While the country has been deeply enthralled in this year's historic Democratic primary process, the Bush administration has embarked on a stealth mission to lock the Pentagon into multiple long-term contracts in Iraq; contracts that could prove troublesome for an incoming Obama administration, bound and determined to end the Iraqi occupation.
A handful of recent Defense Department contract signings in Iraq suggests that the Pentagon aims for a long U.S. military occupation of Iraq in perpetuity.
Unfortunately, the current prolonged election cycle has proven quite advantageous to the Bush administration's under-the-radar efforts to keep their corporate cronies' profiteering ventures scarfin' up gazillions of American taxpayer dollars for years to come. And, to those ends, the State Department has been working feverishly to indeed prolong the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq for the foreseeable future.
The scope of these recently expedited contracts is stunning. Together, they touch on just about every single aspect of the occupation - fundamental aspects -- usually associated with nascent nation-building operations.
Here's four of them:
• to supply mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense and Interior ministries.
• the establishment of a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts.
• to provide more than 100 linguists with secret clearances.
• to hire deliverers of food to Iraqi detainees at a new, U.S.-run prison.
Mentors?
Now, to be fair, it's unclear whether some of these provisos represent normal contract extensions. Pincus didn't stipulate that information either way. But, it’s really more than that. We've been there over 5-YEARS. Are they telling us that we haven't already paid for these "projects?" Frankly, except for the food delivery to the new prison, I don’t see any of the aforementioned items that shouldn’t have been provided way back in 2003 – 2004 at the latest. But, whether or not it's supplying mentors or providing security for Iraqi courts, or if it's hiring linguists, the bottom line is that all these new contracts represent multi-year commitments; American commitments ultimately deemed unacceptable to 70% of the American people.
Incidentally, a side note on the mentor contract denotes the U.S. military’s "desires for both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to become mostly self-sufficient within two years." But, shouldn't the Iraqi ministries already be self-sufficient? And, if they aren't, seeing how long it seems to take the Iraqi government to accomplish anything at all, two-year contracts could easily turn into extensions of three, four, five... even [another] ten-years.
(that "desire," I would note: is significantly outside the scope of Obama’s publicly stated proposals for an orderly 16-month withdrawal of U.S. combat troops)
The contract also stipulates that the mentors would, "advise, train [and] assist . . . particular Iraqi officials" who work in the Ministry of Defense, which runs the Iraqi army, or at the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and other security units. The problem is, the inspector general's office in Iraq has publicly railed both ministries for egregious waste and fraud for years. So, shouldn't they have been cleaned up and reorganized at that time?
The mentors will also assist an American military group that previously began to implement what are described as "core processes and systems," such as procurement, contracting, force development, management and budgeting, and public affairs. It's not clear what the status is of those sytems and processes now.
Walter Pincus over at the Washington Post wrote the story:
Mentors would have to make a one-year commitment, with options for two one-year contracts after that. As a reminder of what they are getting into, the mentors must supply their helmets, protective body armor and gas masks, according to the announcement.
The marshals’ service would be organized by the State Department's bureau responsible for developing rule of law programs in Iraq. It "has plans to create an Iraqi service to be known as the Judicial Protection Service (JPS), modeled to some degree after the U.S. Marshals Service, that will ensure the safe conduct of judicial proceedings and protect judges, witnesses, court staff, and court facilities," a notice published last month said.
State’s plan is to hire a contractor as a judicial security program manager, who would work out details of how such a service, could be put together for the Iraqis. That person or group would develop not only the mission, size and structure of an Iraqi JPS Service, but also the personnel, budgeting and training materials necessary, plus "all other aspects of creating the new organization so that the project can be contracted out."
Yes, you read that correctly. The State Department is looking for a contractor whose duties will include putting all the aspects together so the department is able to contract the whole "judicial protection" project to yet another contractor.
One contractor is slated to provide "100 plus linguists" each of whom would work for a year with up to four one-year options to follow. And, Arabic and Kurdish translators are also sought. The translators’ job skills will include "native or near native capability in their respective languages and an excellent command of the English language as well." They will work not only at State's Baghdad embassy, but also at regional offices and with Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
Another contract noticed last week previews the opening, apparently in September, of a U.S.-run prison, now labeled a Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center, which is to be located at Camp Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad. The new contract calls for providing food for "up to 5,000 detainees" and will also cover 150 Iraqi nationals, who apparently will work at the facility. The contract is to run for one year, with an option year to follow.
The U.S. holds about 20,000 Iraqis at two facilities today, mostly in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and the rest at Camp Cropper near Baghdad. Along with the facility at Camp Taji, which is expected to hold Iraqis detained in Baghdad, another new reconciliation center, mainly for Sunnis, is being built at Ramadi in Anbar province, where many of these detainees were captured.
Back in March, Marine Major General Douglas Stone, who runs the detainee program, told reporters that on average, Iraqi detainees remain in custody at a U.S. facility for 11-months. But, that figure doesn’t apply to the roughly 9,000 Iraqis whom he described as having "a very rigorous view of an ideology that we would broadly categorize as al-Qaeda." They are headed to the new reconciliation centers for what could be longer stays.
It’s not clear whether these contracts were already scheduled a long time ago and delayed by bureaucratic incompetence, or whether it was either the conditions in Iraq or the current political situation back in Washington that most prompted this last minute flurry of contract procurement. But, the whole thing sounds dubious to me. It could all be a part of a larger, multi-faceted campaign to lock down U.S. military commitments in Iraq while signing a new multi-year security agreement with the Iraqi parliament without submitting the agreement to the U.S. Congress.
A security agreement, I might add, that neither the U.S. Congress, nor 70% of the American people want.
I don’t envy Mr. Obama’s job if when he finally reaches the White House. He will no doubt immediately come under enormous pressure from all sides, including his supporters. We’ll need to consider that pressure when evaluating his job performance next year, and perhaps cut him a little slack.
After all -- the skinny black guy with the funny name -- will indeed have the most difficult job in the world, at one of the precarious times in modern history.
Good luck and God speed, Mr. Obama. (in advance)
Peace