Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer (via WND)

My latest article gets top-of-the-page visibility. See “Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer” via WND. -- S.P.

Bureau boss overseeing shipments has Benghazi connections

The State Department bureau tasked with secretly sending to embassies plastic and liquid explosives operates under the guidance of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, whom a congressional panel last year separately found to be largely responsible for security lapses in Benghazi, WND has learned.

A series of WND articles recently exposed the purchase and international transport of many hundreds of pounds of plastic, sheet and linear explosives along with thousands of containers of high-energy liquid explosives.

Weeks after a State official laughed in response to WND’s inquiry, the department belatedly reacted to a follow-up request for information about how, where and by whom the blasting equipment will be used.

Read more at WND.com...

Related articles

NightTalker Radio: Michael David McGuire Interview with Steve Peacock

Hearing: Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Iraq: A Threat to U.S. Interests [?] (Commentary)

Thus far there is just one "witness" scheduled to testify Wednesday (2/5/14) at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, which is titled "Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Iraq: A Threat to U.S. Interests."

Mr. Brett McGurk, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, apparently is going to help sort out the situation for this critical committee.

Upon reading the hearing title, unconsciously I released a barely audible “Uh-oh,” wondering where such a hearing might lead us.

While it is too early to make assumptions about the direction of U.S. policy on Iraq, I could not help but wonder if there are people in the federal government who might seek to step up U.S. involvement there.

Even though it is unlikely the Obama administration will re-deploy troops, you can bet that billions in awards to private contractors will (continue to) flow, if not magnify.

Committee Chairman Royce’s statement on the hearing:

Al-Qaeda controls more territory today than it ever has before, and much of that is in western Iraq where it has recently captured significant cities.  These terrorists continue to exploit sectarian conflicts that the Iraqi government has failed to resolve, and Iraq is now on the verge of civil war.  Our hearing will examine al-Qaeda's resurgence in Iraq and its threat to regional and global security.

That reminds me: I’ve been meaning to finally buy a copy of We Meant Well:  How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren. Why? Check out Van Buren’s blog description of the book:

From a State Department insider, the first book recounting our misguided efforts to rebuild Iraq—a shocking and rollicking true-life cross between Catch-22, Dispatches and The Ugly American.

Charged with rebuilding Iraq, would you spend taxpayer money on a sports mural in Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhood to promote reconciliation through art? How about an isolated milk factory that cannot get its milk to market? Or a pastry class training women to open cafés on bombed-out streets without water or electricity?

The committee hearing is slated for 10 a.m. in 2172 Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. Interested citizens also may catch it via webcast.

Hurricane Sandy: Another Example of Why We Need to Invest More in America, Less Around the Globe (COMMENTARY)

I have an idea how we as a nation can better cope with the financial burden that nature has imposed upon us in this post-hurricane environment of devastation on the East Coast: Assess and then cancel various programs that U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Trade & Development Agency currently are carrying out or are planning to implement across the globe.

For the sake of full disclosure, I say this not only as a concerned taxpayer who continues to advocate streamlining (not the elimination) of foreign aid, but as a human being who lives one mile from the beach on the battered New Jersey coast -- someone who is doing significantly better than many of his Shore neighbors, but who is temporarily displaced nonetheless.

Before I continue, also keep in mind that this is less political -- insofar as partisan politics -- than it appears. Yes, the Obama Administration currently is executing the following initiatives. But as I've said before, it's a power thing, not an Obama thing. Such endeavors took place under Clinton and Bush, and in various forms will continue under future presidents.

Here we go:

Cancel the planned development of Ph.D. and masters degree programs for which USAID intends to fund in a Ugandan university. Use that money in schools across New Jersey, New York, or Connecticut. 

Cancel the nearly $1 billion in construction projects that USAID has planned for the Palestinians.  Use it to rebuild homes, businesses, and infrastucture destroyed during the hurricane. OUR hurricane.

Those business start-up projects in The Philippines? Cancel them. Most of the businesses in my area are closed, hopefully just temporarily. many, presumbaly, will go under. Tell the Filipinos they have to wait. 

