Hope is not a plan

Hopefully, this online report from WJHG concerning student testing results will have been edited to fix this error by the time anyone clicks through to see it.

Representatives from over a good century of countries are meeting in Dublin this week in an effort to secure a cluster munition ban. This is not the first such meeting. Another took place earlier this year in New Zealand with the same goal. This time, like last time, the biggest purveyors of cluster munitions -- the United States, Russia, and China -- are not in attendance. Neither are cluster munition fans Israel, Pakistan, and India. Our quote is particularly stellar:

The US has said that it favours non-binding guidelines on the use of the weapon.

I really, really want someone from the current administration to step up and ask an analyst at DIA to do a cost-benefit analysis on cluster munitions. What problems do they solve that a standard laser-guided munition does not? As I discussed in an earlier post, there is extensive evidence of the massive civilian collateral damage caused by cluster munitions, often years and years after the conflict, but there is a strict paucity of countervailing evidence support the weak claim that cluster munitions actually reduce collateral damage by being "less destructive" at the moment of use.

Mark Garlasco, a campaigner for New-York based Human Rights Watch spoke to Al Jazeera from Dublin.

Garlasco said: "I have seen cluster munitions used across the world... in Lebanon... in Iraq. These are the types of weapons that should never be used. There is no way to use these weapons in a legal manner.

You can read more about the ban effort at the Cluster Munition Coalition website. You can read about Israel violating our terms of use agreement on cluster munitions we sold to them during the 2006 summer war in Lebanon in this earlier post.

al Jazeera article

In response to a combined protest by IAP Worldwide Services and Contingency Management Group against the awarding of an Army logistics contract to KBR, GAO released this decision supporting the protest.

In brief, GAO pointed out the drastic discrepancy between the actual evaluation of KBR's past performance by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which tended to rank somewhere between disappointing and adequate, and the "oustanding" rating given to KBR in considering its expected performance on the logistics contract. Rather than letting the Army's procurement folks slap undeserved gold stars all over KBR before handing them a pile of money, GAO is forcing them to reconsider the contract victory in light of KBR's history of lowballing their estimates, overcharging, and providing inadequate services.

No mention, of course, of the ongoing fraud at KBR, although one imagines that plays into their contracts going over budget and their failure to properly serve our troops.

Here's a relevant snippet from this long and complex (and partially redacted for public release) decision:

Based on our review, while we recognize that the agency considered the DCAA audit report to some extent during its evaluation of KBRSI’s proposal, we have concern that the record does not support the agency’s rating of KBRSI’s proposal as “outstanding” under the business systems subfactor. Even though the agency has supported its “outstanding” rating for this subfactor with numerous significant strengths, AR, Tab 8, SSEB Report, at 43-44, it is difficult to reconcile that rating with DCAA’s expressed concerns regarding KBRSI’s accounting, estimating, purchasing, and billing business systems. In this regard, as noted above, the business systems were to be evaluated as to “how well it is able to provide effective contract oversight and tracking of costs, subcontracts, equipment, personnel, and changes in requirements in a contingency environment,” and “how well the proposed systems will provide complete, reliable, timely, consistent and transparent data to permit effective Government oversight and management,” to which matters the DCAA concerns are very pertinent. See RFP at 100.

In sum, although the record indicates that the Army considered or was at least aware of DCAA’s concerns regarding KBRSI’s business systems, it appears that DCAA had ongoing concerns with KBRSI’s business systems that had not been completely addressed by the time of the evaluation here. The Army does not explain why these concerns did not remain a factor in the evaluation or why the DCMA ACO’s “approv[al]” (either previous or subsequent) of the business systems in question addressed DCAA’s concerns regarding the merits of the business systems proposed. We also have concerns about the apparent inconsistency between the numerous instances in which the record characterizes KBRSI’s business systems as “adequate” and the agency’s ultimate evaluation of KBRSI’s proposal under the business systems subfactor as “outstanding.”

This is at least the second time within the last year that KBR has been taken to task by GAO on the basis of their history of failure and misrepresentation. It can only be a good thing if other contractors smell blood in the water on this one, and KBR can be taken off the war profiteering free ride it's been on for so many years.

After all, if we're going to end up paying more anyway, we should employ contractors who will actually deliver the services they promise.