From "Lost Army Job Tied to Doubts on Contractor," NYT, 17 Jun 08
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/wa...hp&oref=slogin

Army officials denied that Mr. Smith had been removed because of the dispute, but confirmed that they had reversed his decision, arguing that blocking the payments to KBR would have eroded basic services to troops. They said that KBR had warned that if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services.

“You have to understand the circumstances at the time,” said Jeffrey P. Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command. “We could not let operational support suffer because of some other things.”
Whether the rest of the content of the article is correct, what Parsons says in the sixth paragraph is truly scary. Essentially, he admits that even if the contractor is screwing the government it has to be overlooked because the contractor is holding the troops hostage. Nice business ethic on the part of the contractors there. But the important thing is that there's almost certainly a yellow flag magnet on the back of their cars and a flag pin on their lapels.

I find it strange that SecDef would have gotten involved in this personnel issue unless there was something much bigger at stake. I also don't much care for the bonuses -- seems like a backdoor way to pay the contractors more than was contracted.

In my humble estimation this problem is way bigger than anything going on with the AF, and Gates would do well to get a handle on it.

Bottom line, can we please relearn that Rev War lesson about contractors not being the right men for the job of handling logistics at war, especially at the front lines? The sooner the better.

An interesting tangent to this. My husband and I were discussing the article, and he said that one of his Marines noted, with pride, that he'd been on three deployments and had never served on a FOB with a DFAC. My husband either. This point of pride will make for an interesting point in the conclusion of my dissertation (on gastronomy and morale). If my thesis is that civilian socio-cultural influences affect the decisions regarding gastronomy for morale, then it is understandable that conspicuous consumption has become a part of logistics effort. It also makes sense that military personnel will potentially bristle at having conspicuous consumption forced upon them. You don't join the military if conspicuous consumption is your objective or your interest.

Regards,
Jill