benefits, claimants and their attorneys said.[…]But the ProPublica examination shows that the department has rarely deployed the tools available under the law to crack down on fraud and abuse–a record that extends back through Democratic and Republican administrations. Labor officials can recommend cases for prosecution to the Justice Department–but have only done so once in the past two decades, according to Labor officials.

They can directly levy civil penalties, but have done so sparingly. As of June, Labor officials have imposed fines in only about 50 of more than 36,000 cases processed by the two largest insurance carriers, according to an internal Congressional memo [3] obtained by ProPublica.[…]Passed in 1941, the Defense Base Act requires every company with an overseas U.S. contract to obtain health insurance for its workers. But no single U.S. agency is fully in charge of implementing the program, which has exploded since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 1,600 civilians have died and 37,000 have reported injuries.[…]"We put our lives in danger for our military. We supply them with water, food, ammunition, housing. And yet, we’re screwed," said Philemon, an Air Force veteran. "I almost give my life for my country and I get treated like dirt? "Something’s not right with that picture," he said.

Read the whole thing here.

Idle Curiosity Singes 9th Victim

Image by SarahR89 via Flickr

DOJ announced that a ninth individual pleaded guilty on December 9 to illegally accessing numerous confidential passport application files. Debra Sue Brown, 47, of Oxon Hill, Md., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in the District of Columbia to a one-count criminal information charging her with unauthorized computer access. Brown is scheduled to be sentenced on Mar. 23, 2010. Details below from the press release:

According to court documents, Brown has worked full-time for the State Department since Sept. 1995 as a file clerk and a file assistant in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. In pleading guilty, Brown admitted that she had access to official State Department computer databases in the regular course of her job, including the Passport Information Electronic Records System (PIERS), which contains all imaged passport applications dating back to 1994. The imaged passport applications on PIERS contain, among other things, a photograph of the passport applicant as well as certain personal information including the applicant’s full name, date and place of birth, current address, telephone numbers, parent information, spouse’s name and emergency contact information. These confidential files are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, and access by State Department employees is strictly limited to official government duties.

Brown admitted that between Mar. 25, 2005, and Feb. 7, 2008, she logged onto the PIERS database and repeatedly searched for and viewed the passport applications of more than 60 celebrities and their families, actors, comedians, professional athletes, musicians, other individuals identified in the press, and personal friends and acquaintances. Brown admitted that she had no official government reason to access and view these passport applications, but that her sole purpose in accessing and viewing these passport applications was idle curiosity.

Brown is the ninth current or former State Department employee or contractor to plead guilty in this continuing investigation.

• On Sept. 22, 2008, Lawrence C. Yontz, a former Foreign Service Officer and intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing nearly 200 confidential passport files. Yontz was sentenced on Dec. 19, 2008, to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.

• On Jan. 14, 2009, Dwayne F. Cross, a former administrative assistant and contract specialist, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 150 confidential passport files. Cross was sentenced on March 23, 2009, to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

• On Jan. 27, 2009, Gerald R. Lueders, a former Foreign Service Officer, watch officer and recruitment coordinator, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 50 confidential passport files. Lueders was sentenced on July 8, 2009, to 12 months of probation and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.

• On July 10, 2009, William A. Celey, a file assistant, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 75 confidential passport files. Celey was sentenced on Oct. 23, 2009, to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.

• On Aug. 17, 2009, Kevin M. Young, a contact representative, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 125 confidential passport files. Young was sentenced on Dec. 9, 2009, to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

• On Aug. 26, 2009, Karal Busch, a former citizens services specialist, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing more than 65 confidential passport files. Busch is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 15, 2009. (Yesterday, DOJ announced Busch was sentenced to 24 months of probation for illegally accessing more than 65 confidential passport application files. Karal Busch, 28, of District Heights, Md., was also ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in the District of Columbia to perform 25 hours of community service. Busch pleaded guilty on Aug. 26, 2009, to a one-count criminal information charging her with unauthorized computer access.)

• On Oct. 27, 2009, Yvette M. Burrison, a passport specialist, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing nearly 100 confidential passport files. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled for Burrison.

