Gates Separates Air Force From Next Tanker Decision

Someone sent me this today to follow up on the Tanker Deal 2 Debacle… -GFS

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(From Military.com, 17 Jul 08)

 

 

 

Tanker Decision Out of Air Force Hands

 

July 09, 2008

Military.com | by Colin Clark

 

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stripped the Air Force of authority to decide who will get the new contract award for the KC-X tanker.

Gates, who made the announcement at a July 9 Pentagon news conference, said the DoD hoped to issue a new contract before the end of the year. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics John Young will make the decision whether to award the tanker buy to the Northrop Grumman-EADS team or Boeing, Gates said.

Video: Pentagon Will Reopen $35B Tanker Bid

The Air Force awarded a $49 billion contract on Feb. 29 for 179 refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space to replace Cold War era KC-135 Stratotanker jets, beating out Boeing Co. which many thought had a lock on the contract.

After congressional uproar, Boeing protested the decision to the Government Accountability Office which ruled in mid-June that significant errors had been made during the bidding process.

The re-bid decision also creates a new advisory commission overseeing the new contract process, Gates added. Young, who spoke later in the press conference, said that once the contract is awarded he expects the Air Force to resume management of the program, signaling that service still retains the fundamental confidence of the Pentagon’s senior acquisition officials.

But Congress is going to play a major role in this rebid – which pits one of America’s defense giants against a European conglomerate — and the defense secretary made very clear he knew lawmakers would be watching, noting that his office had informed the main congressional committee leaders of his decision earlier in the day.

For its part, Boeing issued cautious praise of Gates’ decision.

“We welcome the decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates not to proceed with the contract award to Northrop Grumman/EADS and to reopen the KC-X tanker competition,” a company official said in a statement. “However, we remain concerned that a renewed Request for Proposals (RFP) may include changes that significantly alter the selection criteria as set forth in the original solicitation.”

And Northrop Grumman launched a confident salvo of its own.

“We are reviewing the decision to ensure the re-competition will provide both companies a fair opportunity to present the strengths of their proposals,” said Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote. “The United States Air Force has already picked the best tanker, and we are confident that it will do so again.”

Soon after Gates spoke, Boeing supporter Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) kept the pressure on with a statement calling for “a real bid not a rehash,” adding that “Congress must play a strong oversight role….”

She repeated a call made in a July 7 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee leaders for a full committee hearing to consider “several classified issues of concern that must be fully investigated” relating to the tanker deal. In her latest statement Cantwell said that if the Defense Department does “not address these concerns, it’s a non-starter and I will place a hold on the nominations of the Secretary of the Air Force and ask that this information be declassified for public debate. This issue is too important to have another whitewashed contracting process.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) who wants to see Northrop Grumman’s tanker jobs come to his state, said Gates’ decision was “the best of all options,” adding that the plan is “an appropriate solution to remedy the minor procedural flaws the GAO found in the initial award.”

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) issued a short statement saying he had spoken with Gates this morning and had “confidence in Secretary Young and I hope he can assemble the right people to move ahead with this important contract in a reasonable period of time.”

Michael Donley, acting Air Force Secretary, spoke after Gates and tried to puncture one of the increasingly common assumptions arising from the Government Accountability Office’s criticisms of the Air Force decision to award the tanker deal to Northrop Grumman, that the Air Force’s acquisition system is broken.

He conceded the “need to rebuild confidence in” the military’s ability to award and manage large contracts but said he did not believe the Air Force’s systems was “fatally flawed.”

