« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »
February 28, 2007
Army May Not Pay $400 Million to KBR
The US Army may challenge up to $400 million billed by Halliburton's KBR subsidiary under the company's "$20 billion" military logistics contract because of unauthorized charges for private security in Iraq.
KBR announced the possibility in its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday. The news follows on the tail of the Army telling Congress last month that it was withholding $19.6 million for costs that KBR had billed for services rendered by Blackwater Security to a subcontractor. That task resulted in four Blackwater guards being attacked and killed in Fallujah on March 31, 2004.
The Houston Chronicle has the story.
KBR said the Army could withhold 6 percent of all past and current subcontractor costs credited to private security charges that may not have been reported. KBR may dispute this:
The company said that while its contract with the Pentagon is clear that KBR cannot bill the government for private security to protect its workers, it does not prohibit subcontractors from doing so. In addition, because KBR often accepts lump-sum bids from subcontractors, it often doesn't receive details of costs outlined in the bids.
Posted by davidphinney at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's in the Mail (Yeah, Sure)
When posed with a question that's off the daily script or unrelated to a planned press event, government public affairs people sometimes put reporters on the "slow roll." Frequently that means that they don't have a clue about how to answer a question or that the person who knows the answer would prefer not share it. (The real payoff for a cynical bureaucrat is if the reporter gets distracted by another story long enough for everyone to forget about it.)
FOIA requests can invite the same treatment: How else to explain MY three-dozen unfulfilled Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the Pentagon and elsewhere over two years ago when it allegedly takes just 20 working days to deliver the goods?
In fact, I hear that one request of mine is one of the top ten oldest requests around. It is a request for information on the food contractor at Abu Ghraib that screwed up so badly that prisoners started rioting en mass. Do doubt, the request being passed from desk to desk is now crawling with worms and is as rancid as the food the contractor was serving. (And the FOIA is sort of important. The food riots led to the crackdown in security that led to the torture that led to....well, lots of things.)
I'M NOT ALONE IN THE WAITING GAME.... (But darling, I have moved on):
New research by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government shows that the government's overall FOIA performance remains at the lowest point since agency reporting began in 1998, despite President Bush's executive order last December [2005] directing agencies to become more service oriented and reform legislation introduced in the Congress
Here's the report: The Waiting Game: FOIA Performance Hits New Lows.
Posted by davidphinney at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Contractors on the Battlefield Here to Stay
Using civilian contractors to support and accompany US military actions is "here to stay," according to a new study unveiled yesterday by the Lexington Institute:
"There is no going back: they are now part of force deployment and, as such, must be included at all levels of pre-contingency planning and training...Contractors are now an integral and permanent part of battlefield logistics and support. ...The issue is how to manage this presence to the greatest benefit, with the greatest safety.
THAT'S THE PARADIGM on which the study is founded.
Don't expect any mention about theold way of doing things by returning support services to uniformed personnel. Contractors on the Battlefield has all the makings of a position paper for the neo-con proposal to establish a Civilian Reserve Corps being promoted by President Bush for wartime surge. And some may argue that the idea would further imbed contractors with decisionmakers at the Pentagon and on congressional appropriations committees.
There is very little discussion about cost-containment, the efficiency of government versus private sector or theft and fraud. The Lexington study largely casts a blind eye on those debates, claiming: "The work done by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan is absolutely essential to the prosecution of those two efforts."
LOOKING AT IT A DIFFERENT WAY: Some critics of the war might conclude that without the use of contractors, there would be no war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
AND SO: The report recommends a six-point plan to "reflect and sustain this new reality" of contractors working alongside the military on the battlefield:
#1) Establish a mutual, collaborative relationships between the Defense Department and contractors. (Contractors don't have that already?
#2) Include contractors in contingency planning, e.g. strategic planning sessions, war games, mission training
plans and mission readiness exercises. (That's a good idea, seeing as KBR was woefully unprepared for sustaining the military invasion and occupation.)
#3) Provide combatant Commanders with flexible contracts to meet the changing logistics requirements of the theater.
#4) Provide proper training to DoD oversight personnel; deploy and keep experienced personnel
in the field (No holing up in the relative safety of the Green Zone making phone calls to the contractors to ask how the job is going?)
#5) Establish a doctrine for contractors regarding force protection,
security. (And investigate and prosecute indiscriminate shootings by private security personnel?)
#6) Develop and implement a consistent communications doctrine between contractors and Combatant Commanders.
Posted by davidphinney at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Al Gore Taps the Internet
From the man accused of taking credit for inventing the internet, a new political crusade is heating up to fight global warming.
Fresh off his Oscar winning power-point presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore launched a chain email lobbying effort this week to pressure Washington into heeding his documentary's warning: time is running out for the world to reverse climate change. The email has a link to Gore's Web site.
