yasin_khan
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The U.S. military spends billions of dollars annually to buy planes, ships, armored vehicles and ammunition, but in recent years it has spent even more on service contracts — many of them without competitive bids.
The Defense Department spent more than $122 billion on services in 2003, or about 56 percent of the money it paid to defense contractors that year, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan public policy research organization. The purchased services range from feeding troops to interrogating Iraqi prisoners to helping draft the budget request the defense secretary sends to Congress each winter. Contractors were even hired to write a handbook to govern the use of contractors in war.
Other findings from a detailed study of Pentagon contracting during the past six years show that:
• About 44 percent of the Pentagon’s contracts — $362 billion worth since 1998 — are awarded without competitive bidding.
• Money awarded to contractors increased 59 percent, from $129 billion to $219 billion, between 1998 and 2003.
• The biggest defense contractors receive the most no-bid contracts.
• The biggest defense contractors donate lavishly to political campaigns of candidates in both major parties and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying to influence Congress.
The military’s growing reliance on contractors is part of a government-wide shift toward outsourcing that began in earnest in the early 1990s, according to Larry Makinson, who managed the study.
Promoted as “Reinventing Government†under President Bill Clinton, the effort to cut government payrolls and shift work to contractors was touted as a way to improve productivity and cut costs. It continued under President George W. Bush, who promised to let private companies compete with government workers for 450,000 jobs.
The cost savings are debatable, particularly since nearly half of all contracts are awarded without full and open competition, said Makinson.
Among the top 10 defense contractors, only one — Science Applications International Corp. — received more than half of its contract awards through competition, said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity. “All the others won most of their federal funds through sole source and other no-bid contracts,†he said.
“Whenever possible, we encourage competition,†said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. But no-bid contracts aren’t necessarily a bad thing. When items are needed in a hurry, such as body armor for troops in Iraq, awarding a contract to a known supplier may be the fastest way to get them, he said. Seeking, receiving and evaluating bids could add months to the process.
And when buying major weapons, such as aircraft carriers or the planes that go on them, often there is only one producer. “It’s a case-by-case thing,†Flood said.
Half of the defense budget now goes to private contractors — $208 billion of the $416 billion budget for 2005, not counting additional spending for the war in Iraq, the Center for Public Integrity found.
Such vast reliance on contractors has led to a “stunning lack of accountability†over how tax money is being spent and how some of the basic work of government is being done, Lewis said.
Tens of thousands of contractors are spending taxpayer money to conduct government business, but are not bound by federal ethics rules, Freedom of formation laws, the Uniform Code of Military Justice or other forms of accountability, he said.
Among Army contract workers, for example, were CACI International employees hired to interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Two CACI workers were named in an Army investigation as among those involved in abusing Iraqi prisoners.
How CACI ended up with a contract to provide interrogation services is itself under question. The company was hired by the Army through the General Services Administration (GSA), which approved CACI as a provider of information technology services. CACI was not qualified by the GSA to supply interrogation, intelligence or security services, yet was hired by the Army for those purposes, said Dan Guttman, author of part of the Center for Public Integrity study.
The Army “lacks the most basic information on its contract work force,†Guttman said. In 2002, the Army’s best estimate of the number of service contract workers it employed was between 124,000 and 605,000. Former Army Secretary Thomas White called for collection of more reliable data on contractors, but the work has yet to be done.
Lack of adequate contract oversight is due in part to a 50 percent cut in the military’s acquisition work force, Guttman said. From 1990 to 1999, the Defense Department work force dedicated to overseeing contractors was reduced from 460,500 to 230,500.
The positive side to relying on contractors is that it frees uniformed personnel to focus on inherently military tasks, such as combat, Flood said. Defense secretaries under the current and previous administrations have promoted greater reliance on contractors, he said.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=381766&C=america
The Defense Department spent more than $122 billion on services in 2003, or about 56 percent of the money it paid to defense contractors that year, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan public policy research organization. The purchased services range from feeding troops to interrogating Iraqi prisoners to helping draft the budget request the defense secretary sends to Congress each winter. Contractors were even hired to write a handbook to govern the use of contractors in war.
Other findings from a detailed study of Pentagon contracting during the past six years show that:
• About 44 percent of the Pentagon’s contracts — $362 billion worth since 1998 — are awarded without competitive bidding.
• Money awarded to contractors increased 59 percent, from $129 billion to $219 billion, between 1998 and 2003.
• The biggest defense contractors receive the most no-bid contracts.
• The biggest defense contractors donate lavishly to political campaigns of candidates in both major parties and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying to influence Congress.
The military’s growing reliance on contractors is part of a government-wide shift toward outsourcing that began in earnest in the early 1990s, according to Larry Makinson, who managed the study.
Promoted as “Reinventing Government†under President Bill Clinton, the effort to cut government payrolls and shift work to contractors was touted as a way to improve productivity and cut costs. It continued under President George W. Bush, who promised to let private companies compete with government workers for 450,000 jobs.
The cost savings are debatable, particularly since nearly half of all contracts are awarded without full and open competition, said Makinson.
Among the top 10 defense contractors, only one — Science Applications International Corp. — received more than half of its contract awards through competition, said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity. “All the others won most of their federal funds through sole source and other no-bid contracts,†he said.
“Whenever possible, we encourage competition,†said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. But no-bid contracts aren’t necessarily a bad thing. When items are needed in a hurry, such as body armor for troops in Iraq, awarding a contract to a known supplier may be the fastest way to get them, he said. Seeking, receiving and evaluating bids could add months to the process.
And when buying major weapons, such as aircraft carriers or the planes that go on them, often there is only one producer. “It’s a case-by-case thing,†Flood said.
Half of the defense budget now goes to private contractors — $208 billion of the $416 billion budget for 2005, not counting additional spending for the war in Iraq, the Center for Public Integrity found.
Such vast reliance on contractors has led to a “stunning lack of accountability†over how tax money is being spent and how some of the basic work of government is being done, Lewis said.
Tens of thousands of contractors are spending taxpayer money to conduct government business, but are not bound by federal ethics rules, Freedom of formation laws, the Uniform Code of Military Justice or other forms of accountability, he said.
Among Army contract workers, for example, were CACI International employees hired to interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Two CACI workers were named in an Army investigation as among those involved in abusing Iraqi prisoners.
How CACI ended up with a contract to provide interrogation services is itself under question. The company was hired by the Army through the General Services Administration (GSA), which approved CACI as a provider of information technology services. CACI was not qualified by the GSA to supply interrogation, intelligence or security services, yet was hired by the Army for those purposes, said Dan Guttman, author of part of the Center for Public Integrity study.
The Army “lacks the most basic information on its contract work force,†Guttman said. In 2002, the Army’s best estimate of the number of service contract workers it employed was between 124,000 and 605,000. Former Army Secretary Thomas White called for collection of more reliable data on contractors, but the work has yet to be done.
Lack of adequate contract oversight is due in part to a 50 percent cut in the military’s acquisition work force, Guttman said. From 1990 to 1999, the Defense Department work force dedicated to overseeing contractors was reduced from 460,500 to 230,500.
The positive side to relying on contractors is that it frees uniformed personnel to focus on inherently military tasks, such as combat, Flood said. Defense secretaries under the current and previous administrations have promoted greater reliance on contractors, he said.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=381766&C=america