A $4.645 Billion contract for translators?

Did I  read this correctly?   I mean, I know it’s hard these days to find people to go to Iraq but........damn.

Under the contract, GLS will provide foreign-language interpretation and translation services to the United States Army and other U.S. government agencies supporting OIF, including embedded Iraqi translators who will operate with U.S. forces. GLS will employ up to 6,000 locally-hired translators and up to 1,000 United States citizens with security clearances who are native speakers of languages spoken in Iraq. Full contract performance will begin in March 2007.

$4.645 BILLION dollars for about 7,000 translators?  

Maybe this explains it:

DynCorp International is the managing partner of GLS with a 51% ownership interest.  The president of GLS, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. (Ret.) James "Spider" Marks, has broad experience in managing large, complex personnel deployments and sustainment operations-including linguists-in high-threat environments. He was responsible for the Iraq Language Program in 2003 as the chief of intelligence for the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC). He will be assisted by GLS Vice President Michael Simone, former commandant of the Defense Language Institute.

I remember Maj. Gen. (Ret.) James "Spider" Marks.  He retired after being the top intelligence officer in the Iraq invasion in 2003.  He then became one of CNN's "expert" retired Generals for awhile.  Now he has apparently been hired to run Dyne-Corp's language training/linguist-finding program.

I needed some budgetary perspective on our government spending, so I found this article on the 2006 Budget:

Department of Agriculture was trimmed by about $2 billion, for a budget of $21.4 billion, with cuts spread between research, marketing, land acquisition, watershed protection and other accounts.

Department of Commerce budget was proposed at $9.4 billion.  

Department of Education was reduced by half a billion to $56 billion (maybe if your kids offer to learn Arabic, would they get more money)

Department of Energy went down fall 2 percent to $23.4 billion. (What's the point of an Energy Department, when you have Exxon Mobil?)

Environmental Protection Agency - Bush requested a cut of half a billion dollars for a total of $7.6 billion.

Department of the Interior -  down to $10.6 billion, a drop of 1.1 percent from fiscal 2005.

Department of Justice - cut Justice Department spending authority by $1.1 billion, or 5.5 percent, for a total budget of $19.1 billion

NASA - increased slightly to $16.5 billion

•  Tips?

  by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:20:44 PM PDT

•  Them are the best damn translators in the werld!

  You betchya'! You've never seen translators this good! Wait'll ya see their werk! Amazin'! Great, great stuff!

  by Bob Johnson on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:21:15 PM PDT

  •  They are good if they can translate

    Bushese into English.

    by A Mad Mad World on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:25:31 PM PDT

    •  I know some folks

      who have to translate it into Arabic, and I can never understand how they do it.

      by noweasels on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:28:52 PM PDT

  •  I hear that

    Sibel Edmonds is available.

    The Music Room - Every weekend. Music & Musicians discussion.

    by madhaus on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:27:10 PM PDT

    •  They think she'll translate too much

      if ya know what I mean.

      by A Mad Mad World on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:28:22 PM PDT

  •  Well, as long as they're

    not those Gay army Arabic linguists who probably made $30,000 a year.

    by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:32:44 PM PDT

  •  And they're all heterosexual!!

    by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:45:14 PM PDT

•  I'd love to see the salary differentials

  between the Iraqi translators and the translators who are US nationals.

  And between the US translators and the corporate hacks at GLS....

  by aggieric on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:26:25 PM PDT

  •  Salary Chart

    Foreigners

    • Translators, Iraqi: $0.50 per hour
    • Translators, Irani: $.075 per hour
    • Non-translating staff: $0.10 per hour

    
    US Citizens

    • Translators, Homosexual: $17.25 per hour
    • Translators, Heterosexual: $77.25 per hour
    • Non-translating support staff:  7.25 per hour
    • Management: $1775.25 per hour

    The Music Room - Every weekend. Music & Musicians discussion.

    by madhaus on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:30:36 PM PDT

    •  Bush signed the new minimum wage

      bill already then, then?  I missed it!

      I bet those management people are ticked that they're having to pay $7.25 to the support staff.

      by aggieric on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:55:52 PM PDT

•  Meanwhile . . .

  Bush proposes cuts to veterans health care.  

  by noweasels on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:27:02 PM PDT

  •  Makes perfect sense

    If they are vets, they are not actively engaged in fighting in the WoT any more.  Just stack them in old warehouses, like all the other worn out equipment, right?