• On Nov. 9, 2009, Susan Holloman, a file assistant, pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing 70 confidential passport files. Holloman is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 21, 2010.

These cases are being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Armando O. Bonilla of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. The cases are being investigated by the State Department Office of Inspector General.

Quickie: Erik Prince, Mr. Fix-It in War on Terror

Adam Ciralsky writes a profile of Erik Prince (Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy) in the January 2010 issue of Vanity Fair.

I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.” Prince—the founder of Blackwater, the world’s most notorious private military contractor—is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent. […]Once back on terra firma, Prince, a BlackBerry on one hip and a 9-mm. on the other, does a sweep around one of Blackwater’s bases in northeast Afghanistan, pointing out buildings recently hit by mortar fire. As a drone circles overhead, its camera presumably trained on the surroundings, Prince climbs a guard tower and peers down at a spot where two of his contractors were nearly killed last July by an improvised explosive device. “Not counting civilian checkpoints,” he says, “this is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border.” His voice takes on a melodramatic solemnity. “Who else has built a fob along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?” It doesn’t quite have the ring of Lawrence of Arabia’s “To Aqaba!,” but you get the picture.[…]As Prince puts it, “We were building a unilateral, unattributable capability. If it went bad, we weren’t expecting the chief of station, the ambassador, or anyone to bail us out.” He insists that, had the team deployed, the agency would have had full operational control.

Read the whole thing here.

Quickie: One Nation Under Contract

On October 25, Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman who is now vice president of The Aspen Institute writes about Allison Stanger’s new book in the Boston Globe (One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy | Yale University, 256 pp):

In her new book, “One Nation Under Contract,’’ Stanger, director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury College, documents in stunning detail the extent to which the United States has turned much of its most important work over to private contractors whose motivation is profit and level of public accountability near zero.[…]“For-profit foreign aid,’’ Stanger says, “is now a booming business, with billions of US government dollars flowing into sketchy projects.’’ She points to a 2005 congressional study that found that of 286 schools that were to be rebuilt by a private contractor with funds from the US Agency for International Development, “only 8 had been completed and . . . only 15 of 253 planned health clinics were operational.’’ With as many as five subcontractors on each job, “each charging a substantial fee’’ a school that could be built by Iraqis for $50,000 costs the American taxpayers five times that much.[...]There’s plenty of scandal, and she calls it such, plenty of concern about cost, lack of accountability, fiscal irresponsibility. But she also sees contracting out as a wave of the future, in large part probably because the elimination of the draft makes unavailable the large numbers of uniformed personnel to drive trucks, peel potatoes, build buildings, or do the laundry. Her concern is not with the idea of farming-out but with the mismanagement of it, the lack of transparency, the lack of effective monitoring and evaluating.

Read the whole thing here.

Who's Storming Which Office to Sink Al Franken’s S.Amdt. 2588?

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Sam Stein at Huffington Post has just posted an update on Al Franken’s Senate Amendment that has now been called the Anti-Rape Amendment.

An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.

Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.

Inouye's office, sources say, has been lobbied by defense contractors adamant that the language of the Franken amendment would leave them overly exposed to lawsuits and at constant risk of having contracts dry up. The Senate is considering taking out a provision known as the Title VII claim, which (if removed) would allow victims of assault or rape to bring suit against the individual perpetrator but not the contractor who employed him or her.[…]The second-longest-serving member of the United States Senate, Inouye is a veteran of WWII. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, he has received $294,900 in donations from the defense and aerospace industries over the course of his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

According to the report, "[t]he defense contractors have been storming his office," said a source with knowledge of the situation.”

Read the whole thing here.

Ugh!!! I’ve just thrown my shoes at my computer screen. But that won’t help.

We can help! Please make time to contact Senator Inouye and tell him not to strip or water down the Franken Amendment, S.Amdt. 2588, from the defense appropriations bill. Call him in DC at Phone: 202-224-3934, Fax: 202-224-6747; in Honolulu at Phone: 808-541-2542, Fax: 808-541-2549; in Hilo at Phone: 808-935-0844, Fax: 808-961-5163. If you’re a HI voter, you can email him here.Call Capitol Hill and tell your senators to keep the Franken Amendment in the bill. Capitol switchboard phone: 202- 224-3121 to contact your senators. Here is Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Office contact numbers: Phone: 202-224-3542, Fax: 202-224-7327. If you’re a NV voter, you can also email Senator Reid here.

