Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 1, 2007
Pg. 12
By Eric Schmitt
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — An independent panel has sharply criticized the Army for failing to train enough experienced contracting officers, deploy them quickly to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan and ensure that they properly manage billions of dollars in contracts to supply American troops in the field, according to officials briefed on its findings.
In a wide-ranging report to be made public on Thursday, the panel said these and other shortcomings had contributed to an environment in Iraq and Kuwait that allowed waste, fraud and other corruption to take hold and flourish.
The report does not address any suspected crimes by soldiers or civilian contractors; those are being pursued by investigators from the Army and the Justice Department. Nor does it single out individuals for blame.
But the six-member panel, appointed in August by Army Secretary Pete Geren, levels a stinging indictment of how the Army oversees $4 billion a year in contracts for food, water, shelter and other supplies to sustain United States forces in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. The panel also blames senior Army leaders for not responding more swiftly to the problems, despite warning signs like severe shortages of contracting officers in the field. “The Iraq-Kuwait-Afghanistan contracting problems have created a crisis,” the report states.
Congress and investigating agencies like the Government Accountability Office have in recent months assailed the Army for what they have described as a war-zone procurement system in disarray.
But the panel’s examination of the problem is the broadest to date and offers potentially the most far-reaching recommendations for fixing the shortcomings plaguing the supply system for a military that is increasingly conducting combat and stability operations around the globe.
The panel’s report, which runs about 100 pages including supporting documents, recommends increasing the number of Army contracting officers by about 25 percent, or 1,400, in coming years. It urges the department to improve training and to start young officers in the procurement corps soon after they join the Army, not after seven or eight years of other duties, as is common now.
The panel argues that the procurement corps, now dominated by civilians who balk at being sent to a war zone, must be trained to be an expeditionary force, just as Army combat forces train to deploy quickly for yearlong tours to Iraq,
“You need more people and better-trained people in contracting,” said a person who had been briefed on the report and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings had not been made public. “Right now, a lot of the work isn’t getting done or it’s done poorly.”
Some of the recommendations, including any increases in financing or changes in authority, would require Congressional approval, officials said. But several others will be up to Mr. Geren, the Army secretary, and senior Army leaders to carry out.
“I expect that the commission’s findings and recommendations will establish the blueprints for the adaptation of the Army’s acquisition management strategy into the next decade,” Mr. Geren wrote on Sept. 24, in issuing the commission’s charter.
Senior Army officials say the report’s “blunt, candid” language, as one put it, underscores the seriousness of the problem at a time when the Pentagon is increasingly reliant on contractors to wash laundry, prepare meals, stand sentry, provide armed security and do myriad other jobs.
While the report’s findings and recommendations focus on the Army, today’s military services operate jointly on battlefield, so the report’s impact will probably be felt across the armed forces.
“It’s absolutely true that the institution has to adapt,” said a senior Army official, who was not authorized to speak publicly before the report’s release. “How does this institution support an expeditionary army at war?”
Senior Army and Congressional officials say some of these changes are under way. But lawmakers have chastised the military for only recently ordering the creation of a special contracting corps of experienced procurement specialists, which Congress authorized two years ago.
These and other changes, the officials say, are long in coming, and if they had been put in place immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, they could have curbed much of the corruption that has surfaced since then.
“If you had had more personnel, who were better trained, on longer tours with more supervision, could you have cut the number of fraud, waste and corruption cases in half?” asked Raymond F. DuBois, a former senior Army official. “Yes.”
As of Oct. 24, the Army reported that it had 83 criminal inquiries related to contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to Christopher Grey, an Army spokesman. He said that 23 military and civilian staff members faced criminal charges, and that over $15 million in bribes had been uncovered.
One of the largest cases involves Maj. John Cockerham of the Army, who is accused of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction. Prosecutors have accused Major Cockerham, with his wife and sister, of taking at least $9.6 million in bribes in 2004 and 2005, when he was a contracting officer in Kuwait.
The panel, led by Jacques S. Gansler, the Pentagon’s top procurement official in the Clinton administration, was made up of civilian and retired military contracting and procurement specialists. The other members were two civilian procurement experts, David Berteau and George T. Singley III; and three retired military officers, Gen. David M. Maddox, Gen. Leon E. Salomon and Rear Adm. David R. Oliver.
A second Army review, led by Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III and Kathryn Condon, two Army contracting specialists, is examining current contracting operations, particularly in Kuwait.