    Ya gotta think like Bush Cheney, our Beloved Leader.

    by wondering if on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:17:38 PM PDT

  •  Throw it in their face

    I have been listening to the House all day (and yes, this'll drive one mad) and I can not handle listening to one more Republican to say phoney crap like

    I just don't get this. How the Democrats can say they support the troops but not what they are doing. I just don't see how one could do that. How can those two things coexist in the same reality

    I don't want to see anymore of this go unanswered. I want some people stand up and say

    I am astonished at my collogues across the aisle, that somehow they think sending our brave men and women into situation that has been a debacle since the beginning, based on bogus intelligence and without ANY PLAN TO WIN THE PEACE.

    That's right. The Republicans HAVE NO PLAN AND THEY HAVE NEVER HAD A PLAN.

    And now they want us to believe that supporting the troops is the same thing as supporting sending them into a violent situation, and keeping them there, WITHOUT A PLAN.

    And get this. The President, who is perfectly willing to send troops into battle and call that support, is actually CUTTING BENEFITS to those veterans for their future after they return.

    I ask you, I ask the people of America, just what does supporting the troops mean? Does it mean bringing them home safely and immediately?

    Does it mean continuing to send sending them into a meaningless battle and cutting their health benefits when they return?

    Because that is what my collegues across the aisle call support.

    by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:33:40 PM PDT

•  663,571.49 dollers per translator, damn,

  I wish I could speak arabic.

  by buddabelly on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:35:15 PM PDT

  •  I listened to two of my students

    practicing for their Arabic class today.

    Of course, they're both gay.

    by aggieric on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:57:10 PM PDT

  •  Translator math:

    Very few people with clearances who can speak both Arabic and English + The fact that the ones who do, don't want anything to do with Iraq = A going rate of $663,571.49 per translator.  

    I'm no social scientist, but I bet you could find a positive correlation between the number of attacks per day and the price for a qualified translator.  How bad does a place have to suck for the going rate to be over half a million dollars?

    by The Angry Rakkasan on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:33:31 PM PDT

    •  I'd like to know what % of the total spent

      in Iraq has gone to insurance.

      by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:56:03 PM PDT

•  Shouldn't we have had lots of translators

  over there already???

  Shouldn't we have had a "Manhattan Project"-level effort to develop such translators already???

  Why should we believe that these people know how to fight al-Qaeda when they can't even come up with a plan to develop translators to help us listen to the terrorists???

  Imbeciles... all of them... IMPEACH!

  by Jimdotz on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:35:39 PM PDT

  •  Good point-Was discussed by Rep. Gary Ackerman

    to Condi

    Apparently a "Somebody Asked" and "Somebody Told" issue

    by JML9999 on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:47:06 PM PDT

    •  Wait a minute

      Speaking Arabic makes you homosexual? No wonder the academislamunistofascists are such a threat to Our Way of Life!  Someone must tell the General about this!

      by wondering if on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:25:14 PM PDT

  •  Add that to the list of a million things

    that SHOULD have been done as part of the preparations for the invasion/occupation of Iraq.

    by bee tzu on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:50:37 PM PDT

  •  We should have...

    But you'll be reassured that the guy they're putting in charge now is an expert... after all, he's the guy that put together our program back then!

    Wait a minute....

    by jeremybloom on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:51:16 PM PDT

  •  The way the army works

    is that they send soldiers to a very intensive, 18-month course in Arabic (or Chinese or whatever the language) at Defense Language Institute.  Then they they send then to units that put them to work as drivers, or mechanics, or on guard duty, or mowing grass (probably shoveling sand in Iraq). I know this for a fact - I was a Russian linguist in the army for many years.  There are probably Arabic linguists stationed in Korea right now.

    by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:51:22 PM PDT

    •  I don't know whether to laugh or cry:

      There are probably Arabic linguists stationed in Korea right now.

      by Jimdotz on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:53:57 PM PDT

      •  And the Korean linguists ...

        are in Iraq.

        by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:00:39 PM PDT

        •  Works well

          haven't found any North Koreans fighting us in Iraq, after all. Fixed them good, we did.

          by wondering if on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:26:39 PM PDT

  •  We should have a Manhattan Project for AIDS

    We should have a Manhattan Project for Global Warming.

    The list... just goes on. And we are spending $200 million a day in Iraq.

    Absolutely nauseating. We are horribly misguided.

    by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:13:52 PM PDT

•  That's only $663,571.00 each...

  There's a war on, doncha know!

  Plus we need lots of people to staff the worlds largest and most expensive embassy!  At $600,000,000 for 21 buildings, it seems like a real bargain.  We can't get the locals water or electricity, but we can keep this huge boondoggle on schedule.  Obscene...