Related Post: Who Will Sink Al Franken's S. Amdt. 2588?

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• Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment May Be Stripped By Senior Dem, Sources Say (huffingtonpost.com)

Who Will Sink Al Franken's S. Amdt. 2588?

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The H.R. 3326 Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2010 bill was passed by the House on July 30, 2009, and by the Senate on October 6, 2009. GovTrack’s last update on Oct 19, 2009 12:11pm indicates that the bill may now proceed to a conference committee of senators and representatives to work out differences in the versions of the bill each chamber approved. The bill then goes to the President before becoming law.

There were about 85 amendments proposed in this bill. One of those that has attracted a greater share of attention is Senator Al Franken’s S.Amdt. 2588: “To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.” The Franken amendment passed: Yea-Nay Vote 68 – 30 with these Republican legislators voting “no.”

The amendment was prompted by this victim who was gang-raped in Baghdad. The victim according to Mother Jones was “forced into mandatory binding arbitration, a private forum where Halliburton would hire the arbitrator, all the proceedings would be secret, and she'd have no right to appeal if she lost.” It took three years just to get the court to agree that she can sue. Read more here.

Mr. Jefferson Sessions [R] of Alabama says, “The amendment would impose the will of Congress on private individuals and companies in a retroactive fashion, in validating employment contracts without due process of law. It is a political amendment, really at bottom, representing sort of a political attack directed at Halliburton, which is politically a matter of sensitivity. Notwithstanding, the Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts. That is just not how we should handle matters in the Senate, certainly without a lot of thought and care, and without the support or at least the opinion of the Department of Defense.”

As if by speed mail, DOD came through with an opinion. Ryan Grim reports in the Huffington Post on the Department of Defense’s position on Franken’s anti-rape amendment:

"The DoD opposes the proposed amendment," reads a message sent from the administration to the Senate on October 6, the day the amendment passed by a 68-30 vote. "The Department of Defense, the prime contractor, and higher tier subcontractors may not be in a position to know about such things. Enforcement would be problematic, especially in cases where privity of contract does not exist between parties within the supply chain that supports a contract," reads the DoD note. "It may be more effective to seek a statutory prohibition of all such arrangements in any business transaction entered into within the jurisdiction of the United States, if these arrangements are deemed to pose an unacceptable method of recourse."

What? That sounds like a cracker bonbon!

RfR asks, “Whats the big deal?” and writes: “The 2010 Franken Senate Defense Appropriations Amendment overreaches into the business of private enterprise. Defense contractors are a part of the functioning free market; not the Federal Government. A handful of isolated assaults is no reason to summon the interference of the Federal Government and Congress. This amendment interferes with the privacy of companies and the ability of our defense contractors to effectively conduct the business of protecting America from terrorism.” Read here why RfR exists.

Yeah, right, of course. This is nothing but a political amendment and has nothing to do with protecting working people. Yes, enforcement would be problematic, wouldn't it? And expensive. They may have to add a few more millions on the government's tab. Oh, heavens! They may have to spend more time screening people before they send them off to work in the red zones!Holy mother of goat and all her crazy uncles!

The business of America is business, but at what cost? See that’s actually 30 out of 100 United States Senators who voted in favor of business interests over the rights and dignity of individual victims. Congress could pass laws cutting off highway funds to States which didn’t raise their drinking age to 21 but some legislators don't want to do anything about this because well, what if these companies don't want to work for the taxpayers anymore? Then what? Yep, where would they be if they can't bid on our lucrative contracts?

This makes me want to weep and throw my shoes at the somebodies. Really.

* * *

If Liz Were Queen posted yesterday that there is talk that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may allow this amendment to be stripped out or watered down. She also has a list of talking points in her site when talking to your representatives. Go, please call 202-224-3542 and tell the Majority Leader not to strip or water this down. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell your senators to keep the Franken Amendment, S.Amdt. 2588, in the defense appropriations bill.