THE IDEA IS: Every recipient who gets his email forward it to ten friends. No doubt, the effort will explode exponentially and create a shock and awe capable of making Washington take notice -- especially when Gore unloads those emails before Congress on March 21. (No word about whether the will be printed on recycled paper.)
Will this be a prelude to another bid for the White House? A number of prominent netizens predicted in Rolling Stone that the Democratic nomination would be his for the taking:
"If Howard Dean could raise $59 million on the Internet," says (veteran Democratic consultant Bill) Carrick, "the mind boggles as to what Al Gore might do." Joe Trippi, who managed Dean's campaign, believes Gore could raise as much as $200 million on the Internet: "Gore may have more money than anybody within days of entering the race."
Then again, Gore may have his eye on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. That would be a first for him. He already sort of, kind of, maybe won one presidential bid in 2000.
Posted by davidphinney at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 25, 2007
Worth a Read: Mercenaries Pick up the Slack,
Custer Battles Off the Hook, Missing Billions
The Scotsman reports mumblings that private security may be used to fill gap left by UK drawdown in Iraq:
Officials from the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence will meet representatives from the private security industry within the next month to discuss "options" for increasing their business in Iraq in the coming years.
Custer Battles exonerated: Michael Battles tells The Providence Journal of his frustration in having his private security company nailed as the poster child for war profiteering in Iraq. The news media portrayed his company, Custer Battles, as a participant in a modern-day Wild West -- that being post-invasion Iraq.
....fraught with prospects for fast money and for violence in the months after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Battles said such images live on in Google and other Internet search engines, despite the fact that the civil accusations against him and Custer have come to nothing. He said that he and Custer have never been told that they were the target of any criminal investigations.
Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker suggests some of the missing cash from Iraq reconstruction may be funding covert operations against Iran and clandestine work in Lebanon:
The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said....
A Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight, was accounting for covert funds:
"There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions," he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general.
Posted by davidphinney at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 23, 2007
Contractor Deaths Raise Casualty Count
It's no easy task tallying the total casualties supporting the US war effort in Iraq because "while the Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies," getting the official figures on civilian contractor deaths and injuries before 2006 requires a time-consuming Freedom of Information Act request, according to Associated Press writer Michelle Roberts.
HERE'S MORE FROM HER STORY:
In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military.... Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story.
The whole story by Roberts, Iraq Contractor Deaths Go Little Noticed, is that: "The insurgents in Iraq make little if any distinction between the contractors and U.S. troops".
ALSO, SEE:
Contractor Deaths in Iraq Nearing 800 January 29, 2007
More than 500 Contractor Deaths in Iraq? November 2, 2005
Civilian Footprint December 21, 2006
Iraq Wounded Fight for Insurance Coverage July 11, 2006
ADD from Associated Press on 2/24/07: The AP finds Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, but they "woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed."
Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.
Posted by davidphinney at 04:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Life Beyond War
It's easy to forget that Iraq is more than IEDs, carnage and corruption if you are sitting here in DC.
Younis Mahmoud, the 24-year-old kid from Al-Dibs in Kirkuk, is considered one of Iraq's most talented players on both the Olympic and national stage. Originally a basketball player, he was the first Iraqi footballer to have his own official Web site. More on YouTube.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 22, 2007
A Big Mistake: Mistrusting the Iraqi Worker
Putting people out of work might be the biggest mistake a liberator could make, says Marshall Adame, who worked on Iraq reconstruction projects with The Sandi Group and as a senior US advisor to the Iraqi government from 2003 until late 2006:
Iraq is not now, or in 2003, a country without professional organizations, associations, business structures and contractor networks. Iraqi engineers, construction contractors, lawyers, doctors, business managers, city planners and educators were present and readily available throughout Iraq. Almost none of which were accessed or utilized by the coalition in its effort to begin the rebuilding of Iraq.... The point being, from the very beginning we put the Iraqi people at arms length and have, to this day, kept them there.
In other words...
the occupying US presence signaled to the 27 million Iraqis liberated from Saddam Hussein's brutal iron fist -- a population equal to California's -- that they were not to be trusted with rebuilding their own country. (....And now not trusted to protect it?)
Unsettling, Provocative Thoughts:
Sunni insurgents, Shia Militias, and corrupt Iraqi Government officials, all profiting from our presence, and all hoping to profit from our absence. In the middle, the Iraqi people, the vast majority of whom are not in support of Islamic extremism, sectarian isolation, religious theocracy, or violence in any form against anyone or any group. An innocent people, now living in a hell they had no part of bringing.
Adame, by the way, has two sons who served in Iraq with the US Army.
The Point Is, and It's No Secret: The Coalition, i.e., the United States chose not to use Iraq's most valuable resource in the reconstruction effort: its people:
"In fact it has been official policy to exclude Iraqis from almost any coalition operation or endeavor. The Iraqi labor pool has been all but ignored. Third County Nationals have been shipped in by the thousands to work in positions that should have gone to the people we came to Iraq to rescue, the Iraqis."