  Think we'll have lots of people in Iraq for a long time?  Like forever?

  by Red no more on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:35:57 PM PDT

•  Suspicious-James "Spider" Marks

  is a CNN Talking Head

  Maybe he's been saying too much on CNN and this is to get him to shut up

  Also in State of Denial by Woodward
  p311 apparently had doubts about WMD in Iraq

  by JML9999 on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:41:18 PM PDT

•  Language Weaver's language translation software

  probably would likely be multiple millions of dollars probably 2 orders of magnitude leass than the $4.645B.

  Yet another egregious case of Bush/Cheney and their cronies riping off Americans taxpayers and looting the Treasury.

  This is just an FYI. I have no ties to this company.

  http://www.languageweaver.com

  Product Highlights

  Language Weaver's language translation software uses a statistical approach rather than complex linguistic rules, returning more accurate and natural sounding translations than other machine translation solutions.

  Language Weaver's automated translation software can be quickly and easily customized for a specific domain or company to generate more accurate translations and improve translation efficiency.  

  New languages can be added quickly, and improvements are made regularly to the translation quality so Language Weaver can continue to provide state of the art translation technology.

  Language Weaver's translation software allows you to access global markets and resources, communicate across language barriers and cultures, and accelerate business initiatives across the globe.

  Language Weaver's software can be easily integrated with other applications to create robust translation solutions.

  Language Weaver currently offers the following language pairs:

  Arabic <> English
  Chinese <> English
  Persian <> English
  Russian <> English
  French <> English
  Italian <> English
  German <> English
  Spanish <> English
  French <> German
  Dutch <> English
  Polish <> English
  Czech <> English
  Romanian <> English
  Portuguese <> English
  Swedish <> English
  Hindi <> English
  Somali > English

  We plan to create several new language pairs in the next year, and expect the quality of new languages to increase as rapidly as those we currently offer.

  by km4 on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:44:06 PM PDT

  •  I didn't find any references ...

    to this company in the diary links or, via search, on the Defense Procurement website.

    I'd like to know why the comment is relevant. And, no, I have no connections with the company and had never heard of them before today.

    by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:57:11 PM PDT

  •  My experience with language software

    is that it really doesn't work very well - unless you are speaking VERY ClEARLY.  The problem is idioms, and dialects.  I believe there are at least 22 dialects in Arabic for example.

    Also, there is the time factor. If somebody is shouting at you - "Look out for the IED you stupid American!", you probably don't have the time to stop and get a translation from the portable device.

    by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:03:16 PM PDT

    •  Any machine translation ...

      would be used for written text (I hope ... ). And, yes, idioms, metaphors, similes, and anything not literal are still big problems.

      It's going to be decades before we get a Star Trek-style universal translator that actually works. The field is still very young and much thought and theoretical research needs to be done. Putting what we have now on a portable device is just nuts.

      by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:13:26 PM PDT

•  Pentagon is outta control

  The direct result of Congress rubberstamping budget appropriations that actually PREVENT COngressional oversight (as has been the case since 911).

  They dream up all sorts of ways to waste our tax dollars-

  spying on American Civilians

  data mining and other good stuff

  building more WMD and developing new ways to kill and subjugate others (the new death ray- is a great one!)

  It makes the days of the $5,000 toilet seat look like small change.

  And let me guess, these "translators" probably have no qualifications other than being former Bush/Cheney campaign staffers.....

  by wild salmon on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:46:08 PM PDT

•  It doesn't bother me that that much money would

  be spent on TRANSLATORS - because America is notorious for not teaching foreign language skills and to do so will take a lot of money.

  What DOES bother me a LOT is that these Translators would not be trained via the military but by PRIVATE CONTRACTORS.

  by bee tzu on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:48:59 PM PDT

  •  uh, the translators are private contractors.

    by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:50:31 PM PDT

    •  Can't the military train translators?

      I thought this was standard practice in past wars.

      by bee tzu on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:53:53 PM PDT

      •  I am sure they could

        they just don't.

        They could provide their own translators, too. They don't.

        Besides, the private sector is already training all kinds of people.

        For instance, the ROTC on 220 campuses are run by a private company. It used to be MPRI, who incidentally is owned by L-3 Communications, who incidentally, is seeking an investigation into this translator contract by the GAO because they think they should have won it. I forget who has that ROTC contract now.

        Private contractors are training American troops and foreign military personnel all over the world. And this has been going on at least since the '60s when Vinnel was training Laotian and Cambodian forces to fight against the communist in southeast Asia.

        Vinnel has been training the Saudi National Guard since the mid-1970s.