November 1, 2007
Pg. 12
By Eric Schmitt
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — An independent panel has sharply criticized the Army for failing to train enough experienced contracting officers, deploy them quickly to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan and ensure that they properly manage billions of dollars in contracts to supply American troops in the field, according to officials briefed on its findings.
In a wide-ranging report to be made public on Thursday, the panel said these and other shortcomings had contributed to an environment in Iraq and Kuwait that allowed waste, fraud and other corruption to take hold and flourish.
The report does not address any suspected crimes by soldiers or civilian contractors; those are being pursued by investigators from the Army and the Justice Department. Nor does it single out individuals for blame.
But the six-member panel, appointed in August by Army Secretary Pete Geren, levels a stinging indictment of how the Army oversees $4 billion a year in contracts for food, water, shelter and other supplies to sustain United States forces in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. The panel also blames senior Army leaders for not responding more swiftly to the problems, despite warning signs like severe shortages of contracting officers in the field. “The Iraq-Kuwait-Afghanistan contracting problems have created a crisis,” the report states.
Congress and investigating agencies like the Government Accountability Office have in recent months assailed the Army for what they have described as a war-zone procurement system in disarray.
But the panel’s examination of the problem is the broadest to date and offers potentially the most far-reaching recommendations for fixing the shortcomings plaguing the supply system for a military that is increasingly conducting combat and stability operations around the globe.
The panel’s report, which runs about 100 pages including supporting documents, recommends increasing the number of Army contracting officers by about 25 percent, or 1,400, in coming years. It urges the department to improve training and to start young officers in the procurement corps soon after they join the Army, not after seven or eight years of other duties, as is common now.
The panel argues that the procurement corps, now dominated by civilians who balk at being sent to a war zone, must be trained to be an expeditionary force, just as Army combat forces train to deploy quickly for yearlong tours to Iraq,
“You need more people and better-trained people in contracting,” said a person who had been briefed on the report and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings had not been made public. “Right now, a lot of the work isn’t getting done or it’s done poorly.”
Some of the recommendations, including any increases in financing or changes in authority, would require Congressional approval, officials said. But several others will be up to Mr. Geren, the Army secretary, and senior Army leaders to carry out.
“I expect that the commission’s findings and recommendations will establish the blueprints for the adaptation of the Army’s acquisition management strategy into the next decade,” Mr. Geren wrote on Sept. 24, in issuing the commission’s charter.
Senior Army officials say the report’s “blunt, candid” language, as one put it, underscores the seriousness of the problem at a time when the Pentagon is increasingly reliant on contractors to wash laundry, prepare meals, stand sentry, provide armed security and do myriad other jobs.
While the report’s findings and recommendations focus on the Army, today’s military services operate jointly on battlefield, so the report’s impact will probably be felt across the armed forces.
“It’s absolutely true that the institution has to adapt,” said a senior Army official, who was not authorized to speak publicly before the report’s release. “How does this institution support an expeditionary army at war?”
Senior Army and Congressional officials say some of these changes are under way. But lawmakers have chastised the military for only recently ordering the creation of a special contracting corps of experienced procurement specialists, which Congress authorized two years ago.
These and other changes, the officials say, are long in coming, and if they had been put in place immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, they could have curbed much of the corruption that has surfaced since then.
“If you had had more personnel, who were better trained, on longer tours with more supervision, could you have cut the number of fraud, waste and corruption cases in half?” asked Raymond F. DuBois, a former senior Army official. “Yes.”
As of Oct. 24, the Army reported that it had 83 criminal inquiries related to contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to Christopher Grey, an Army spokesman. He said that 23 military and civilian staff members faced criminal charges, and that over $15 million in bribes had been uncovered.
One of the largest cases involves Maj. John Cockerham of the Army, who is accused of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction. Prosecutors have accused Major Cockerham, with his wife and sister, of taking at least $9.6 million in bribes in 2004 and 2005, when he was a contracting officer in Kuwait.
The panel, led by Jacques S. Gansler, the Pentagon’s top procurement official in the Clinton administration, was made up of civilian and retired military contracting and procurement specialists. The other members were two civilian procurement experts, David Berteau and George T. Singley III; and three retired military officers, Gen. David M. Maddox, Gen. Leon E. Salomon and Rear Adm. David R. Oliver.
A second Army review, led by Lt. Gen. N. Ross Thompson III and Kathryn Condon, two Army contracting specialists, is examining current contracting operations, particularly in Kuwait.