Preparing the Accountability Profession for 21st Century Challenges

 

Take a look at this.  Plan for a few minutes longer than usual to read it.  Link to GAO report included.  -GFS

 

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Link to “Preparing the Accountability Profession for 21^st Century Challenges” post by Robert O”Harrow, Washington Post, 7-20-08:

 

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/government-inc/2008/07/accountability_profession.html

 

Link to GAO Report itself:  http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d081017cg.pdf

 

Contracts and Falsified Bids: GAO Report Finds

Once again, more corruption…   The GAO continues to try to investigate, write scathing reports, and yet nothing really gets done.  This is only one of many.   -GFS

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Bids for Work Falsified, GAO Reports
$100 Million in Contracts for Distressed Zones Go to Firms Operating Elsewhere

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 18, 2008; D04

Over the past two years, at least 10 Washington area companies have won more than $100 million in prime government contracts set aside for small businesses in economically distressed areas by claiming they had residency in those communities.

A Government Accountability Office report released yesterday challenged those claims and said the agency plans to ask the Small Business Administration’s inspector general to investigate.

The GAO said it reviewed records for 17 Washington area companies participating in the program and found that 10 allegedly failed to meet SBA requirements that their primary offices be based in an economically distressed zone and that at least 35 percent of their employees live in one.

In one instance, a roofing contractor with a $4.1 million Air Force contract listed his business as being in a Landover distressed zone. When government investigators visited, the office was in half of a duplex and a person who identified himself as a vice president said no employees worked there. According to payroll records, only 12 percent of the company’s employees lived in the zone, the GAO said.

In another, an engineering company listed its primary address as the second floor of a house in Northeast Washington that had been converted into a dentist’s office, but its Web site locates the company in McLean and employees answer the phone there. Audrey Price, president of the company, Quantum Dynamics, said she has an open-ended arrangement with the dentist for the space above his office. Her company is planning to move soon from McLean to Macon, Ga.

“We are preparing a complete response to the SBA and expect to be exonerated as far what the GAO is saying,” she said by telephone.

In another case, investigators went to the address of CSI Engineering (DC/PC) in Greenbelt and found the office locked and several days of mail piled outside the door. The company president said he has two companies with similar names; one is in Greenbelt and another in Beltsville, which is not in an economically distressed zone.

“We do all of the engineering in Greenbelt every day,” said CSI Engineering president Dave Ghosal, who works in Beltsville. “There’s a lot of turnover in people, but if you call, there are people there” in Greenbelt. “The names, I think, are a little confusing.”

The GAO discussed its findings yesterday during a hearing before the House Committee on Small Business. The report found fault with the SBA’s oversight.

As a test of the program’s screening process, investigators created fictitious companies and submitted applications for the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program. Four of them won certification, even though one listed a Starbucks as its company address and the employee and company information was fabricated on all the applications, GAO investigators told committee members.

“We created the bogus companies to test fraud controls, the gateway to the money,” said Gregory Kutz, managing director of forensic audits and special investigations for the GAO. “That miserably failed.”

The GAO said the program relies on limited documentation and there is little follow-up by the SBA. As a result, some companies rent space in a HUB zone to win certification, but then move elsewhere, investigators said.

After the hearing, SBA officials released a statement outlining steps they will take to correct problems and said they have already moved to rectify problems such as program maps that incorrectly designate HUB zones. Bad maps have resulted in ineligible small businesses participating in the program and in eligible businesses being blocked out, the GAO report said.

SBA officials said they would work on their internal systems to improve the verification process. Last year, administration officials quashed legislation that would have required on-site visits of applicants and other measures to ensure businesses’ eligibility, calling them “burdensome or undesirable.”

Under federal contracting rules, agencies are to award 3 percent of their annual contracts to qualified companies in HUB zones. In 2003 to 2006, the percentage of prime contracting dollars fell about 33 percent short of the statutory goal in 2006, according to the GAO.

Link to Original:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071702760_pf.html

 

Investigation Brings No Charges in Iraq IG Case

Considering the stories coming from Iraq whistleblowers, rape victims and others, it would not be surprising at all to find all sources of communication are spied upon and that employees have no where to go for help when trying to report criminal activities, or injury or abuse to self or others by co-workers or others in Iraq.  -GFS

 

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Investigation of Iraq IG Ends With No Charges

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 18, 2008; A09

The federal government has dropped two investigations into the office of the inspector general overseeing Iraq reconstruction projects, according to a lawyer for the IG.