Instead, the occupying coalition relied on foreign contractors and workers to do the work. And that may be just why the situation is what it is today.
Adame's commentary is floating around the Web. It's worth a read.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 21, 2007
Check It Out: Jihadist Violence and Crying Wolf
Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank find that jihadist violence has increased by 607 percent around the world and the number of people killed in those attacks has grown by 237 percent since the 2003 Iraq invasion. Their story appears in Mother Jones.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: Federal prosecutors and the FBI mistakenly pumped up the number of terrorist investigations and prosecutions by tossing marriage fraud and immigration violations into the terrorism-related bin. So finds a scathing report released Tuesday by a Justice Department Inspector General. ...
The Justice Department and the FBI made fighting terrorism a priority after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the IG determined the collection and reporting of the statistics as "decentralized and haphazard."
RAND's terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman told The Chicago Tribune that it might be a good idea if authorities not exaggerate what they're doing in their counter-terrorism efforts.
"Without explaining their methods more clearly, the public could look at it as 'crying wolf,'" Hoffman said.
Oops....
For the record, here's the Inspector General's pdf report: Internal Controls over Terrorism Reporting.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Worth A Read: Tauscher on the Hot Seat
Gone are the photos of Ellen Tauscher and President Bush on her congressional Web site -- including the one her critics have labeled "The Caress," a photo where the president appeared to have his hand on her thigh.
It doesn't matter. Liberal bloggers still are busy trashing the California Democrat.
The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald lay out Ellen Tauscher's ordeal at the top of page one: Ellen is a very moderate-to-right-leaning California congresswoman from the East Bay suburbs living in the very liberal San Francisco Bay Area.
Headlined "The Woman in the Middle: Moderate Democrat Is New Target of Liberal Bloggers," Tauscher was the only Golden State Democrat to oppose Nancy Pelosi's campaign to become House speaker. The former stock broker from New Jersey also bucked much of her party by working to scale back the estate tax, tighten bankruptcy rules and promote free-trade agreements. AND THAT MY BE THE REAL PROBLEM.
A major labor leader at a corner bar last week had nothing good to say about Tauscher, who moved to California in 1989 before being elected in 1996. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Labor wants "a real Democrat."
Tauscher seems to be trying to change her tune quickly, even as the online lefties continue riding her hard, the Eilperin/Grunwald team note:
This year, she has marched in lock step with Pelosi. But to Net-roots sites such as Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and Crooks and Liars, she's Lieberman in a pantsuit.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2007
Pictures Worth a Thousand Lives
Feel the love while on a private security run somewhere in Iraq.
'American PSD Detail Stares Down Tank Barrel': It's a tough job.
Posted by davidphinney at 06:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Major Shift in Iraq Private Security?
It may signal the twilight of gun-slinging expat companies barreling through Iraq with armored convoys while ringing up the multi-million-dollar receivables.
Iraqslogger reports that a new round of contracts could be in the offing for major security and training contracts in Iraq with a drop-dead clause: "Complete handover to Iraqis at end of contract."
The Slogger's Robert Young Pelton has the story.
Posted by davidphinney at 01:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PTSD Haunting Returning Soldiers and Contractors
Once known as soldier's heart in the World Wars, it took years for returning Vietnam vets to receive the public support they earned and deserved for what is now known as post traumatic stress disorder. Many fell apart and landed homeless on the streets across America. Some never recovered or regained their footing.
Now, major media shines a light on the debilitating problem that understandably faces many returning Iraq vets.
In a Philadelphia Inquirer commentary, Cecilia Capuzzi Simon writes:
Missing legs, arms, multiple amputations. These injuries are the visual emblems of the war in Iraq. But it is the invisible psychological harm -- primarily post-traumatic stress disorder -- that is the most pervasive and pernicious injury from this war and that is emerging as its signature disability. Veterans' advocates say it is the number-one issue facing soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The scope of the problem is daunting," Capuzzi continues: "The Defense Department estimates that between 15 percent and 29 percent of Iraq veterans will suffer from PTSD, characterized by flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares, anxiety, and social withdrawal."
And what about the 100,000 contractors on the battlefield? This an entirely new phenomenon. Many civilians, including truckers and armed security contractors travel outside the wire of camp safety on a daily basis. They, too, experience carnage on the battlefields of Iraq. Look for this to be the next news surge in coverage of Americans coming home:
Adding Insult to Injury
The Shadow Army
Iraq Wounded Fight for Insurance Coverage
Pentagon's Insurance Problem
Posted by davidphinney at 01:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2007
Rearview Mirror: The War for Insurance Coverage
Hundreds of injured civilians who worked in Iraq and Afghanistan take the war home with them as they battle for insurance coverage they are owed.
