Expect a lighter posting schedule this week, with a couple of sure-to-be-excellent guest posts by WIB contributor Dave Maass. He promises not to review this 2008 Jessica Simpson vehicle. (“From A-List to En-List…” God God.)
I’m skipping town to replenish my Vitamin D levels in an Arabic-speaking North African country (not that one). The investment advice feed is on auto-pilot. Consult your broker.
One more thing. It’s a reminder.
This website is a project with big ambitions. One of those is to build a network of occasional correspondents from all over the world.
If you’d like to contribute to WIB, send me a note via the contact page. There’s no need to send a complete résumé, but do let me know your location, availability, relevant skills (writing, photography, research, tech) and your interest in the site.
This morning’s Wartime Contracting Commission hearing in Washington, DC is an example the kind of thing I would’ve liked to have covered with a live pair of eyes and ears. Alas. Maybe it’ll be on C-SPAN?
Here’s the official announcement, in case anybody wants to listen in and take notes.
Wartime Contracting Commission will take sworn testimony from contractors on Afghan construction
…The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 14, in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, 2nd and C Streets, NE, Washington, DC. The hearing is open to the public and to news media…
Industry witnesses for the Feb. 14 session will be:
William Van Dyke, President, Black & Veatch Special Projects, which participated in construction of a $300 million power plant in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Michael E. McKelvy, President, Government, Environment & Nuclear Division, CH2M Hill, whose work in Afghanistan has included military-base expansions.
Charles Mouzannar, Executive Vice President, AMEC Earth and Environmental, Inc., which is responsible for the Afghan Defense University in Kabul and the Afghan National Army garrison in Herat.
… Projects include power plants, schools, hospitals and clinics, prisons, facilities for the Afghan National Army and Police, plus facilities for use by American and allied troops in the country.
Commission Co-Chairs Michael Thibault [the Democratic appointee, who started working for Pentagon contractors after leaving a job as a contract auditor for the Pentagon] and Christopher Shays [the Republican appointee, a former Congressman and Peace Corps volunteer] said the hearing will include discussion of problems with planning, costs, delays, and host-nation sustainability of construction projects, but has other purposes as well.
“Contractors have taken a lot of criticism for their performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, including from us,” Thibault said. “But they have also, in general, provided vital, quality support to our military and to American policy objectives in Afghanistan. We’ll have some challenging questions about their performance, but we also want to hear from contractors how the government could do a better job of planning and managing contracts.”
Co-Chair Shays said, “After more than nine years of U.S. military, reconstruction, and development operations in Afghanistan, we are still seeing an alarming incidence of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some waste will always occur when you’re operating in a remote, impoverished country with different cultural norms and an active insurgency. But some of the problems are due to bad planning, insufficient attention to competitive acquisition, and poor oversight-weaknesses that should have been corrected long ago. And just as alarming are projects that are done well but also become waste because they are not culturally sensitive or sustainable after our forces leave.”