Inspector General Says Iraq Contract Going Well
The latest report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction offers something relatively rare: Good news about burgeoning contracts and the government's oversight.
It seems that Aegis Defence Services, Limited, which has received about $624 million to provide security services to the Defense Department, has been found to perform "satisfactory to outstanding" on contract obligations.
Government overseers, meanwhile, have properly awarded and monitored the Aegis contracts, according to the report.
"SIGIR found well-supported contract awards to Aegis; appropriate government oversight of Aegis's bills, inventories, performance, and operations; and contract performance assessed as satisfactory to outstanding. For example:
- The two largest [Reconstruction Security Support Services] contracts were competitively awarded; the bridge contract between the two, although non-competitively awarded, was appropriately justified as a sole-source award.
- U.S. and U.K. agencies have provided appropriate oversight of Aegis's bills and have found that claims are well supported.
- U.S. agencies have monitored Aegis's controls of inventories and found them adequate to protect the U.S. government's interests.
- Aegis is adhering to its personnel screening and selection process, which should help to ensure that it hires individuals with the qualifications and personal qualities required by the contract.
- Aegis is adhering to its training program, which should help ensure that personnel working on the contract are properly trained.
- As part of DoD's new process to coordinate private security operations with military units, Aegis personnel assisted in tracking more than 55,000 private security operations since February 2008.
- Aegis has reported about 80 of the 380 serious incidents reported by all security contractors since February 2008. It is complying with requirements to coordinate its operations and report serious incidents involving attacks, injuries, and property damage. SIGIR plans to audit this incident-reporting process."
Everything's not perfect. Of course. Contract administration could improve. But overall, given the contracting debacles we've all heard about in Iraq, that's a pretty good report card.
On behalf of taxpayers, Government Inc. smiles.
By Robert O'Harrow |
January 15, 2009; 11:17 AM ET
Inspectors General
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Posted by: BrianX9 | January 16, 2009 4:51 PM
The various Inspectors General must be doing very well, as I see we've now come up with a new category of "Special" Inspector General; presumably this high powered category carries a much elevated salary commensurate with this lofty title. Is there no end to the creation of more and more jobs at the taxpayer's expense? And this is from a Republican administration too!
Does no one except me find it hilarious that our Defense Department must contract out for security services? I served for over 30 years in the military and never once saw the need for Civilian Security Services, (call them what they are, mercenaries)
Nothing like a bunch of gun-happy civilian goons, only recently brought under some semblance of control and accountability, running around a foreign country and killing in our name. Small wonder we're so hated throughout the world. Why not just privatize the entire military establishment? The idiot running this whole show has already put the country so deeply in debt that we'll never recover.
Posted by: Doubtom | January 16, 2009 7:17 PM
The famous "trophy" video of Aegis employees randomly shooting Iraqi civilians on the airport road was handled in a very....Uh... dodgy manner by DOD. The investigation done by Aegis on itself for the DOD was all hushed up and slipped under the rug never to see the light of day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z0NMKcVHHM
Still I suppose it's possible for people, even companies to change.
Posted by: markswisshelm | January 17, 2009 12:53 AM
In Vietnam, the US Army established the enduring truism that every contractor freed up a soldier for combat. Contractors did heavy maintenance on helicopters, run the water supply, and prepared food in the basecamps. Unlike Iraq, the Army in Vietnam provided its own "force protection." Force protection is what the security contractors do in Iraq. Frankly, with notable, unforgivable, unconscionable exceptions, the contractors appear to do the job adequately; even the State Dept. claims that. It would be naive to think that the military does force protection with great sensitivity or manic care for "collateral damage." Without security contractors--since the US public won't accept many military casualties (try winning WWII that way)--we'd need twice as many troops in Iraq. So having security contractors is not a silly little choice some generals and DoD made, but rather reflects the choices our society made.
Posted by: axolotl | January 20, 2009 9:23 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
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Mr. O'Harrow smiles at the efficiency with which a contract is executed. OK. But note that the scope includes performing Mercenary combat services, in addition to inherently governmental intelligence functions. US law prohibits contracting out either of these.
I understand that SIGIR, run by a political hack, never looks into the tough issues. But the Post could, once in a while.
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