TPMDC Commission on Wartime Contracting
President Obama's earliest supporters, many of whom were first attracted to him because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, spent Friday cheering the news that all U.S. troops would be out of the country by the end of the year.
Still, for core Democratic voters and all war-weary Americans, serious questions remain about how the decision was made, the extent and propriety of the United States' continued commitment and what it means for the mission in Afghanistan.
Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, held a conference call Friday afternoon to try to answer some of those lingering questions.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Commission on Wartime Contracting, Iraq, State Department, White House
Claire McCaskill
McCaskill So 'God-Damn Mad' About Wartime Contracting Abuses
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
While channeling President Harry Truman and fuming about wartime contracting waste and abuse, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) dropped a "god-damn" just for emphasis at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who chaired the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, was thanking McCaskill for her "excellent testimony," noting that he was struck by her reference to Truman who proceeded over a bumpy reconversion from a wartime economy.
"I know you're keeping that spirit alive," he told her. "It struck me that if we could go and interview him about this commission report and then release the transcript, we would have to delete several expletives."
Topics: Chris Shays, Claire McCaskill, Commission on Wartime Contracting, Harry Truman, Joe Lieberman
David Petraeus
Feinstein, Petraeus Say Wartime Contractors Must Go
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
After the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the intelligence community, consisting of everything from the CIA to the Homeland Security Department, is outsourcing too much of its work to private contractors and is breaking a pledge to reduce the number of private contractors hired to help conduct, collect and analyze information.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, pointed out the broken promise at a hearing Tuesday, noting that the intelligence community is not living up to a commitment to reduce private contractors by 5 percent a year.
"We had an agreement in 2009 to reduce [intelligence community] contractor numbers by 5 percent a year, but it's clear that progress has not been maintained and sufficient cuts are not being made," Feinstein told a joint-hearing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to assess progress in U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis over the last ten years.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Blackwater Worldwide, Commission on Wartime Contracting, David Petraeus, Dianne Feinstein, House Intelligence Committee, Senate intelligence committee, director of national intelligence
Commission on Wartime Contracting
U.S. Needs To Improve Safeguards To Avoid Rehiring 'Bad Actor' Defense Contractors
The U.S. government's dependence on private contractors for work in Afghanistan and Iraq has hampered competition and favored incumbent contractors regardless of whether they have a record of criminal or fraudulent activities, according to a new report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting.
That finding was a focus of a Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing Monday that discussed methods to exact more accountability from private contractors, including recording incumbent contractors' performance assessments into a federal database accessible to all government agencies. Michael Thibault, the former deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and former Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) chair the commission.
"If you hired somebody to paint your house and they tracked paint all over your carpet, you probably wouldn't use them again and you might even negotiate a price that was less than you originally agreed to," said Wartime Contracting Commissioner Grant Green.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: 'Obama's Wars', Afghanistan, Blackwater Worldwide, Chris Shays, Commission on Wartime Contracting, Iraq, Privatization, procurement reform