In a July 3 letter, federal prosecutors said they had closed the criminal investigation of Stuart W. Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, according to Bowen’s attorney Bradford Berenson.

“The U.S. attorney’s office informed us that the investigation related to Mr. Bowen had been terminated without any charges being brought,” Berenson said yesterday. “Mr. Bowen is gratified that this inquiry has concluded without any finding of wrongdoing on his part.”

A grand jury had been looking into charges of whether Bowen improperly accessed employee e-mails, Berenson said. Brian McGinn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said “we can’t confirm or deny the existence or termination of any criminal investigation handled by our office.” He would not comment further.

Earlier this week, the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency wrote in a letter to the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, known as SIGIR, that it too had “terminated the administrative investigation” on Bowen and his deputy, Ginger Cruz. The council, which investigates allegations of misconduct by inspectors general at federal agencies, said it “has elected to close the file and does not contemplate further action in the matter.”

“All of the inaccurate and anonymous allegations have been thoroughly investigated and they were all dismissed,” Cruz said yesterday. “What’s most important to me is that the closure removes any doubt about the integrity of the IG and of this office, which has worked so hard to build a reputation for effective oversight.”

SIGIR was created by Congress in 2004 to act as the chief watchdog over the $46 billion U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq.

The federal investigations of SIGIR and its top officials began two years ago, after former employees filed an anonymous complaint with allegations including sexual harassment and improperly compensating some employees for overtime.

In a memo, the agency said it paid $32,700 of Cruz’s legal fees. Cruz said the agency paid none of Bowen’s legal fees. He personally paid for them, she said. Cruz said she paid another $40,000 in legal fees from her own funds.

Link to Original:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/AR2008071702571_pf.html

 

KBR Rape Victims Victimized Again by the Company

This is unbelievable, kind of like taking a trip in “The Wayback Machine” (ala Mr. Peabody’s in Rocky and Bullwinkle) to once again see how victims of rape are treated in this country.  Have the last 40 years changed nothing?  Rape victims are abused further by their employers, the state department, and then by our legal system, in a big “blame the victim” session.  Please go view the videos.  -GFS

 

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More than half of the operatives in

Iraq are private contractors.  This

is unprecedented in American history.

 

The war in Iraq has enabled the Bush

Republicans to fund the development

of their own private army, Blackwater,

which as already been deployed on US

soil.

 

Halliburton routinely provides wildly

overpriced and substandard services

including contaminated water to troops.

 

The last in the series: utter lawlessness,

if you’re a private contractor in Iraq.

 

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/370.html

 

- Brasscheck

- Brasscheck

 

P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and

videos with friends and colleagues.

 

That’s how we grow. Thanks.

 

Link to videos about more Iraq contractor (KBR/Halliburton) “mayhem.”  http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/370.html

 

7-20-08 More on KBR’s Electrical Disasters in Iraq

I recently mentioned a website written by a former electrician, “Ms. Sparky,” who worked in Iraq, turned whistleblower.  Please look at her most recent post below and then use the link to visit her site to see comments and lots of other interesting information.  -GFS

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Replace KBR With Qualified Electrical Contractor Says Senator Dorgan

Posted on July 18th, 2008

by ms sparky in KBR & Senate Investigations, Politics, Women in Construction, Working Overseas

Link to Original posting:  http://mssparky.com/

 

Press Release: Senators Want Independent Safety Review of KBR’s Electrical Work in Iraq

July 18, 2008

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who chaired a Senate hearing last week on the electrocution of U.S. troops in Iraq, and four other U.S. Senators are objecting to the Pentagon’s selection of contractor KBR to inspect its own electrical work in Iraq. The hearing examined reports that at least a dozen U.S. troops were electrocuted since 2004 at U.S. military bases in Iraq where KBR holds the contract for electrical work. The Pentagon asked KBR to inspect its work for hazards following those reports.