Boston Globe reporter Farah Stockman discovered that Halliburton, DynCorp, and other Defense contractors have denied insurance claims -- sometimes for years -- from civilian workers wounded on the battlefield or who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. The story finds that administrative law judges eventually ordered the companies to pay millions of dollars in compensation on such claims that they initially denied.
To see the judgments in these cases and others, go here. Under docket search type in LDA in the middle search field
The Jan. 20 story is not a new one. I wrote about the same issue several years ago -- and I guarantee you, the companies and government agencies are very slow in responding to reporters about this.
The Globe recounts tales of those struggling with coming home:
Robert Purcella: Spent nearly two years to win back his workers' compensation benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder and physical injuries. The Texas truck driver had his windows blown out in four attacks in Iraq. During one attack, he used a hammer to kill a robber trying to pull him from the truck -- "cracking his skull wide open," the ruling states. The judge also stated that Purcella was instructed by the military not to stop his truck under any circumstances and he "on occasion . . . ran over civilians as they attempted to stop the convoy."
Samuel Walker: After a suicide bomb attack burned his hands and face on a military base in Iraq, he was initially refused treatment because his wounds were deemed not life-threatening, a judge recounted in his ruling. Halliburton then prevented Walker and four other wounded employees from leaving the base to seek treatment on their own, because the company was understaffed. Once home, it took months to find a doctor who was acceptable to Halliburton.
Robert Rowe: In a case still pending, the Ohio truck driver was shot in Iraq in August 2004. It took months of phone calls to Halliburton and AIG after his return to the United States to arrange for needed surgery to repair his leg, he claims. Ultimately, the insurer, AIG, told him it would not compensate him because he did not have enough documentation and because they alleged that he had quit his job, Rowe claims.
The Globe examined 113 disputed cases that went to the Office of Administrative Law Judges in the US Department of Labor. Workers won outright in 37 and companies settled in 65 others, often agreeing to pay tens of thousands of dollars or more in additional benefits. Only 11 employees' claims were turned down by judges:
These cases represent a small fraction of the more than 13,000 insurance claims that have been filed by workers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority of cases are resolved when employees file required paperwork or during private mediation between the companies and employees overseen by the Department of Labor. But in hundreds of cases, the companies refused to settle, arguing that workers were not injured on the job or that they were asking for too much money.
Posted by davidphinney at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Survive Your Own Beheading
If you survive, was it a beheading?
It's touted as "The Only Course of its kind offered in the world."
AND BROUGHT TO YOU BY: The CRI Counterterrorism Training School of Las Vegas, Nev. (The link gets gritty.)
WE ARE TOLD: "Soldiers, Police Officers, Security Personnel, Overseas Contractors, Executives, PSD Operators, Diplomatic Service Personnel and Civilians can greatly benefit from this course."
The benefit, of course, being that you learn to keep your head about you when the stakes get really high. Even in Vegas where what happens in Vegas.... stays in Vegas?
Compliments to Kathryn Cramer for the find who wonders: "Did they get a celebrity endorsement from Ted Williams or Ichabod Crane?"
Ted Williams? That's another story.
Posted by davidphinney at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More on John Mancini
I knew he was in troubled waters, but I had no idea how troubled....
FROM THE EAST BAY EXPRESS:
Not long ago, this paper published a profile of John Mancini, a civilian defense worker stationed in Iraq and Kuwait who was one of the first two congressional whistleblowers to expose Halliburton's alleged practice of overbilling the government, to the tune of as much as $1.4 billion ("Soldiers of Misfortune," feature, 10/4)....
A few days after the issue came out, Mancini apparently flipped out and barricaded himself in his house, the Arizona Republic reported, and he threatened to shoot any cops who came in the front door. He was eventually apprehended, and although his phone is no longer working, his friend Barbara Friedkin says Mancini told her his prescription cocktail of morphine and antidepressants was recently altered. According to Bonnie Mancini, the mother of Mancini's second child, the police found 18,000 rounds of ammunition in the house, in addition to his dog, which had been shot and injured.
In the news biz, this is one of those episodes that tends to, shall we say, reduce a source's credibility, although much of Mancini's story was confirmed by his fellow whistleblower Henry Bunting, ex-wife Susan Mancini, and a source at Congressman Henry Waxman's office. In addition, Halliburton representatives did not return calls seeking comment for the story, and officials with his last employer, Pleasanton's Procurement Services Associates, refused to discuss the matter. PSA's lawyer faxed over a copy of a brief prepared during the course of mediating a financial dispute with Mancini; the brief did not dispute the essential elements of Mancini's story, but merely took issue with whether the company was liable for any further medical expenses. Nonetheless, Mancini's crisis may explain an e-mail he apparently sent to PSA officials, a copy of which was faxed to us too late for publication in the original story. Sensitive readers had best stop here, because this e-mail ain't pretty. In a message titled "Pay me you Motherfucker," Mancini allegedly wrote, "If you think shock and awe was something in Iraq you haven't experienced a heavily medicated, morbidly obese, old New York Italian, with attitude, who knows where you live. You will go down and i will ripe [sic] your head off and piss into your bleeding, gasping, lifeless body then shit in your mouth and you will sell your wife and children into white slavery to make certain I collect my money. ... I will make you regret your faggot father ejaculated into the slut of a woman known as your mother. ... If I get mad, or even mildly upset you will be selling your smooth white ass to niggers with AIDS just to pay me because NOT paying me is NOT an option." Nice, huh-- Chris ThompsonThe full text of the e-mail is reproduced below.
