The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Hermit discovered living at Los Alamos

Adam Rankin illustrates how tight LANL security is by writing about a hermit who's lived on Los Alamos property for years, undetected:

Looking for a place to grow marijuana and live, rent-free, in a cave with all the creature comforts of home? Why not a canyon, tucked away within the 40 square miles of the nation's top-secret nuclear weapons research facility in Los Alamos?

That's where Roy Michael Moore, 56, was recently discovered living in a cave equipped with a glass front door, a wood stove, a bed, electricity-generating solar panels with batteries to store the power, and lights.

"From the campsite that I saw, he had been there quite a long time," said Los Alamos deputy fire chief Doug Tucker. "He had all the comforts of home... I was really impressed with his ability to set up a camp."

Tucker said he had heard Moore might have been living undetected in the cave in Los Alamos Canyon for as long as four years but couldn't confirm that.

...

In fact, Moore's cave in Los Alamos Canyon is just on the edge of LANL property near Technical Area 2, about half a mile east of where Diamond Drive crosses the canyon over Omega Bridge.

F/A-22 Raptor Speak: Depends On Who You Believe

Officials with defense contractor Lockheed Martin are already convinced that the struggle to get the F/A-22 fighter jet in the air is now a “done deal,” according to a story on the business cover of Tuesday’s New York Times (“Air Superiority at $258 Million a Pop”). While it is true that the fighter conceived as a cold war weapon is a political snowball rolling downhill, POGO Senior Defense Investigator Eric Miller points out that the Raptor has yet to formally complete operational testing and has not been approved for full-rate production by the Pentagon (unless Lockheed knows something Congress and the public don’t).

Lockheed Vice President Rob Weiss told the Times that “today all the technological challenges are behind us.” That’s not what we’re hearing. POGO sources say there are still problems with the aircraft’s highly-complex avionics – problems that could bring the total program price tag to about $80 billion from current estimates of $71.8 billion.

And another thing. If you use Government Accountability Office numbers, only 218 of the aircraft will be built, not 277 as the Air Force predicts. If the 218 number proves correct, the per aircraft acquisition cost could end up jumping to $329 million. It seems odd that Lockheed officials are so smug about the F/A-22 program in light of the fact that GAO said earlier this year the costs were so out of control that the Air Force needed to come up with a new business model that justifies the need for such hefty expenditures.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Today the NYT Editorial Board chimes in and concurs with POGO's assessment:

Americans can now feel reassured that if the Soviet Union ever springs back to life, restarts the cold war and designs a new MIG fighter more advanced than anything now in the skies, the United States Air Force is ready. Unfortunately, when it comes to fighting today's war in Iraq, the Pentagon is still struggling to get enough armor into the field to protect its exhausted and badly stretched troops and rebuild their battle-damaged equipment.

There are few more telling symbols of the Pentagon's disastrously misplaced priorities than this week's debut of the F/A-22 Raptor, the most expensive fighter ever built. This gold-plated cold war plane enters service some 23 years after it was first designed and at four times its originally projected price, even after adjusting for inflation. Every F-22 will cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars. The Air Force plans to buy 277.

...

The $72 billion for the Raptor could be much better spent protecting America's ground forces against the dangers they face today and will continue to face for the conceivable future.

WaPo drops the ball on the real question in Airbus crash

Responding to a Washington Post piece today on the National Transportation Safety Board's findings on the Airbus crash in 2001 that killed 260 people, Marcus Corbin of the Center for Defense Information writes:

Has the NTSB been captured by industry? It seems to me that they're following the classic whitewash approach of blaming the (dead) human pilot rather than holding the corporation (Airbus) accountable. Surely the bottom line should be that an aircraft's hardware and especially, nowadays, software should be designed so that the pilot CANNOT BREAK THE PLANE in normal flight. The Washington Post story on the verdict today didn't focus on this fundamental issue. Is there anybody out there who can shed light on whether this is a basic rule for aircraft design now, whether it should be if it's not, and whether it is not fundamentally wrong for a rudder to be breaking off at all, let alone because of the pilot's actions?

Intell Bills Expand Secrecy

Congress is expanding a particularly powerful exemption to the landmark Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) through intelligence reorganization bills in the House and Senate--and as far as anyone can tell, doesn't even know it.

Read this memo by the Center for National Security Studies for the legalese, but the gist of what's happening is as follows: Currently, the CIA can deny FOIA requests based on an exemption that allows them to do so without meaningful judicial review. The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) can utilize this exemption because of the legislated duty to “protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.” The Supreme Court has interpreted this phrase to mean that the CIA is exempt from FOIA because the CIA is "specifically exempted from disclosure by statute"--which is the (b)(3) FOIA exemption. The CIA has applied the exemption to entire categories of documents, including the total intelligence budget amount. Other intelligence agencies can currently use the (b)(3) exemption as long as specific legislation allowing them to do so is passed. For example, the controversial Critical Infrastructure Information exemption in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 falls under the rubric of (b)(3).

The new intelligence legislation creates a National Intelligence Director (NID), who will have some authority over the entire intelligence community. Additionally--and this is key--the legislated duty of the DCI to protect "intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure” is transferred to the new NID. Since the DCI can utilize (b)(3) over the entity underneath him or her--the CIA--it is reasonable to conclude that the NID can use (b)(3) over the entities they oversee--the entire intelligence community. As Kate Martin says in the memo above:

"The result would be a substantial infringement on the FOIA’s protection for the public’s right to know. This is particularly troubling in light of the bill’s expansion of the NID’s authority beyond traditional CIA concerns to domestic intelligence matters going to the core of Americans’ civil liberties. The FBI and Justice Department for example, withheld the list of names of those secretly arrested in the wake of 9/11 under exemption (b)(7), claiming that providing the names would reveal its terrorism investigation methods. If the pending language is enacted, such a list could be claimed as intelligence methods under (b)(3) and no court will even have the opportunity to require a justification for such secrecy."

There are certain legitimate application of (b)(3) (for instance, prohibiting the public disclosure of tax returns), but if, under the new legislation, (b)(3) may conceal government information that should be accessible. As is currently the case, specific legislation should be required allow the use of (b)(3). However, the intelligence bill, as it stands now, allows the use of (b)(3) throughout the intelligence community in one fell swoop. Moreover, it will be done without public debate.

The 9/11 Commission report says,

"Secrecy, while necessary, can also harm oversight. The overall budget of the intelligence community is classified, as are most of its activities. Thus, the [Congressional] Intelligence committees cannot take advantage of democracy’s best oversight mechanism: public oversight. This makes them significantly different from other congressional oversight committees, which are often spurred into action by the work of investigative journalists and watchdog organizations.”

Ironically, intelligence reform legislation sparked by the 9/11 Commission report could actually increase secrecy. This is a change prone to abuse with serious implications for civil rights, freedom of information, congressional oversight, and the ability of the public to hold government accountable.

Want 38 chamois shirts on the taxpayers dime?

The AP reports:

Two former Los Alamos National Laboratory employees accused of being part of a purchasing scandal that rocked the nuclear lab two years ago have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and mail fraud.

Peter Bussolini, 66, and Scott Alexander, 42, each entered guilty pleas in federal court Monday.

The Albuquerque Journal's Adam Rankin elaborates on how Los Alamos management prevented employees from voicing their concerns:

Top Los Alamos National Laboratory managers tried to quash the release of a highly critical internal report highlighting procurement fraud and financial waste, generated in response to congressional inquiries in 2003, according to testimony from a lab whistle-blower. For years, LANL's Tommy Hook, a former senior adviser for audits in the lab's Internal Evaluation Office, said he remained loyal to the weapons research facility where he has worked for 23 years. Then he realized that mechanisms for raising concerns and for protecting workers against management retaliation for speaking out are broken. "It just got to the point where we weren't going to let this go," he said after testifying Friday to the Legislature's Los Alamos National Laboratory Oversight Committee.

...

"This is a very sad day for me personally," Hook said, because he said he tried to resolve his differences internally with laboratory and UC management for close to a year with no success....

Hook and longtime laboratory employee and critic Chuck Montaño came before the state oversight committee asking the committee to press for congressional hearings on whistle-blower retaliation and abuse at the laboratory. Montaño, a 26-year lab employee and certified auditor, testified to the committee on behalf of the Hispanic Round Table, which has been fighting the laboratory over what it considers inequity in pay involving the laboratory's minority workers. Montaño said LANL managers retaliated against him for speaking out by not assigning him any work for nine months. Hook said he had no work for six months. [all emphasis POGO's]

Additionally, ex-police investigators Glenn Walp and Steve Doran--hired to investigate fraud at Los Alamos--were fired when they began uncovering fraud--the job they were hired to do! Working with POGO, other organizations and the media, Walp and Doran got Congress to pay attention to the fraud at Los Alamos and to demand accountability (visit POGO's archive on financial mismanagement at LANL).

From the illustrious Noah Schactman's Defense Tech "here's a partial list of some of the things Bussolini and Alexander bought on your dime [at Los Alamos National Laboratory]:"

5 Genesis Gold barbeque gas grills
1 19" Panasonic television/VCR combination set
4 Cobra 75 WV CB radios
3 30 Watt solar panels
3 automatic double gate openers w/ remotes
2 Wyoming saws
8 picnic tables
4 sage-colored Cabela Deluxe Arm Chair
38 chamois shirts
15 pairs of thinsulate gloves
152 assorted knives, including 8 "SOG M37 Seal Pup Knives"
13 motorcycle helmets
12 headlamps
5 ULT Command Center monitors
24 camping lanterns
4 olive drab ATV covers
1 Carhart XXXL coat
3 pair New Balance hiking boots
15 sleeping bags
4 sleeping pads
4 reclining loungers
4 "Portable Buddy Heaters"
6 parkas
5 "Portable Catalytic Heaters"
4 "Pocket Chain Saws"
4 "Deluxe Ratchet Pruners"
6 knife-sharpeners
6 Magellan Map 330M GPS units
8 pocket & micro torches
3 goretex jackets
4 stand-up heaters
3 pairs of "Polarized Lenses"
4 Rangesafe Ear Muffs
4 "Ultimate 10 Hearing Protectors"

Winslow on Wastrels

For years, Winslow Wheeler, a.k.a. "Spartacus," has been working hard for good government from both inside and outside the system. As you may recall Wheeler was publicly "outed" in a 2002 Washington Post story--and then abruptly forced into retirement from his Senate Budget Committee post by Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico)--after Wheeler wrote a scathing piece, "Mr. Smith is Dead," on Congressional defense pork using his pen name.

Now a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, Wheeler has expanded his thoughts in a new book on Congressional defense pork. His book, The Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security (the dictionary defines a wastrel as “one who wastes, especially one who wastes money, a profligate,”), argues that since 9/11, the conduct of Congress has reached a new low and is endangering the nation's security.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Wheeler wrote several critical think pieces under the name Spartacus exposing the ways members of Congress and military bureacrats put their own personal interests ahead of the public interest in defense budgeting matters. Wheeler has a rich background and is well-credentialed in defense matters: He was an investigator with the Government Accountability Office and has worked for both Republicans and Democrats.

An excerpt from his book:

The effect on our national security may not yet be apparent to most Americans, but it is alarming. Congress is not just dithering with national security--it is trashing it. The military effectiveness American forces have shown in two wars against Iraq is not because of, but despite, Congress' work. U.S. armed forces are not supported at the level most Americans have been led to expect. The leadership in Congress and in the Pentagon work to pursue personal and career agendas, not national security.

"Weapons We Can't Afford" (and don't need--or work)

David Ignatius had a noteworthy op-ed published in today's Washington Post. Entitled, "Weapons We Can't Afford," Ignatius makes the case that several high-profile weapons systems should be cut or drastically scaled back. These billion-dollar weapons are built for threats that don't exist (ex. F-22 Raptor), are unproven (ex. National Missile Defense), and/or are highly flawed/dangerous (ex. V-22 Osprey).

One of Ignatius's last examples of systems he would cut is the Virginia-class attack submarine:

Perhaps the craziest Pentagon spending plan is to purchase 30 new Virginia-class attack submarines, at a cost of (this is not a misprint) $2 billion each. The United States already has the best attack subs in the world -- those of the Los Angeles class. What's the threat that these $2 billion subs are needed to combat? Cutting the program would save $2 billion to $3 billion annually.

He's right: the only reason to build attack submarines now or in the foreseeable future is not to counter threats, but for Congressmen to bring home the bacon. It is simply military pork-barrel spending that isn't about defense. Rather it's about appeasing special interests while fleecing the taxpayer. Even the Navy thinks we don't need as many subs. As Ignatius says,

In wartime, the defense budget is even more of a sacred cow than usual, but that shouldn't be. What's sacred is spending the money to protect troops and achieve victory in this war. But the United States is still spending billions for weapons systems that were conceived to fight an adversary that has already been defeated -- the Soviet Union. (emphasis mine)

Again, "What's sacred is spending the money to protect troops and achieve victory in this war." Spending money on obsolete weapons systems that serve to waste money, time and other resources comes at the expense of crucial--often cheaper--but less sexy needs. The now infamous example is that many troops in Iraq were having to buy their own body armor because there weren't enough supplied by the military. Body armor may not be as high-profile or as expensive as the F-22, yet for troops, having it is a matter of life and death.

Not only are the American taxpayers paying for this folly, but more importantly our troops are paying as well.

9/11 Families: Declassify Information on Terrorist Financing

This afternoon, 9/11 families called on President Bush to declassify 28 secret pages detailing terrorist financing, calling it "unjustifiably classified material." It was sponsored by the William Doyle 9/11 Support Group, a bi-partisan group representing more than 7,000 families who lost family members and/or were victims who suffered injuries in the 9/11 attacks.

The pages in question are the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Pages 2-3 of the 28 secret pages on terrorist financing (click to see larger image):

In his book Intelligence Matters, Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) says that after reviewing the 28 pages with Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), they both concluded that "95 percent of that material was safe for public consumption, and that these pages were being kept secret for reasons other than national security." Both men are former chairmen of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and have called, along with other Senators and Representatives from both parties, for the declassification of these pages.

According to the 9/11 Families group, these pages identify "banks, charities, corporations and individuals who were financing terrorism then, and probably even now." And this information is crucial since, as Senator Graham has stated, "Eliminating the support systems that facilitated their evil (the terrorists) in the United States [is] a critical line of domestic defense, and yet the part of the report that would give the American people the clearest window into that system and who was responsible for it was censored."

This shroud of secrecy over the 28 pages is symptomatic of too much secrecy in the government. In late August, at a House Government Reform subcommittee hearing on over-classification, after pressed by Representative Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) to estimate what percentage of all classified information is and is not correctly classified, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Counterintelligence and Security Carol A. Haave, estimated that 50% of information classified should not be.

The Halliburton saga continues

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, put it best when he said, "When you keep finding problems, you're a damned fool to keep working with the same guy," referring to Halliburton. "It seems to me that the Pentagon has been taken for a ride." (source: GovExec 10/4/04)

The GovExec story on Halliburton gives a quick summary of some of its recent tumultuous history and examines the fact that despite its numerous questionable activities, Halliburton keeps winning contracts. The latest contract, a $1.2 billion competitively-bid contract awarded in January, was meant to replace the no-bid contract that Halliburton was awarded to repair Iraq's oil industry (this first contract was belatedly announced right before the war in March 2003). However, this second contract was awarded just days after "Pentagon auditors waved red flags." The Defense Department's principal auditing agency, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, told the Army Corp of Engineers that Halliburton had "significant deficiences" in its ability to estimate cost. The auditing agency also called for a DoD Inspector General investigation into the overcharging of at least $61 million in gasoline imports by Halliburton. (These and other examples of corporate misconduct by Halliburton are covered in POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian's testimony to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on 9/10/04.)

According to P.W. Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Corporate Warriors, "In government contracting, we usually disqualify companies that are in the midst of multiple investigations."

POGO seconds this line of thinking and has other recommendations as well. Earlier this year POGO updated its Federal Contracting and Iraq Reconstruction Report. In brief, the report's recommendations are geared toward the systemic problems in the federal contracting system, of which Halliburton is only the tip of the iceberg, and are (see the report for more details):

1. Full & Open Bidding.
2. Fairness.
3. Competitive Bidding.
4. Modify Procurement Practices.
5. Restore Funding for Contract Oversight.

POGO to NRC: "Conflict of Interest" explained

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sent POGO a letter last Friday responding to our criticism of Wackenhut as the choice to test security at nuclear power plants. Wackenhut provides security at about half the nuclear power sites in the nation--hence a conflict of interest. However NRC claims that this apparent conflict does not matter. Their explanation is that the function of oversight over the tests lies with NRC, not with Wackenhut.

Both the Commission and the nuclear power industry, represented by the Nuclear Energy Institute (which chose Wackenhut and gave NRC talking points which they seem to parrot in the above letter), still don’t seem to get what we, and others, are talking about when we say “conflict of interest.” It’s a legal term of art. "More generally, it can be defined as any situation in which an individual is able to exploit their professional or official capacity in some way," (from Wikipedia). In court cases, both sides must have the fullest confidence in a judge’s impartiality--if there’s a real or seeming conflict, the judge traditionally recuses him or herself, so the outcome of the case isn’t questioned.

What we have in the force-on-force tests is something very similar. In this case, the public, whom the NRC is charged with protecting from nuclear plant attacks, must have full confidence in the capabilities of plant guards. And the public sees a conflict of interest in having Wackenhut test Wackenhut. The NRC admits as much, according to their letter:

"The NRC recognizes that some may perceive a conflict of interest regarding the industry's selection of a CAF [composite adversary force--the mock attacking force] management organization that provides protective services to a large portion of the operating power reactors."

Do we have faith that the NRC will aggressively monitor these evaluations? Yes. But, as our senior investigator Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department official, will tell you, cheating on these tests is endemic and very easy to do even with "oversight" by a government agency. Cheating may not be immediately obvious to those overseeing tests. For example, how do NRC officials know if an attacking force let defending guards know which direction they're coming from?

Anyhow, Wackenhut's record should have barred it from winning the mock attacker contract. Why? Because Wackenhut has cheated, at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge facility--as recently as last year.

View POGO's Nuclear Power Security Archives for background information.

"Government oversight" privatized

Two posts back, we highlighted the breakdown of contract oversight amidst increased government contracting, often without competition. The post was ended by noting that even oversight functions are being contracted out.

Today’s LA Times covers a development in the outsourcing of government oversight which Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has called “ominous.” The General Services Administration turned over control of the Federal Procurement Data System, a database that tracks federal spending, to Global Computer Enterprises.

POGO flagged the fact that the first GSA report done by Global is 8 pages long; the report done in-house by GSA last year was 192 pages. (Since POGO noted the difference, GSA has posted a longer, more detailed report.) This is strong evidence that transparency may be decreasing under this privatized system.

David A. Drabkin, the GSA's deputy chief acquisition officer, attempts to explain this discrepancy in the LA Times article:

Drabkin said the report, compiled during the transition year, was truncated because the number of federal employees maintaining data had been reduced from 15 to three as Global began to take over.

But it seems that the gutting of GSA was cause for the outsourcing to Global in the first place:

Steven L. Schooner, a former federal procurement official who teaches procurement law at George Washington University, said the government had cut so many federal acquisition positions that it had been forced to hire a private firm to do the work of government employees.

So by gutting in-house governmental operations to save money, we then spend possibly more money on private contractors for a job that should be inherently governmental?

Dragonlady gets her tail caught in the revolving door

"The stain of this offense is very severe," said Judge T.S. Ellis of the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, while sentencing Darlene Druyun this morning. Druyun, also known as the Dragonlady for being a tough negotiator, was the second-most senior Air Force procurement official and, while overseeing billions of dollars of Air Force contracts, was involved in discussions with Boeing for a $250,000-a-year job. She was sentenced to nine months in prison, a $5,000 fine, three years of supervised relase and 150 hours of community service.

Druyun (who referred to herself as the "Godmother of the C-17") pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate federal conflict-of-interest regulations on a technical basis. That is, she initially admitted only knowingly violating regulations, but not to using her position in the Pentagon to give Boeing advantages. However, she failed a lie detector test and then admitted that she "did favor the Boeing Company in certain negotiations as a result of her employment negotiations and other favors provided by Boeing to the defendant," according to the supplemental statement of facts and supplemental plea agreement. Druyun helped Boeing obtain a grossly-inflated $23 billion deal where the Pentagon would lease Boeing tankers, rather than buy them (and save up to $5 billion). Essentially, she was negotiating for Boeing rather than the government at this point. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Wiechering said, "she did this as a parting gift to Boeing and to ingratiate herself into Boeing."

For more information on the Boeing tanker deal check out our Contractor Bailout Archives and our new report The Politics of Contracting.