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

Former Federal Prosecutor Leverages Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor in Column

Many thanks to Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online for using U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor today as a supplemental resource in his article "Shhh, Don't Tell Anyone Hamas Won."

McCarthy, author of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, via the NRO piece linked to "Obama to Exclude U.S. Companies from $300 Million Palestinian Project" (Monitor, Aug. 17, 2012).

McCarthy, it should be noted, is not your average columnist. Indeed, check out his bio:

Andrew C. McCarthy was a top federal prosecutor involved in some of the most significant cases in recent history. Decorated with the Justice Department’s highest honors, he retired from government in 2003, after helping launch the 9/11 investigation. He is one of America’s most persuasive voices on national security issues and author of the bestsellers Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. Currently, he is a contributing editor at National Review and a columnist for Pajamas Media.

I am honored that Mr. McCarthy has recognized the value of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, and  look forward to reading Spring Fever and his other works.

Sequestration-Related Cuts? Fed Spending Continues Unabated

The Obama administration recently issued warnings to contractors of potential sequestration-related spending cuts, but in the meantime federal spending continues unabated, domestically and globally.

Some of the apparently indispensable projects include a environmental public murals in Hebron and Jericho along with similarly themed summer camps and field trips for Palestinian children, alternative energy outings to Turkey, and assistance to mango growers and hotel operators in Pakistan.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a public notice that “due to the failure of Congress to reach a deal on balanced deficit reduction to avoid sequestration, the president on March 1, 2013, as required by law, issued a sequestration order canceling approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the federal government for the remainder of the federal fiscal year.”

USAID recently advised vendors that the agency “is taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but … it is likely that your company’s workforce, revenue, and planning processes may be affected.”

But that is not stopping USAID from reaching out to contractors to carry out its new $700 million global “ecological-governance” program.

The primary goal of the agency’s Restoring the Environment through Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems, or REPLACE, program is to strengthen the ability of governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe to provide climate-change mitigation and adaptation, seascape and landscape management, and other environmental and economic interventions.

Numerous other federal entities issued similar warnings via the FedBizOpps contractor database.

Despite the advisories, new projects continue to emerge while existing programs undergo expansion, from the seemingly inconsequential – such as a $79,000 U.S. Trade & Development Agency grant to send U.S. railway representatives on an exploratory mission to India – to initiatives on a multi-billion-dollar scale.

Most notable is the Department of Defense’s extended outsourcing of global counter-narcotics functions through its Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO, a potential $15 billion contract vehicle that has enriched – and will continue to enrich – Blackwater Lodge & Training Center Inc.; Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems; ARINC Engineering Services LLC; Raytheon Technical Service Company; and Northrop Grumman/TASC Inc.

The report "DoD Prepares Follow-Up to $15 Billion Global Counterdrug Contracts" continues to be one of the Monitor's most regulalry visited articles, generating consistent visits and Google search hits nearly twenty months later.

The following list of federal procurement actions represents an additional snapshot of recent contracts, requests for proposals and other solicitations, both large and small. This nation-by-nation compilation is by no means comprehensive but is designed to enlighten U.S. taxpayers about how the federal government is spending – or intends to spend – their money.

GAZA/WEST BANK

The creation of environmental-themed public murals, conducting student field-trips to “environmentally important sites” in Hebron and Jericho and holding environmental summer camps for Palestinian children are among programs that the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service intends to fund. And the USFS is procuring the services of the Palestinian Association for Child Arts and Culture to carry out these tasks for youth in the city of Hebron. The agency did not disclose the estimated cost.

Helping the Palestinian Authority to “build more effective and competent public institutions that are accountable to the public and respond to citizens’ needs” will cost $20.5 million under a contract that USAID awarded to Development Alternatives Inc.

U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor founder Steve Peacock initially broke the story on the project’s unveiling last April for WND.com.