In a message titled, "Pay me you Motherfucker," Mancini allegedly wrote, "I will be filing liens on all your assets, personal liability fuckhead, I will seize all your equipment if you think shock and awe was something in Iraq you haven’t experienced a heavily medicated, morbidly obese, old New York Italian, with attitude, who knows where you live. You will go down and i will ripe [sic] your head off and piss into your bleeding, gasping, lifeless body then shit in your mouth and you will sell your wife and children into white slavery to make certain I collect my money. "NON PAYMENT is not an option you want to pursue. You would rather be Saddam's double with my friends at CACI they know how to soften a prisoner, but I am a quick learner. "They buy human organs, for cash You DON'T want me after you I will make you regret your faggot father ejaculated into the slut of a woman known as your mother. "You are Very lucky I am just agitated, If I get mad, or even mildly upset you will be selling your smooth white ass to niggers with AIDS just to pay me because NOT paying me is NOT an option. I am undergoing massive pain therapy, with prescribed medication sell your soul to the devil cause if it don't work, God can't protect you I will be after you and all your fucking officers of the corporation. I will place your organs on Ebay, and if the debt still has a balance you will be ground up for dog food."More on Mancini here.
Posted by davidphinney at 02:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 12, 2007
Contractors Secretly Honored, Others Celebrate their Camaraderie
Halliburton/KBR and the US Army teamed up last Friday in Houston to hand out one of the highest honors there is for civilian contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Defense of Freedom medal.
The Pentagon first awarded the medal bearing the words "On Behalf of a Grateful Nation"after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. The honor is bestowed in recognition of civilians killed or wounded while aiding the military. While it may be a national honor and recognition, the Houston event took place behind closed doors. No reporters or news media were allowed to witness the award event.
Halliburton/KBR spokeswoman Melissa Norcross said the private dinner and ceremony was a "joint decision" by the company and the Army, according to The Houston Post's David Ivanovich:
After the event, KBR went so far as to surround honorees with security officers, escorting them to a private reception. Two uniformed Houston Police Department officers were also standing outside the hotel's lobby.
Nevertheless, one reporter did sneak in. T. Christian Miller with The Los Angeles Times networked an invitation from the family of a contractor who was being honored. Miller notes that "The Army even refused to release the names of those it was honoring. The nation's gratitude was delivered behind closed doors."
The enterprising Miller then flew to Knoxville, Tenn., for a Saturday get-together of wounded contractors:
This time, there were neither medals nor executives. Instead, there were sudsy beers, loud music and the camaraderie of men and women who swapped war stories of public indifference, bureaucratic ineptitude and corporate incompetence.
Sometimes poignant, Miller adds:
....the contractors' status as private employees on a public mission has created an uncertain future, where surviving a bullet in the head does not mean a lifetime of care and where a local bar becomes the closest thing to a veteran's hospital.
Look for more on crontractors from Miller in the coming weeks.
ADD: Ann Lloyd put together a fabulous report for NPR'sDay to Day.
ANOTHER ADD: White Rose's Adventures provides her coverage of the Knoxville event here and here.
More on Defense of Freedom medal here.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2007
'This Hearing Saved the Government 20 Million Dollars'
ROUGH DRAFT: From the time four men were killed in streets of Fallujah on March 31, 2004 until yesterday, the U.S. Army couldn't determine if, in fact, Halliburton/KBR had broken its multi-billion-dollar contract agreement by allowing a private security company to guard a subcontractor's convoy
Then suddenly, one day before a Congressional hearing on the events surrounding the killing and burning of four private security contractors -- the Army figured it all out. Halliburton/KBR had violated the sweeping contract to provide support services to the Army in Iraq.
The LogCAP contract -- now clocking about $16 billion in receipts -- strictly prohibits Halliburton/KBR from using private security companies unless otherwise approved by the combatant commander. Halliburton had no approval and was exptected to rely on Army security.
The result of the Army's sudden recognition after three years of investigation? Just yesterday the Army decided to withhold a payment of $19.6 million owed to Halliburton/KBR, according to Tina Ballard, U.S. Army deputy assistant secretary for policy and procurement.