The groundwater cleanup projects in for which USTDA paid the cost of U.S. industry reps to fly to China to boost that sector? Stop such subsidies, damnit. I'm guessing the groundwater between Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant (among other locations) could use some ameliorating. 

The list is seemningly endless. There are bigger and even more controversial projects, I am sure, the billions is no so-called "drug war" contracts among one of the more insane categories.

Oh, okay, just one more example (out of many). I know it amounts to peanuts, but the $322,000 that Department of State just spent on a 10-animal dog kennel in Iraq could have been used to rebuild damaged animal -- and human -- shelters here on the East Coast instead. Just sayin.' -- Steve Peacock

$90 Million Price Tag to Prop Up Iraqi Education Bureaucrats

A $90 million contract to build up the Iraqi national education bureaucracy has been awarded to the Washington, D.C.-based firm Creative Associates International, which likewise will be tasked with the standardization of teacher training systems across that nation.  As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported earlier this year (April 16, 2012), the U.S. Agency for International Development launched the Arabic-themed USAID/Ajyal (“generations”) initiative to bring about “systems improvements to deliver quality instruction and safe learning environments.” The program will pay special attention to “expanding educational opportunities for girls, and other vulnerable populations and minorities so that they might enjoy higher engagement and retention.”

Source Document: Contract award #AID-267-C-12-00002.

U.S. Troops in Iraq Are Gone, But Embassy Costs Go On and On

By Steve Peacock

A $348 million contract to maintain the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was awarded this week by the U.S. Department of State to PAE Government Services, which will be tasked with delivering operations and maintenance services for the 104-acre compound. An unspecified portion of that amount will be devoted to providing a residence manager, two cooks, two waiters, and four housekeepers to serve the U.S. ambassador and deputy chief of mission. 

It also remains unclear how much will be spent on lawn maintenance, though The Peacock Report -- U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's predecessor site -- reported back in 2005 that State intended at the time to allocate $1 million annually for lawn and shrubbery services.

State in 2007 had awarded to PAE an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract worth approximately $177 million to service the Baghdad compound.

Source document: Contract Award #SAQMMA-12-D-0165.

RELATED PAE GOVERNMENT SERVICES NEWS:

Pentagon Extends Kenya, Djibouti Military Support Contract (June 11, 2012)

RELATED U.S DEPARTMENT OF STATE NEWS

U.S. to Pay 'Selected' Foreign Journalists to Cover State Dept. (June 12, 2012)

Also see the Monitor's U.S.STATE DEPT. PAGE.

USAID Launching Arabic-Themed Education Project

The nation must place “sustained focus” on improving teacher quality in order to create a genuinely “democratic and economically stable society,” the Obama Administration has concluded. Consequently, the White House has decided to invest nearly $100 million into a new program to enhance primary school teaching-training and management nationwide—nationwide, that is, in Iraq.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), even has given the initiative an Arabic title:  Ajyal, which means “generations.”

In order to improve the Government of Iraq’s ability to deliver “quality primary education,” USAID is launching the Education Strengthening Project, also known as USAID/Ajyal, according to a planning document that WND obtained through routine database research.

“Children in Iraq need quality instruction,” the agency said in a Request for Proposals dated April 12, and the U.S. is determined to bring about “systems improvements to deliver quality instruction and safe learning environments.”

Although the Iraqi Ministry of Education has 20 Teacher Training Institutes, or TTIs, throughout the nation, the facilities “lack standardized training for early primary grade teachers, who have little opportunity to receive professional development… As a result, there is no continuity or consistency in the training that teachers receive on an annual basis.”

The agency acknowledged in the document that a variety of organization already embarked upon similar endeavors.

“Other donors such as UNESCO, the World Bank, UNICEF and Save the Children have programs targeting teacher training, curriculum reform and access to education at the community level,” it said.

Nonetheless, the agency does not view this latest effort as redundant; rather, the existing programs will “complement” what USAID/Ajyal is setting out to achieve.

USAID is looking for a contractor to carry out this program by engaging the TTIs, the central offices of the Iraq Ministry of Education, provincial-level Ministry offices, and a few select primary schools.