Dorgan, Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) raised their objection in a letter sent Friday to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus. The inspections should be independently conducted by someone “both well-qualified and objective,” they wrote.

Dorgan also called Friday on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus to take immediate action to suspend KBR’s contract for electrical work at U.S. military bases in Iraq and replace the company with “people who know what they are doing and whose work won’t put the lives of American soldiers at risk.” Dorgan said.

A New York Times report Friday revealed electrical problems at military bases in Iraq are much more numerous, widespread and severe than previously acknowledged. “This is a problem that requires immediate action to protect American troops,” Dorgan said. “Somebody other than KBR ought to be doing electrical work at U.S. bases in Iraq immediately. KBR’s failure is massive and American troops are dying because of it.”

On July 11, Dorgan presided at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearing which examined the electrocution reports. The panel heard testimony from the mothers of two soldiers who were electrocuted and a soldier who saw other U.S. troops being shocked. It also received testimony from two KBR whistleblowers who said KBR routinely hires non-electricians – even in supervisory posts – to perform electrical work and resists fixing known hazards.

The testimony “documented KBR’s poor performance and lax standards in hiring employees to do electrical work. Given this track record, and the fact that a number of deaths have occurred at facilities maintained by the company, it makes no sense to entrust KBR with inspecting electrical safety conditions in Iraq,” the Senators wrote.

KBR would also “have strong incentive to describe its own work in the best possible light,” the Senators noted. “In fact, KBR’s spokesperson has insisted from the outset – before KBR has even completed the inspections – that there is no evidence that KBR has done anything wrong. Thus, the company seems to be prejudging the outcome of its investigation.”

– END –

Be sure to read the letters to General David Petraeus (click HERE) and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (click HERE)

3 Comments

Electrical Risks at Bases in Iraq Worse Than Previously Said

Posted on July 18th, 2008

by ms sparky in KBR & Senate Investigations, Politics, Women in Construction, Working Overseas

Evans family, via South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Ten buildings were destroyed late last month at a Marine base near Falluja, Iraq, after an electrical fire broke out.

 

 

By JAMES RISEN

New York Times

Published: July 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.

During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents. A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.

Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires.”

The Army report said KBR, the Houston-based company that is responsible for providing basic services for American troops in Iraq, including housing, did its own study and found a “systemic problem” with electrical work.

But the Pentagon did little to address the issue until a Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, was electrocuted in January while showering. His death, caused by poor electrical grounding, drew the attention of lawmakers and Pentagon leaders after his family pushed for answers. Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general have begun investigations, and this month senior Army officials ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR.

“We consider this to be a very serious issue,” Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday in an e-mail message, while declining to comment on the findings in the Army documents.

Heather Browne, a KBR spokeswoman, would not comment about a company safety study or the reports of electrical fires or shocks, but she said KBR had found no evidence of a link between its work and the electrocutions. She added, “KBR’s commitment to the safety of all employees and those the company serves remains unwavering.”

In public statements, Pentagon officials have not addressed the scope of the hazards, instead mostly focusing on the circumstances surrounding the death of Sergeant Maseth, who lived near Pittsburgh.

But the internal documents, including dozens of memos, e-mail messages and reports from the Army, the Defense Contract Management Agency and other agencies, show that electrical problems were widely recognized as a major safety threat among Pentagon contracting experts. It is impossible to determine the exact number of the resulting deaths and injuries because no single document tallies them up. (The records were compiled for Congressional and Pentagon investigators and obtained independently by The Times.)

The 2007 safety survey was ordered by the top official in Iraq for the Defense Contract Management Agency, which oversees contractors, after the October 2006 electrical fire that killed two soldiers near Tikrit. Paul Dickinson, a Pentagon safety specialist who wrote the report, confirmed its findings, but did not elaborate.

Senior Pentagon officials appear not to have responded to the survey until this May, after Congressional investigators had begun to ask questions. Then they argued that its findings were irrelevant to Sergeant Maseth’s electrocution.