Withholding payment for the private security costs, she said, was the extent of any punitive action against Halliburton/KBR for allowing a subcontractor to use the high-profile private security company, Blackwater.
"That's not too much action," said a disappointed Rep. Henry Waxman, D. Calif., who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform. Then a hint of satisfaction flashed across his face: "This hearing just saved the government $20 million."
Greetings from the people who managed the war from beginning to now. It took the Army three years to discover that the contract that sent four Blackwater security contractors to their deaths in Fallujah, was in fact, illegal.
Throughout the Wednesday hearing, witnesses testified again and again to incredulous lawmakers that Haliburton/KBR's sweeping LogCAP is pyramid game -- a multilayered morass of subcontractors operating with little, if any, supervision. Halliburton/KBR is given sole responsibility for monitoring the behavior of its subcontractors -- the Army, in turn, relies on Halliburton/KBR to report any problems and make sure that its subs adhere to Army guidelines.
That leaves the door open for plenty of mischief, waste, fraud and abuse -- including the widespread use of forced labor, which the Pentagon acknowledged last spring was taking place. And just as with the contract that led o the death of four American civilians, not one company has been penalized for using forced labor drawn from the poorest of the poor in this world.
More later..... The train has left the station. There will be torrent of news generated from this hearing.
Posted by davidphinney at 11:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 06, 2007
Squandering Iraqi Money
Almost $12 billion in Iraqi assets disappeared while under control of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority -- much of it arrived in $100 bills on pallets straight from the Federal Reserve in New York. (Note: That is an armed civilian guarding the cash.)
In the past, government auditors said the Coalition Provisional Authority lost track of $8.8 billion in seized and frozen Iraqi assets largely known as the Development Fund for Iraq. We're talking about no record of where that money went. Zip, nada, nothing.
This doesn't include the money that the CPA misspent or lost to contract fraud and incompetence. Interested readers might want to review this story I drafted a few years ago: "Spending Iraqi Money".
The subject of missing billions is today's subject for Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government. Waxman believes the missing sum is around $12 billion. Others tell me the amount of Iraqi assets that went missing -- if you inlcude oil smuggling and theft in Iraq -- may be in the neighborhood of $22 billion.
There is a bit of sad irony about the lost billions for those who remember Paul Wolfowitz once assured Congress that Iraqi money would pay for the war and the reconstruction of Iraq:
"There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people...and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 (billion) and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three year..... We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]
(Paul Wolfowitz now heads the World Bank. That March 2003 statement he gave to Congress does give some people the jitters about his new five-year position. Some Wolfowiz foes `hope he is hauled before Congress to explain his role in the Iraq war -- an embarassment that feasibly could lead to his resigning from the Bank.)
I crafted "Spending Iraqi Money" two years ago after a Senate staffer had asked me to suggest witnesses on Iraq fraud. The staffer was totally unaware of the Development Fund for Iraq or the billions in missing Iraqi assets. I can't blame him. It's a confusing story made only more confusing by the handling and management of the funds.
I then pitched the story to an an editor who wasn't interested, but I think the draft stands up pretty well.
For more on Iraqi asets, see:
"Contract Quagmire in Iraq"
Posted by davidphinney at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 05, 2007
So, Are you Saying Nancy Will Be Flying Commercial?
Emails from damage-controlling Democratic fact-checkers generously point out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi DID NOT request personal military flights to jet her and other California lawmakers between DC and the Golden State on a regular basis.
Apparently, it was the House Sergeant at Arms who offered to make the inquiry.
His name, I kid you not, is Livingood.
So Livingood offered to inquire, Pelosi accepted the offer and the wing nuts are in a big fuss about the luxury of it all.
This is how it happened, according to thinkprogress.org:
1) The House Sergeant at Arms, not Pelosi, initiated inquiries into the use of military aircraft. House Sergeant at Arms Wilson Livingood, who has served in his position since 1995, released a statement today clarifying the facts. He writes, "In December 2006, I advised Speaker Pelosi that the US Air Force had made an airplane available to Speaker Hastert for security and communications purposes following September 11, 2001." Additionally, Livingood writes, "I offered to call the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense to seek clarification of the guidelines [which governed Speaker Hastert's use of a plane]."
Stay tuned:.
#1. Will Nancy fly economy or business class on the taxpayer dime?
#2. Will she go military with all the cool technology, catered meals and full bar on an even bigger taxpayer dime?
#3. Does the Speaker really need Air Force Three?
#4. How about just tossing her an iPhone for cutting edge telecom needs instead of keys to a C-40?....
#5. Ultimately, some thoughtful reflection may be called for among all of us: This situation may lift the notion of "limosine liberal" to a whole new level.
We live in interesting times.... The possibilities for exploiting this are ripe with promise for everyone's amusement.
