A three-part series by Susie Dow for ePluribus Media -- Iraq, Contingency Contracting and the Defense Base Act:
Mercs. Soldiers of Fortune. Hired Guns. Private Contractors. All terms generally connote the expanding use of "private security firms" in places like Iraq, and usually bring to mind the bold, brash, sometimes cruel image of ruthless soldiers who take up arms for the highest bidder. But not all Iraq contractors are soldiers, and not all soldiers engaged with private security firms are ruthless.
Often forgotten are those civilian contractors who take jobs risking life and limb in order support the tactical, operational and relief operations necessary during and after a military campaign.
Civilian contractors take huge risks, often gambling life and limb to perform critical functions in times of strife. Sometimes, they make the ultimate sacrifice, and the dire situations that their families find themselves in are not altogether unlike those that the families of our soldiers confront: lost in the system, shunned by others for the work their loved ones are doing and unable to qualify for the aid and care that is supposedly there for them.
In Part I. Iraq, Contingency Contracting and the Defense Base Act, Susie Dow explores how the lack of adequate insurance coverage impacts families suffering from the deaths or indeterminate status of missing family members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan as civilian contractors.
As Dow states:
On March 18, 2003, one day before the start of the war in Iraq, Defense acquisition personnel were given a presentation that outlined recurring problems with insurance for contractors: contracts from the Department of Defense (DOD)were too often excluding Defense Base Act clauses, the very clauses that provided a modicum of insurance protection for civilian contractors. While both the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) secured low cost insurance for their overseas workers, the Pentagon consistently did not implement efforts for department-wide coverage. The rationale? To many, it seemed that for the DOD, saving money1 was considered more important than broad access to coverage2, coverage that would ensure surviving family members of kidnapped or killed contractors received compensation3.
In Part II: DBA Clauses Missing In Action, Dow concentrates on how the appropriate Defense Base Act contract clauses that could have made a difference went "missing in action."
Again, she explains:
Missing in Action
For those writing and administering contracts, whether or not to include the appropriate Defense Base Act (DBA) clauses requiring insurance protection for civilian contractors is left to individual contracting officers. At best when the appropriate clauses are missing, the contract was mistakenly assumed to be exempt. At worst, the clause was overlooked or never considered.
Part III. Contractors in Iraq: Insurance
focuses on the Defense Department's (unlike its counterparts in the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)) inability to provide information, training and access to low cost coverage.
To illustrate, Dow reports:
...there were (and continue to be) few opportunities for contingency contracting officers to learn how to determine where, how, and for whom to include the appropriate DBA clauses.
As just one example, as recently as November 2006, a contractor had to point out to its military contracting officer that DBA was required and should be included as a cost in a service contract proposal for the US Army. In response, the contracting officer replied -- in writing -- that having spoken with "legal," DBA was "not required." Yet, the contract was for trucking, a service that is known, even to the general public, as carrying a high risk of injury in its region of operations.
Check it out, and help expand our awareness of the plight of these oft-forgotten families.
ePluribus Media writers, researchers, editors and fact checkers who contributed to series include: XicanoPwr, GreyHawk, Newton Snookers, standingup, intranets, steven reich, rba, roxy, wanderindiana, cho.
If we've left anyone off the list, please let us know!
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