        My point is not that this is OK or not, but that there is a long precedent at this point for contractors as a primary training source for dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of state and military services both here and abroad.

        by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:07:17 PM PDT

    •  Oh no,

      The army DOES have linguists.  They are probably the motorpool fixing trucks.

      by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:54:48 PM PDT

      •  I know they do. But where are they?

        How many translators at Abu Ghraib were military?

        My understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that 90%+ were contractors.

        One would think that after 9-11, AT LEAST, the US would have amped up it's Arabic linguists in the way half the State department spoke Russian during the Cold War. (OK, meybe not half, but you get my point)

        And speaking of Russian, am I the only one who just finds all this talk about Islamo-fascism being the greatest threat we've faced a totally bogus alegation?

        Are we too believe this threat is greater than the threat the US and the USSR posed to one another during the Cold War?

        Also, am I the only who finds a very similar language in how the Soviet/ Communist threat was portrayed and how this current threat is being portayed?

        My understanding is that "they want to establish an Islamic caliphate all across the world" and to me this sounds  a lot like the whole communist threat that was going to root in Central America and somehow shoot up into Texas, or take hold in Vietnam and rapidly spread through out.

        We have heard all this before.

        by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:22:22 PM PDT

        •  I don't know about Abu Ghraib

          but there is an army linguist MOS (job) called "interrogator".  Most linguists in the military however are in electronic warfare jobs (communication intercepting, jamming, location finding, and analysis).  There are also a few MPs, and psycological operations people.  Then there is document exploitation (reading and translating official documents) and the weapons inspectors.  I believe the writer Scott Ritter is a former marine linguist who went thru the DTRA course. Then are the basic interpreters and translators.

          by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:48:15 PM PDT

          •  Thank you for that rundown.

            Should I take it that "basic interpreters and translators" are perhaps the least sensitive of the linguist functions?

            I am just wondering at what point the military keeps things in house and at what point certain functions are bid out.

            by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:53:56 PM PDT

            •  Yes

              most of the other jobs require a security clearance, which many basic interpreters don't have.  That being said, good interpreters are hard to find because it is a very hard job to do well.  

              The troops are completely at the interpreter's mercy - if something is misinterpreted (either intentionally or because of weak language knowledge), it could be a disaster - an insult, a misunderstanding, bad driving directions etc.  So in a way, the interpreter is the most important type of linguist, for the safety of the troops.

              by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 06:04:37 PM PDT

•  Marks worked over at Anteon too.

  Nice contract.

  Now, can we see a study that actually shows how outsourcing SAVES money?

  I don't see for the life of me how the government is getting a deal here. I just don't see it.

  by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:49:05 PM PDT

•  this is astounding

  by smintheus on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:58:03 PM PDT

•  It's $5 billion over five years.

  Still an outrageous amount of money, but not as much as implied by the diary.

  by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 04:59:49 PM PDT

  •  Look closer

    A signed 5 year contract. That's 2012.

    by Scarce on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:06:22 PM PDT

    •  Guess someone's planning to stay a while.

      by Jon Meltzer on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:16:08 PM PDT

•  DynCorp Intl Inc hits 52 week High (Feb 7)

  On the whole, this escalation thingy looks to be working out very well for them.

  

  by Scarce on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:10:06 PM PDT

•  I don't have a link, but recall a recent story,

  probably on NPR's Morning Edition, about Iraqis the U.S. military has employed as translators.  Many have now left Iraq in fear for their lives.  However, there is currently no provision for expedited legal immigration to the U.S.  We use them up and throw them away.

  by oculus on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:34:04 PM PDT

  •  Link:

    NPR

    by oculus on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:47:48 PM PDT

  •  Makes you wonder

    when we do finally get out of Iraq, how many of these people who helped us are going to be massacred as "traitors".  Remember the last days of Vietnam, when many South Vietnamese who helped us were desperately trying to get on the helicopters?  How many Iraqi imigrants will we take in as political "refugees"?

    by Anna M on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:54:20 PM PDT

•  $4.3 Billion in Profit?

  I'll assume the locals are being paid about $10,000 each per year.  So, that's $60 million.  The Americans are probably getting paid about $200,000.  So, that's $200 million.  Let's say there's another $100 million costs.  So, that should leave about $4.3 billion in profits for Dyncorp.  Not a bad way to make a buck.

  by ortcutt on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 05:48:30 PM PDT

  •  The Moonie Times reported:

    DynCorp International beat out military contractor L-3 Communications Holdings, which anticipated earning $600 million from the translations contract this year. L-3 Communications responded by filing a protest with the Government Accountability Office.

    link

    by Tirge Caps on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 06:01:10 PM PDT