Related Post:Oct 22: Who's Storming Which Door to Sink Al Franken's S. Amdt 2588?Congressional Record

• [Page: S10146] GPO's PDF
• [Page: S10147] GPO's PDF
• [Page: S10148] GPO's PDF

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• Defense Department Opposed Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment (huffingtonpost.com)
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Quickie: They no respect the contract?

Image by Coda Hale via Flickr

Hannah Allam, a Cairo-based McClatchy Newspapers correspondent writes the blog, Middle East Diary. She visited Iraq last month and wrote about The New U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Makes you kind of wonder if the private security contractors' other shoe will drop here before too long:

Today, I arrived at the embassy with half an hour to spare before my appointment. I couldn't enter until my escort arrived, so I passed the time talking with a Peruvian guard -- in his broken English and what little Spanish I remembered from high school.

"Are you press?" he asked.

When I confirmed that I was a journalist, he lowered his voice and looked around to see if his American supervisor from Triple Canopy was watching the interaction.

"They no respect the contract, this company," he whispered. "The contract says we work one, two, three, four, five, six, seven days, and then we should have a day off. But I work 12 hours a day for 12 days and then one day off. They no respect the contract."

He went on to tell me about his 11-year-old daughter and how it breaks his heart to be so far away from her. Over the Internet, he said, she tells him to quit and come home, that the money isn't worth the job, which from his description sounded to me like a few short steps away from indentured servitude.

"My girl, she tell me, 'Come to Peru, come to Peru, why you work 12 hours a day for 12 days?'" he said. "I told her if I say something to the company, they say, OK, go back to Peru and they bring other guards."

He shrugged and said, "What I do? I work."

Read the whole thing here.

Indictment on Kickback Scheme in Afghanistan

Second person indicted for alleged kickback solicitation over USAID security contract

USAID/Afghanistan’s Infrastructure ProjectPhoto from USAID/LBG Massoud Hossaini

This is an excerpt from the USDOJ October 8 press release:

Ryan Scott McMonigle, 37, of Ponca City, Okla., was indicted today for his alleged role in a scheme to solicit kickbacks in connection with the award of a security services subcontract to protect U.S. government personnel and contractors in Afghanistan, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division Christine A. Varney and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the principal federal U.S. agency that extends assistance to countries that are recovering from disaster, are trying to escape poverty and are engaging in democratic reforms. The agency works to support long-term and equitable economic growth and advance U.S. foreign policy objectives.

In August 2006, USAID awarded a $1.4 billion contract known as the Afghanistan Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project (the AIRP contract). The AIRP contract required the award of numerous subcontracts, including for the provision of security services to protect AIRP workers.

According to the indictment, McMonigle was employed from approximately February 2009 until May 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan, by Civilian Police International, a Virginia-based company that provides law enforcement training internationally. The indictment alleges that McMonigle, Bryan Lee Burrows and others conspired to solicit kickbacks from security vendors in return for favorable treatment for those potential bidders in connection with the award of a subcontract to provide security services to protect USAID personnel and contractors in Afghanistan operating under the AIRP contract.

McMonigle is charged with one count of conspiracy to solicit a kickback and one count of aiding and abetting the solicitation of a kickback.

Burrows pleaded guilty on Sept. 2, 2009, to conspiring with others to solicit kickbacks from the security vendors in return for favorable treatment for those potential bidders in connection with the award of a security services subcontract.

If convicted, McMonigle faces up to 10 years in prison on the kickback solicitation charge and an additional five years in prison on the conspiracy charge, as well as a fine of $250,000 for each charge.

Read the whole thing here.

Related Items:

• DOJ: Press Release | September 2009: Oklahoma Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Solicit Kickbacks in Connection with Government Contract in Afghanistan | Bryan Lee Burrows, 42, of Wagoner, Oklahoma | Read file
• DOJ: Antitrust Division Filing: August 2009 | United States v. Scott "Max" Anthony Walker and Ryan Scott McMonigle | Read file
• Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant | Read file

We’re Building the Juba-Nimule Road in Sudan ...