In a memo dated May 26, 2008, a top official of the Defense Contract Management Agency stated that “there is no direct or causal connection” between the problems identified in the survey and those at the Baghdad compound where Sergeant Maseth died.

But in a sworn statement, apparently prepared for an investigation of Sergeant Maseth’s death by the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division, a Pentagon contracting official described how both military and KBR officials were aware of the growing danger from poor electrical work.

In the statement, Ingrid Harrison, an official with the Pentagon’s contracting management agency, disclosed that an electrical fire caused by poor wiring in a nearby building two weeks before Sergeant Maseth’s death had endangered two other soldiers.“The soldiers were lucky because the one window that they could reach did not have bars on it, or there could have been two other fatalities,” Ms. Harrison said in the statement. She said that after Sergeant Maseth died, a more senior Pentagon contracting official in Baghdad denied knowing about the fire, but she asserted that “it was thoroughly discussed” during internal meetings.

Ms. Harrison added that KBR officials also knew of widespread electrical problems at the Radwaniya Palace Complex, near Baghdad’s airport, where Sergeant Maseth died. “KBR has been at R.P.C. for over four years and was fully aware of the safety hazards, violations and concerns regarding the soldiers’ housing,” she said in the statement. She added that the contractor “chose to ignore the known unsafe conditions.”

Ms. Harrison did not respond to a request for comment.

In another internal document written after Sergeant Maseth’s death, a senior Army officer in Baghdad warned that soldiers had to be moved immediately from several buildings because of electrical risks. In a memo asking for emergency repairs at three buildings, the official warned of a “clear and present danger,” adding, “Exposed wiring, ungrounded distribution panels and inappropriate lighting fixtures render these facilities uninhabitable and unsafe.”

The memo added that “over the course of several months, electrical fires and shorts have compounded these unsafe conditions.”

Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of American troops have been housed in Iraqi buildings that date from the Saddam Hussein era. KBR and other contractors have been paid millions of dollars to repair and upgrade the buildings, including their electrical systems. KBR officials say they handle the maintenance for 4,000 structures and an additional 35,000 containers used as housing in the war zone.

The reports of shoddy electrical work have raised new questions about the Bush administration’s heavy reliance on contractors in Iraq, particularly because they come after other high-profile disputes involving KBR. They include accusations of overbilling, providing unsafe water to soldiers and failing to protect female employees who were sexually assaulted.

Officials say the administration contracted out so much work in Iraq that companies like KBR were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the operations. Some of the electrical work, for example, was turned over to subcontractors, some of which hired unskilled Iraqis who were paid only a few dollars a day.

Government officials responsible for contract oversight, meanwhile, were also unable to keep up, so that unsafe electrical work was not challenged by government auditors.

Several electricians who worked for KBR have said previously in interviews that they repeatedly warned KBR managers and Pentagon and military officials about unsafe electrical work. They said that supervisors had ignored their concerns or, in some cases, lacked the training to understand the problems.

The Army documents cite a number of recent safety threats. One report showed that during a four-day period in late February, soldiers at a Baghdad compound reported being shocked while taking showers in different buildings. The circumstances appear similar to those that led to Sergeant Maseth’s death.

Another entry from early March stated that an entire house used by American troops was electrically charged, making it unlivable.

Since the Pentagon reports were compiled, more episodes linked to electrical problems have occurred. In late June, for example, an electrical fire at a Marine base in Falluja destroyed 10 buildings, forcing marines there to ask for donations from home to replace their personal belongings.

On July 5, Sgt. First Class Anthony Lynn Woodham of the Arkansas National Guard died at his base in Tallil, Iraq. Initial reports blamed electrocution, but his death is being investigated because of conflicting information, according to his wife, Crystal Woodham, and a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard. (END OF ARTICLE)

I hate to say I told you so…but I will

“I TOLD YOU SO!!!! DAMN IT!!!”

Ms Sparky