And thanks guys. I am sincerely grateful for the input. It's an amusing story and it must be a slow news night for you.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 04, 2007
Blackwater's Christmas Mystery
When Rep. Henry Waxman bangs the gavel and opens hearings on Blackwater's security operations in Iraq Wednesday, let's hope the California Democratic chairman of the House Government Reform Committee asks about the rumor of a murder in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve:
The rumor began this way via email:
"On [Christmas] eve (2006) here in the Green Zone a Blackwater employee got into a scuffle with an Iraqi personal guard that was guarding a judge and shot him ten times and killed him. The Blackwater employee was drunk. Why did he have his weapon on him? He has been whisked out of Iraq as fast as possible so the local authorities could not get a hold of him.Is this true? Don't know. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell is silent on the question.Blackwater is trying to keep it all hush-hush so the media doesn't find out about it and dirty their already dirty reputation. Now all the Blackwater employees are pissed off cause they have installed a no alcohol ban on all Blackwater employees."
Reporter Bill Sizemore with Virginia-Pilot didn't get anywhere with Tyrrell either. But he did get State Department confirmation a month ago that a civilian U.S. contractor shot and killed an Iraqi security officer.
That's all Sizemore could get out of State. The US embassy spokesman in Baghdad declined to say what company was involved, citing the U.S. Privacy Act. However, two independent sources told The Virginian-Pilot that the alleged killer worked for Blackwater. The high-profile security company does a multi-million business providing security to U.S. diplomatic staff in Iraq under a State Department contract.
Given Blackwater's business with the State Department, are we going to hear that Blackwater, by extension, enjoys diplomatic immunity? Will Blackwater comment on the incident while under oath?
Stay tuned, because a long list of private security shootings and related problems in Iraq have been swept under the rug. Those incidents should be thoroughly investigated.
So far, not one private security contractor in the course of four years has been publicly charged with any criminal wrongdoing in Iraq.
Posted by davidphinney at 01:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 03, 2007
A Convenient Night for Gore
Gore entertaining another run for the White House?
Capitol Hill conventional thinking says.... No way..... But wait until the fat lady sings -- or better yet, wait and see if Al Gore loses 25 to 30 pounds by Oscar night.
Chances are looking strong that his enormously successful power point presentation, I mean, documentary, on climate change -- no, no, I mean GLOBAL WARMING, will fetch an Oscar for best feature documentary. (An Inconvenient Truth is the third highest grossing documentary of all time.)
If Gore wins, there would be no better time to announce a presidential bid. His former campaign manager, Donna Brazile, says it's possible.
"Wait till Oscar night," she is telling people, reports The Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she recently gave a talk. "On Oscar night, if Al Gore has slimmed down 25 or 30 pounds, Lord knows.''
More on Gore.
Posted by davidphinney at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Flying First Class Pelosi (and her entourage)
WHAT'S THIS?:
Speaker Pelosi wants to fly military planes to her congressional district in San Francisco on a regular basis "not only for herself and her staff, but also for relatives and for other members of the California delegation. A knowledgeable source called the request 'carte blanche for an aircraft any time.'"
So says reporter Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times.
Of course, Republican hacks may be using The Washington Times as a pawn to advance their own political vendetta -- Rowen says the story came from sources in Congress and in the administration.
THEN AGAIN: Pelosi could go back to flying commerical planes like the rest of us.
UNLIKE MOST OF US: Just be careful about wrinkling those Armanis, darling. Steerage can be so -- cramped.
If Pelosi's flying Air Force planes the way Hastert did (Post-9/11 precautions for the third in line to the White House), then she may as well take as many other California lawmakers as possible. It's a long, expensive trip and they already fly commercial airlines every week or two on the taxpayer's dime. So there's an economy of scale to be weighed and if Pelosi really wanted to play it cool, she would invite Republicans along for the ride. Just throw them in the back with the luggage. Let them eat pretzels.
Posted by davidphinney at 12:32 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 02, 2007
Troop Surge could Reach 48,000 in Theater
And the Number of Contractors?
The Hill beat Army Times on this by a few hours:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that the White House push to pump up troops in Iraq by another 21,000 will require an even larger troop deployment in the region as support to those troops.
President Bush forgot to mention that in his State of the Union message when he first unveiled the proposed troop buildup. Now, CBO estimates that support troops could inflate the "surge" to 48,000.
One wonders. Say the oversight was intentional. Perhaps Bush intends to send contractors to support the surge rather than extra troops.
FUZZY MATH QUESTION: Given the present ratio of 100,000 contractors/140,000 US troops in Iraq, how many more support contractors will be packing their bags to support the president's 21,000 troop surge?
The Washington Post interprets the CBO numbers as involving "up to 48,000 troops and contractors" costing between $9 billion and $13 billion for the first four months. Sorry guys, you're making it up. The word "contractors" is not mentioned one single time in the CBO report. All it says is 48,000 troops. (The need for "contracting" personnel is mentioned, but that means military people -- civilian or uniformed -- who write contracts.)