It’s 8 months behind scheduleWe're spending $164 millionAnd nobody knows it’s funded and paid for by the American people

USAID’s OIG recently released its audit of the Juba-Nimule road. This was USAID/Sudan’s major road infrastructure activity in scope, cost, and the priority accorded to it by Government of Southern Sudan. The report says that the road originally built from 1928 to 1932, was upgraded to gravel standards in the early 1970s but was neglected for more than 22 years of civil war. The road connects Juba, the seat of the southern Sudanese government, with Uganda. From there, the road provides access to Kenya and the port of Mombasa.

Quick summary from the report:USAID/Sudan’s major road infrastructure activity is upgrading the 192 kilometer Juba-Nimule road from a gravel road to a paved road. The main goals of the Juba-Nimule road project are to foster economic growth by increasing capacity for trade, facilitating refugee resettlement and the transportation of humanitarian aid, and strengthening southern Sudanese capabilities in road maintenance and construction. This activity is one initiative under the Sudan Infrastructure Services Project, a 5-year, $700 million indefinite quantity contract1 through September 2011 with the Louis Berger Group, Inc.The project is currently 8 months behind schedule, primarily because policy questions arose during procurement of the main road construction subcontracts. Moreover, the total cost has risen from an estimated $87 million in the road’s feasibility study to the current estimate of $163.8 million. This increase was due to a number of factors, including erroneous assumptions and a lack of technical data in the feasibility study. Problems in bridge construction also contributed to higher costs. Finally, the audit determined that (1) none of the people interviewed along the Juba-Nimule road were aware that this road was being financed by the United States and (2) several contracts between the Louis Berger Group, Inc., and its subcontractors omitted required antiterrorism language.Excerpts from the audit:

• The completion of the Juba-Nimule road was initially planned for March 2010. However, current estimates place the completion date in November 2010. This delay was caused principally by policy questions that arose during the procurement of the road construction subcontract. As a result of this delay, the overall estimated cost of the Juba-Nimule road increased by more than $7 million.

• Federal law requires reasonable cost estimates before USAID initiates certain projects. Despite this requirement, the projected cost of the Juba-Nimule road increased 88 percent over the estimate in the road’s feasibility study. A major portion of this increase arose from the absence of sufficient technical data, which resulted in an underestimate of the material required. Moreover, erroneous initial assumptions also contributed to the increased projected costs. As a result, the road is costing millions of dollars more than originally estimated, and USAID operational planning was hindered.

• The May 2007 feasibility study for the Juba-Nimule road, which was prepared by the Louis Berger Group, Inc. (Berger), and was completed prior to the initial obligation of funds under Task Order 2, estimated a maximum total cost of $87 million for upgrading the road to a double bituminous surface treatment standard. However, as of April 6, 2009, the road had an estimated budget of $163.8 million, or an increase of 88 percent over the amount in the feasibility study.

• The planned completion dates for the erection of seven new bridges along the Juba-Nimule road were not met because of delays in foundation construction, which was exacerbated by poor initial designs. A significant cause of these problems was the lack of timely geotechnical data. As a result, overall project costs have increased, and USAID could ultimately bear the cost of potential claims for losses.

• Effective branding of USAID projects is an important Agency objective. However, none of the people interviewed along the Juba-Nimule road were aware that the project is being funded by the United States. This occurred because community leaders were not disseminating this information to the grassroots level. […]The ineffectiveness of the current branding strategy means that people in southern Sudan are generally not aware that the Juba-Nimule road is being funded by the American people. Consequently, opportunities to create positive impressions of the United States are forfeited, hindering public diplomacy efforts in Sudan, an area of immense foreign policy interest to the United States. (italics added)

• USAID regulations mandate that recipients of USAID assistance include in all subawards a provision based on Executive Order 13224 designed to prevent the financing of terrorist activities. Nevertheless, 6 of 15 subcontracts for the Juba-Nimule road did not contain this provision. This likely occurred because contractor officials mistakenly relied on other terrorism-related clauses and used templates that omitted the required language. Consequently, USAID funds could be at increased risk of being used to finance terrorist activities. (italics added)

USAID/OIG: Audit of USAID/Sudan's Road Infrastructure Activities |AUDIT REPORT NO. 4-650-09-009-P | September 28, 2009 | PDF

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Snapshot: Top 10 State Dept Contractors (FY2009)

This list of the State Department’s Top 10 Contractors is from USAspending.gov. You can also view the Contractor Profiles in the website.The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act) requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free that includes for each Federal award: 1. the name of the entity receiving the award; 2. the amount of the award; 3. information on the award including transaction type, funding agency, etc; 4. the location of the entity receiving the award; 5. a unique identifier of the entity receiving the award.USAspending.gov, a re-launch of www.fedspending.org, provides this information to the public, as collected from federal agencies, in an easy to use website. The data is largely from sources: the Federal Procurement Data System, which contains information about federal contracts; and the Federal Assistance Award Data System, which contains information about federal financial assistance such as grants, loans, insurance, and direct subsidies like Social Security.

The website is searchable by contractor, place of performance, by agency; also by competition process, type of contract or product/service purchased.

Click here for an explanation of the data included in the website.

WALES: State Dept's New $35M Payroll Contract

Image by Jeremy Brooks via Flickr

A Virginia-based company, STG, Inc. (STG) announced yesterday, September 28, 2009 that it has been awarded the Department of State’s Bureau of Resource Management (RM) Worldwide Agency-wide Locally Engaged Staff (WALES) contract. Under this $35 million, 5-year contract, STG will design, develop and implement a payroll solution for more than 90,000 American & Foreign Service National staff and Foreign Service Annuitants.

“The State Department has placed a lot of confidence in STG and we are proud to have been selected for this unique responsibility,” said STG CEO Simon Lee. “STG has a long tradition of providing mission critical support to 20 of the 28 Bureaus and separate offices at the Department. We will continue to provide that same level of support to ensure the success of this important program.”

This is the first time I’ve heard of WALES, the contract, so I had to look it up. Here is what USAspending.gov says about it:

As the exclusive "civilian" provider, over 40 agencies rely on DoS to deliver Foreign Service National (FSN) employee e-Payroll services. This is a major challenge because, in contrast to most multi-nationals, the USG has staff in over 180 countries and must: * accurately pay 49,000 employees * comply with 500+ compensation plans tailored to local laws/prevailing practices * deal with 150+ currencies and their fluctuating exchange rates.

DoS currently operates/maintains four versions of FSNPay in Charleston and Bangkok, each requiring its own cadre of support experts. These 20+ year old, legacy systems represent major operational risk as they require modification each pay period. Moreover, DoS faces similar challenges with respect to the legacy FARADS system (the application used to generate annuitant payments to over 15,000 retired Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) and qualified beneficiaries).Following rigorous product demonstrations (that were conducted as part of a Sources Sought/Market Research RFI), DoS concluded that several COTS products could address most of the USG's FSN employee and FSO annuitant payroll needs. This means that WALES will replace this obsolete technology with a single, modern rules-based COTS system better suited to support constant change. This is critical because the USG must satisfy time-sensitive taxation/benefits requirements that arise from legislation/regulatory rules enacted in 180+ countries.In short, this will help DoS make accurate and timely payments to its FSNs and retired FSOs, achieve clean audit opinions, and continue to satisfy the 40+ agencies that rely on its overseas payroll services. In addition to the USG-wide "share-in" savings achieved by providing e-Payroll services to other agencies, this investment promotes cost avoidance by replacing five payroll systems with one to eliminate redundant:* Acquisition/deployment activities* Service center operations* Hardware* Software licensing* System maintenanceThese benefits will be largely realized in FY11, following a phased implementation. Total FY2009 spending: $7.0 M; Investment End Date: 09/30/2011

More here on WALES from state.gov. Check out the original solicitation for this contract at FedBiz.

Former Iraq Security Contractors Say Firm Bought Black Market Weapons, Swapped Booze for Rockets

by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica and Aram Roston, Special to ProPublica - September 18, 2009 10:05 am EDT (Excerpts reprinted from ProPublica under Creative Commons License)

Last spring, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq got a makeover,replacing the scandal-plagued Blackwater private security company with a firm named Triple Canopy.

The new $1 billion contract cemented Triple Canopy's status as the pre-eminent provider of private security services in Iraq, with its heavily armed employees appearing side by side with senior State Department diplomats.

But the company's rise to prominence followed a long, often chaotic route, marked by questionable weapons deals, government bungling and a criminal investigation that was ultimately closed without charges being filed, according to newly released investigative files.