“Special attention will be given to expanding educational opportunities for girls, and other vulnerable populations and minorities so that they might enjoy higher engagement and retention,” the Statement of Work pointed out. “These students will be aided in their transition to intermediate schools.”

FOR FURTHER REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S IRAQ PAGE.

ALSO SEE THE MONITOR'S EDUCATION PAGE.

Senators Oppose Hiding Wartime-Contracting Records for 20 Years

Many thanks to Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) for pressing the Archivist of the United States to release contracting records that the government decided to seal for the next twenty years. Considering that possibly tens of billions in contracts allegedly have been squandered or lost to fraud and mismanagament in Iraq and Afghanistan, it borders on criminal that the Archive would dare keep this critical information from the citizenry. Of course, it remains to be seen whether the government will actually rescind the decision to seal that data.

Additional thanks goes to the Project of Government Oversight, or POGO, for bringing this matter to the public's attention. POGO has made the Webb-McCaskill letter available through the group's blog.

U.S. Seeks New Means of Predicting Internet Growth Overseas, from Albania to Zimbabwe

The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is looking for a contractor capable of developing a new analytical model to predict Internet usage and growth in thirty-two foreign nations, from "A" (Albania) to "Z" (Zimbabwe).

The agency, which runs U.S. government-funded international broadcasting systems such as Voice of America and Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, said in a Statement of Work (Solicitation #BBG50-R-11-0020) that existing models for predicting growth are inadequate. The SOW said those models solely focus on specific technology sectors rather than the Internet in its entirety:

The ultimate goal is to estimate, using empirical data, the expansion of the number of unique individuals using the Internet on a weekly basis in these markets over the next five years. While various organizations have produced such estimates and prejections for sub-segments of the Internet market, such as mobile Internet use or fixed line broadband, BBG requires estimates of the growth of the entire Internet market, regardless of platform, including use via public access facilities.

Although the BBG attempted to justifiy why it wants a new predictive model, it did not specify why it needs -- nor what it intends to do -- with such a new mode of analysis. The agency said it would apply the model to Internet usage in the following nations: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam,  Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The BBG said the selected contractor should be able to complete the work within an eight-week period. It did not offer an estimated cost of the project.

U.S. Treasury Seeks Help in Mending Economy -- But Whose Economy?

As congressional and White House budget battles rage on along the littered landscape of national financial woes, the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury this week reached to the private sector for help in overseeing the following five areas of activity: (1) economic crimes; (2) government debt issuance and management; (3) budget and financial accountability; (4) banking and financial services, and: (5) revenue policy and revenue administration.

Ironically, this outsourced assistance will not target these problem areas here in the United States; on the contrary, Treasury is looking for help in monitoring these issues in nations such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, and Pakistan, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered.

According to a personal services contract solicitation (#A11-105) dated July 21, the person filling the "Program Officer/Coordinator of Post-Conflict Countries" position will “provide administrative and management support” to advisers that Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance has deployed or will deploy worldwide to a total of thirty countries,

The salary range for this slot is $62,467 to $115,742, depending on experience and education. Treasury is accepting applications until August 1.

USAID Contractor Killed in Iraq Leaves Behind Wife, Three Children

Despite whatever criticisms that may be leveled at many U.S. foreign assistance programs, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor expresses its condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the late Dr. Stephen Everhart. The U.S. State Dept. on June 23 announced that Everhart, described as an "international development and finance expert," was killed and three others injured in a terrorist attack that took place "while working on a project to introduce a new business curriculum to a Baghdad university..."

Everhart, a former managing director of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), for the past two years had been associate dean of the American University in Cairo's (AUC) School of Finance.

AUC said in statement:

A dedicated member of our community and a model representative of our University, Steve worked with skill, humor and unflagging devotion to utilize the resources of AUC to nurture entrepreneurs and business leaders across the Middle East, and particularly, of course, in Egypt.

The university also said Everhart "leaves his wife, Stephanie, and three children, Lindsay, a student at AUC, Hannah and Cooper."