Contractors and the US Military

[Victor]

Snippet from Article on Pentagon Procurement in NY times:

"Currently, for instance, half of the military budget is outsourced to contractors, while oversight of these contracts has declined, the report said. The Pentagon has reduced the number of government officials who supervise contractors, instead hiring contractors to oversee and manage others, according to the report. The Pentagon hired a contractor to determine how many contractors it had employed, the report said."

nice!

[VaSteve]

Someone told me once that the next logical step is to contract out the actual fighting for us....it's only a matter of time.

[Superman]

Get your resume's in to Haliburton.

[bryanthompson]

BTW, lefties, Haliburton has been involved in the rebuilding of infrastructure after every military venture the US has been in since Vietnam. It's what they do, they're the best at it. In a lot of these places, Haliburton built the original equipment and setup, wouldn't it make sense to have them rebuild it?

[widebody911]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
BTW, lefties, Haliburton has been involved in the rebuilding of infrastructure after every military venture the US has been in since Vietnam. It's what they do, they're the best at it. In a lot of these places, Haliburton built the original equipment and setup, wouldn't it make sense to have them rebuild it?

Absolutely! The company most qualified to replace a $1200 toilet seat is the one who sold it to your for $1200 in the first place.

[mikester]

What other American corporation is there with the qualifications to do the work?

[Adam]

What other American corporation is there with the qualifications to do the work?

OCP? Dick Jones would be only too happy to help.

[djmcmath]

Originally posted by widebody911
Absolutely! The company most qualified to replace a $1200 toilet seat is the one who sold it to your for $1200 in the first place.

FYI, I've never signed off on a $1200 toilet seat. I did spend USDT600 (that's spoken "600 US Taxpayer Dollars") on a spiffy piece of wire, though. It was about 4 feet long and had fancy connectors on either end. Made of copper, maybe 10 gauge -- the sort of thing your 10yr old son could fashion in an hour with $10 worth of commonly available stuff. Oh, and it was QCAL, which means it was certified for use in nuclear systems exposed to sea pressure.

Then there was the system card for one of our weapons consoles. We spent a lot of money converting all of our computers to COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf, like you could buy at your local computer store) systems to make replacement parts more available. An interface card died on us, and the supply officer explained that the supplier had none, didn't know when they'd be able to get more, and that it was a $900 card. At that time, we were broke -- anything over $100 had to be approved by the Commodore, so a $900 card was out of the question. Oh, and without that card, we couldn't launch missiles -- our primary mission. ..... So one of the missile techs went home that night, hunted for the part number on eBay, bought a card for $85. Crazy.

Dan

[fintstone]

Washington Post
September 30, 2004
Pg. E1
No-Bid Defense Contracts Found To Be Common
By Renae Merle, Washington Post Staff Writer
More than 40 percent of the Pentagon's $900 billion in prime contracts during the past six years have been awarded without competitive bidding, according to a Center for Public Integrity study released yesterday.

The nonpartisan group found that the Pentagon's largest contractors, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Dynamics Corp., received a majority of their defense revenue through no-bid contracts. Also, about $8 billion in work has been awarded since 1998 to unnamed companies designated as classified contractors, most of it without competition, the report said.

The center examined more than 2.2 million contract records and focused on 737 companies that received at least $100 million in Pentagon funds from 1998 to 2003. "This report shows that competitive bidding at the Pentagon happens less often than we think," said Charles Lewis, the center's executive director.

The use of sole-source contracts has become political fodder since Halliburton Co. was awarded a no-bid contract last year worth billions to help rebuild Iraqi oil fields.

Industry and government officials argue that the consolidation of the industry has reduced the Pentagon's options in obtaining some weapons, rendering competition moot. For example, Northrop Grumman Corp. is the country's last remaining maker of aircraft carriers. It's also common for the Pentagon to order additional quantities of a weapon through a sole-source contract after holding a competition.

The report found that the Defense Department has become increasingly dependent on outside contractors at the same time it has lost many of the procurement officials meant to monitor their work. In some cases, the department has hired one company to monitor the work of another, Lewis said.

The department is examining the report and trying to understand the context of its findings, said spokesman Glenn Flood. The individual services -- Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines -- make decisions on no-bid contracts on a case-by-case basis, he said. "We are in charge of the contractors," Flood said. "The contractors are not calling the final shots."

More than 70 percent of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin's $90 billion in prime contracts during the past six years were awarded without a full or open competition, according to the report. That excludes revenue Lockheed, the Pentagon's largest contractor, received through joint ventures.

A Lockheed spokesman said the company had not examined the center's results, but a certain number of sole-source contracts should be expected in a firm of its size. When Lockheed wins contracts to develop a weapons systems through the competitive process, it is often followed years later with a sole-source contract to produce the product, said company spokesman Thomas C. Greer.

It is not "cost effective for the Department of Defense to develop a second source for production," Greer said in a statement. "It is important to note that sole-source awards still mandate contract performance. Failure to perform does result in significant penalties."

At the same time, some contractors spent significant amounts on political campaigns and lobbying, the report said. The 737 largest contractors examined in the report spent $214 million in campaign contributions through political action committees, soft money donations and individual contributions from company executives, employees and their families. The companies contributing the largest amounts were in industries outside of defense contracting, including transportation and telecommunications firms, but they had won some Pentagon business. Overall, the report said, a surprising number of companies gave little or nothing at all.

President Bush received $5.4 million in political contributions from defense contractors between 1998 and July 31 of this year. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) collected nearly $2 million during the same period.

The report also found several large defense firms with contracts federally designated for small businesses. In some cases, the large firms inherited the work from a smaller company it recently took over, the report said. In other cases, companies still had their small-business contracts long after they outgrew the designation.

[ed martin]

What's the big beef? Haliburton, Lockheed and Grumman are all American companies with a wealth of experience dealing with major contracts on a grand scale. How many qualified companies are there?The money goes into the pockets of educated American engineers, technicians and the people that make our country what is, a leader in technology. Ultimately the money gets spent here in the states and to a large degree helps drive the economic engine.

[turbo6bar]

Originally posted by ed martin
What's the big beef? Haliburton, Lockheed and Grumman are all American companies with a wealth of experience dealing with major contracts on a grand scale. How many qualified companies are there?The money goes into the pockets of educated American engineers, technicians and the people that make our country what is, a leader in technology. Ultimately the money gets spent here in the states and to a large degree helps drive the economic engine.

It's not the dollar. It's how well you spend it. I don't accept gross waste and misuse of funding by the government, and if private contractors are wasting money through incompetence or fraud, they should be punished. That's not saying Haliburton shouldn't get the job. Haliburton may very well be the best company for the job, but maintain checks and balances. Would Hillary send Bill to an intern conference and say,"I trust you, Bill?"
Jürgen

[john70t]

"The money goes into the pockets of educated American engineers, technicians and the people that make our country what is, a leader in technology"
-I don't agree with that statement and believe the outsourcing of computer code (which runs wall street and the nukes) to China and India leaves the US vulnerable.

Even after 911, airport security and border patrol is being outsourced to Bahama-based paper companies which don't have to follow US law. The last time I went through airport and had my nuts grabbed, I knew there wasen't a thing I could do about it.