Company employees told federal investigators that Triple Canopy swapped booze for weapons and supplies from the U.S. military. They said the company bought guns and other arms on the black market in Iraq. Some worried that the money was flowing into the hands of insurgents, records show.

The previously undisclosed documents and interviews with current and former Triple Canopy officials raise new questions about the U.S. government's ability to oversee private security contractors in a fluid and uncertain legal environment. And they give a glimpse into the messy business of creating a private army on the fly in the middle of a war zone.

"We're spending a lot of money on these rifles, millions of dollars -- where do you think that money is going to?” [1] Ronald Boline, a former Triple Canopy manager, said in a lawsuit deposition videotaped [2] in June 2007. “Who are we supporting in doing that? We're supporting people who are trying to kill Americans is the logical conclusion."

That lawsuit against the company, filed in a Virginia circuit court by other former employees who sued Triple Canopy for wrongful termination, was settled this week, records show, but no terms were disclosed.

The criminal investigation began in 2007 after federal investigators received a tip that Triple Canopy was using stolen cars and captured Iraqi weapons [3] to boost profits to over 40 percent on some contracts. Andrew T. Baxter, the interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, declined to comment on why his office decided not to file charges. (His office handled the case because Triple Canopy’s invoices were paid out of a nearby federal contract processing center.)

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who oversaw the investigation, refused to talk about details. But he said the difficulty in building the case were indicative of the haphazard atmosphere in which billions of dollars of U.S. money was spent in Iraq without oversight.

"It's unclear if anything that Triple Canopy did was criminal, but it was symptomatic of the chaos that prevailed at the time," Bowen said. "It's another example of contracting gone wrong."{snip}A State Dept. official acknowledged that the department had been slow to respond to the need to arm the private companies it was hiring to carry guns. Until late 2004, the department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls blocked most requests for the export of automatic weapons to private firms — the result of a decades-old policy to cut down on international arms trafficking.

When private security companies began requesting weapons to fulfill U.S.-issued contracts, the department was caught off guard, the official said. It wasn't until November 2004 that the policy was changed to grant private security companies export licenses — more than a year and a half after the first such firms were hired in Iraq.

"This was something that the State Department hadn't considered as a possibility" until the requests for licenses started coming in, said the official, who spoke on background per department policy. "What they did was go through a relatively long discussion and decision process to figure out how to deal with the problem."

While the system for importing weapons has improved in Iraq, industry and State Department officials acknowledged that problems remain in Afghanistan.

Partly, this reflects the fact that more groups are at work there. Unlike Iraq, there is a substantial presence of nonprofits and international aid organizations in need of security. Companies buying weapons from local sources continue to run the risk of money flowing to insurgents, one official said.

Afghanistan is similar in one way, however. Just as in the early days in Iraq, there are comparatively few investigators on the ground to watch the billions of dollars now flowing into the country.

"It's an even worse Catch-22 over there," one industry official said.

Read the whole thing here.

Related Items:

• Ronald Boline's Deposition in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia
• ProPublica’s Triple Canopy Investigative File
• Performance Audit of the Triple Canopy Contract for Personal Protective Services in Iraq (State OIG-MERO-IQO-09-03) (30 April 09)

State Dept Contractor Electrocuted in Iraq

Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute has a recent piece in The Nation on Another Mysterious Electrocution Death in Iraq.

US Air Force Staff Sgt. Adam Hermanson who was working for State Department contractor, Triple Canopy died on September 1.

Scahill writes: "Earlier this week, Hermanson returned home on a flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. His body was in a coffin. Hermanson was not killed by enemy fire or an improvised explosive device or even by "friendly fire." In fact, he died in what is considered to be the safest place in Iraq for Americans--the heavily fortified Green Zone. His body, according to his family, was discovered on the floor of a shower near his quarters at Camp Olympia. It appears that Hermanson was electrocuted."

"On Tuesday morning, the military medical examiner who performed Hermanson's autopsy met with Hermanson's wife, Janine. "He said that everything was still pending and that he can't make a final [statement] because the toxicology and all that stuff has not come back yet. But he said that [the cause of death] was a low-voltage electrocution," she told The Nation. "When I got the call I was told that he was found in a shower, and now I am getting told that there was even still electrical current on the shower floor when they found him."