Or maybe Bush always intended ONLY to send contractors for his surge support. That way, there's no misleading about the number of troops he wants to send.
Stay tuned and keep an eye on the number of Krispy Kremes being shipped.
Why does CBO estimate the President's Iraq surge could actually total 48,000 troops?
U.S. military operations rely on substantial support forces that include uniformed personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police, provide communications, and handle the contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services. Apparently, White House planners haven't accounted for that.... And all you have to do is look at past planning for Iraq to realize this oversight is standard operating procedure for Bush and Company.
According to CBO:
"Over the past few years, DoD's (Department of Defense) practice has been to deploy a total of about 9,500 personnel per combat brigade to the Iraq theater, including about 4,000 combat troops and about 5,500 supporting troops."
Using that formula, even scaled-back support forces would still result in a total of 35,000 troops to be sent to Iraq, says CBO.
Posted by davidphinney at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 01, 2007
Tim Hates Chris and Other Nasty Business
Kiss, kiss in the Beltway. Tales of media favors, backstabbing and manipulation.
This morning's Los Angeles Times reports on the Libby trial:
As they talked by phone, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby scribbled down a series of Machiavellian suggestions from Cheney's then-communications guru, Mary Matalin: What to do about MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews and his steady barrage of Iraq war criticism? "Call Tim," Libby wrote, referring to Tim Russert of NBC News. "He hates Chris."
No mention of that in MSNBC.com's wire rewrite.... Mmmm, what a love fest.
Testimony from two of the Bush administration's top media handlers -- former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and former Cheney communications director Catherine J. Martin -- have largely taken center stage during the first five days of the trial, notes reporter Greg Miller with the LA Times.
And, those crafty media handlers in the Bush White House spent a good deal of time scheming away, doling out news like bon bons:
Martin, in particular, offered in her testimony last week an unusually detailed description of how the White House seeks to manipulate the news media.She described plans to leak stories to certain reporters, including the New York Times' David E. Sanger and the Washington Post's Walter Pincus; freeze out others, such as New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof; book administration officials on talk shows such as Russert's "Meet the Press"; and release bad news on weekends, when it was more likely to be ignored.
(Now, how can a working reporter take the White House press office seriously the next time a press officer answers a question with the perennial "when's your deadline?")
It sounds as though office politics at the White House were just as manipulative. Tim may hate Chris, but somebody at the presidential mansion unsheathed the long knives for Libby as well.
Tim Reid with The Times reports on nasty accusations that West Wing power players tossed Libby out to the snarling dogs beyond the White House gate:
Mr Libby's lawyers claimed yesterday that White House officials rallied around Mr Rove but stopped short of protecting Mr Libby. Having been asked by Mr Cheney to rebut Mr Wilson's criticisms, Mr Libby felt betrayed and sought out his boss."They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," the attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling Mr Libby's end of the conversation. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."
ADD: Justly noted. Ana Marie Cox beat the clock with her "Tim Hates Chris" item yesterday. After posting on Time.com, she later added the caveat:
UPDATE: Just to be clear, not everyone hates Chris Matthews (though apparently many commenters do); I just think there's something kind of awesome about "Everyone Hates Chris" being a show on the CW network. I am personal a long-time, committed fan of Matthew's eccentric approach to political chat, n.b.: "ALL PANTS ARE MADE IN CHINA NOW!"
(And not to burn a bridge to future TV appearances?)
Posted by davidphinney at 01:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It Sounded Good at the Time
This 1970 photo is of a young New York college student named Norm Coleman who is today a conservative, redmeat Republican senator from Minnesota. Alternet's Evan Derkacz describes the once-long-haired stud as a Jewish kid from New York who became "Minnesota's anti-gay, anti-woman, pro-war Senator."
Why dredge up this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde morph-over now? Because liberal firebrand and comedian Al Franken is readying a Democratic Senate bid against Coleman. There's already some mumbling in the Coleman camp about Harvard-educated Franken, one-time Saturday Night Live star, representing "Hollywood values" and being out of touch with Minnesota.
Franken's retort:
"If I do run against Norm Coleman in '08, I'll be the only New York Jew in the race who actually grew up in Minnesota."
Both Franken and Coleman were born in New York, but Franken moved to Minnesota when he was a kid. Coleman grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1998, journalist David Schimke with the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages dug up this little tidbit of a comment made by Coleman during his college days on Long Island:
"I know these conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know).... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley reverberate thorough the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over."
Coleman isn't the only swing hitter in politics. Hillary Clinton once campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964. Arianna Huffington was one of Newt Gingrich's most energetic cheerleaders in the mid-1990s.
Posted by davidphinney at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack