Yesterday, the nonprofit watchdog journalism organization the Center for Public Integrity published "Windfalls of War II," an update of its George Polk Award-winning 2003 investigation of U.S. contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are some of the Center's key findings:
- U.S. government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan have grown more than 50 percent annually, from $11 billion in 2004 to more than $25 billion in 2006. "Iraq remains the clear priority of the U.S. government," according to the Center, "with more than seven times as many contracting dollars designated for spending there as for Afghanistan."
- Of the $13 billion awarded through cost-plus contracts (which guarantee the vendor either a fixed amount of profit or a set percentage of profit above its cost), 30 percent was awarded through simple cost-plus, fixed-fee arrangements that offer no incentives for cost savings.
- Former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, Inc. is the largest single contractor with $16 billion in contracts from 2004 to 2006, nearly nine times larger than the second largest contractor, DynCorp International. However, KBR's share is eclipsed by the $20.4 billion awarded to "unidentifiable foreign entities."
The site also features a search engine that provides full-text access to hundreds of documents, including reports, audits, testimony, project site inspections, and correspondence. Not surprisingly, many of the top 100 contractors in the report, including six of the top ten, are in POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.
The first "Windfalls of War" was released in October 2003. It took six months to complete and involved a team of 20 editors, researchers and writers (including yours truly) and 73 Freedom of Information Act requests, some of which had to be fought over in federal court. "Windfalls I" found that 71 companies and individuals were awarded almost $8 billion in reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003. (Over the next year, the Center would add 63 more companies and billions of dollars to the contract total.) KBR led the pack in 2003 with more than $2.3 billion in contracts. Most significantly, the report discovered that these contractors had donated more money to George W. Bush than to any other politician, and many boasted former high-ranking government and military officials among their employees or directors.
However, for those of us who worked on "Windfalls I," the most disturbing finding was the almost comically-absurd nature of the government contracting process. The documents provided to the Center by contracting officials were a bewildering and disorganized mess, often containing inaccurate information or copious redactions. Each agency had its own cryptic method for reporting contract values and other pertinent information. Often, before releasing any information to the Center, officials checked with the contractor to obtain their approval. As mentioned previously, the Center had to resort to litigation to get the government to release certain information.
By contrast, the new report finds the contracting process "more transparent and the search for data—available from the General Service Administration's Federal Procurement Data System—more methodical." However, it notes that significant obstacles still exist. The FPDS doesn't include all contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan. One particular contracting agency in Baghdad reports only some aggregate totals and is steadfastly refusing to provide the Center with missing contract data.
-- Neil Gordon
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