Rewind to July 11, 2008 during the hearing on “Contractor Misconduct and the Electrocution Deaths of American Soldiers in Iraq.” Cheryl Harris, the mother of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth in a prepared statement says:

Since January, I have taken a decided approach to find out what actually happened to my son and why he was electrocuted in his shower at the age of 24. I have learned that my son’s electrocution was the result of the failure to correct a known electrical hazard in a building replete with electrical hazards. Moreover, because of those uncorrected electrical hazards, my son lay in electrified water until he was discovered by a fellow soldier who kicked the door down. There, lying on the ground, was my son’s body, burnt and smoldering. One of the soldiers who attempted to rescue Ryan was himself shocked because the electrical current was still running through the water and pipes in Ryan’s bathroom.

Just last month, a news release dated August 07, 2009, Army Completes Staff Sgt. Maseth Death Investigation (Revision), says that “The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Medical Examiner previously found the cause of Maseth’s death to be electrocution and the manner accidental. The completed Criminal Investigation Command death investigation concurs with those findings.”

The news release also says that “There have been 18 reported deaths due to electrocution in Iraq since March 2003, including 16 service members and two contractors.[…] Since Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death in 2008, there has not been another confirmed electrocution death of a soldier in Iraq.”

Less than a month after the final report was released …

Nobody seems to know who did the wiring at Triple Canopy's base at Camp Olympia. Scahill reports that Triple Canopy will not comment further until the investigation is complete. The State Department reportedly did not return calls requesting comment.

Read the whole thing here.

CWC Hearings: State Dept Security Contracts

US Embassy Kabul Guard Contract Takes Center Stage

The Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) is an independent, bipartisan legislative commission established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Created in Section 841 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, this eight-member Commission is mandated by Congress to study federal agency contracting for the reconstruction, logistical support of coalition forces, and the performance of security functions, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Commission may refer to the Attorney General any violation or potential violation of law identified by the Commission in carrying out its duties under this section.

Two of the eight commissioners have prior associations with the State Department: Clark Kent Ervin was a State Department Inspector General from 2001-2003 and Grant S. Green was Under Secretary of State for Management from 2001-2005. Had this story broke in 2005 or earlier, Mr. Green would be sitting in Pat Kennedy's chair facing the Commission's grilling. One of the co-chairs, Michael J. Thibault also had extensive experience with the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), and another member, Dov S. Zakheim was DOD’s Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer from 2001-2004. I imagine they'll be looking under a lot of rocks.

Shortly after the POGO story on the US Embassy Kabul security guards broke, the CWC announced its intent to hold public hearings about wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. On September 14 the Commission heard from witnesses representing the State Department and its security contractors. The hearings were split into three panels listed below. As of this writing, only videos of the hearings are available via c-span.org; the statements of witnesses and other committee documents have yet to be posted online here are now posted online here.Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Panel 1

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

* Eric Boswell, Assistant Secretary, Diplomatic Security

* William Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Logistics Management

See video here | 2 hours, 11 minutes

Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Panel 2

Witnesses testified on the U.S. State Department’s selection, management, and oversight of security and other contractors.

Panel 2:

* Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight (testimony)* Terry Pearson, former Operations Supervisor in Kabul, Afghanistan, for RA International.

See video here | 1 hour, 27 minutes

Wartime Contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Panel 3

Witnesses testified on the U.S. State Department’s selection, management, and oversight of security and other contractors.

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).

See video here | 1 hour, 57 minutes

Statements:

• Opening Statement
• Mr. Patrick Kennedy's (DoS) Statement|
• Mr. Terry Pearson's Statement
• Ms. Danielle Brian's (POGO) Statement
• Mr. Samuel Brinkley's (AGNA) Statement
• Mr. William Ballhaus's (DynCorp Intl) Statement
• Mr. Doug Brooks's (IPOA) Statement

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• Official Says Contractor in Kabul May Be Ousted (nytimes.com)
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• Behind the Afghan Embassy Scandal, a Cost-Cutting Security Firm (time.com)