PAKISTAN

Current efforts to improve the competitiveness of small- and medium businesses in Pakistan have been extended another 20 months, now that USAID has raised Chemonics International’s contract ceiling to $93 million. The current contract for the Pakistan Firms Project was slated to end April 15, but with a $2.5 million increase, Chemonics will continue to provide technology upgrades, skill development and other assistance to hotels, mango growers, knitted-garment manufacturers and other Pakistani enterprises through December 31, 2014.

TURKEY

Alternative-energy industry representatives are getting free hotel rooms and airfare to Turkey to explore ways to capitalize on the nation’s energy boom. The U.S. Trade & Development Agency is offering a $537,000 grant to carry out the Smart Grid Upgrades to the Teias Electricity Transmission Network Feasibility Study. According to the agency, “Turkey is facing a rapidly rising demand in the midst of its bustling economic growth. The Turkish government is consequently making a concentrated effort to explore alternative sources of energy, such as wind, hydro and geothermal power as a way of meeting this shortfall.”

Consequently, the Obama administration has decided that U.S. taxpayers should shoulder the burden of that trip to Ankara.

UNITED STATES

Under its Adult Education and Immigrant Integration project, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $1.3 million contract to World Education Inc. of Boston to design an initiative to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”

A similar version of this article first appeared via WND.com on March 18, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

Contract for U.S.-Funded Survey of Arab TV Consumption Awarded

Gauging how the Arab world consumes -- or fails to digest -- U.S. government broadcast news is about to cost $110,000 for such an assessment. The Broadcasting Board of Governors recently awarded a contract to the Syracuse, N.Y.-based Strategic Information and Communications Group LLC to carry out the survey, which also will entail an evaluation of overall news viewing, including that of non-U.S. media.

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported earlier this year, BBG wants to learn whether brand identity drives Middle Easterner choices of news sources; Phase Two will attempt to determine whether BBG's “I am the news. I am Alhurra” promotional campaign was successful. (See: Data on Desires of Middle Eastern TV-News Viewers Sought).

Source document: Contract award #BBG50-P-12-0700.

OTHER BBG COVERAGE:

U.S. Baseball as a Propaganda Tool? (Feb. 17, 2012)

U.S. Seeks Data on Libyan Media Consumption (Nov. 5, 2011)

U.S. Cancels Planned Media Barrage in Pakistan (Nov. 1, 2011)

FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF INFORMATION-DISSEMINATION ISSUES, SEE THE MONITOR’S PROPAGANDA/PR PAGE.

Obama/Palestinian Monitor Article Sparks Angst in Cyberspace

The response in cyberspace to the article "Obama to Exclude U.S. Companies from $300 Million Palestinian Project" truly has been phenomenal, as the piece helped generate over 1,000 page views at U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor in under 48 hours. Though responses have varied, the article clearly has grabbed the attention of taxpayers who have expressed sheer exasperation over having their money squandered overseas.

More than half of the page views reported via Google Analytics stemmed from that specific article, which likewise drove traffic to related coverage such as "USAID Contracts Start Flowing in $750 Million Palestinian Infrastructure Project" as well as "$58 Million USAID Contract to Help Steer Tourists Out of Israel and into West Bank, Gaza" and "Obama Launching Appeal to Palestinians -- Media Blitz to Promote U.S. Role in 'Building' Future State."

Unrelated to those articles -- but equally critical toward the current spike in Monitor statistics -- are the pieces COVER-UP! Contracting System Sanitized of Kenya Documents and "Kenya Sees Spike in Obama Administration-Funded Projects" (the latter of which has been followed up with "Obama's Spending Grows 'Exponentially' in Kenya"). 

Many thanks to WND for posting on its website a summary of and link to the most recent Monitor article, which likewise has gotten numerous referrals from TheDailySheeple.com, FreeRepublic.com, and ReaganCoalition.com, among others.

As always, continued gratitude goes out to Cryptome, which continues to store links to various Monitor articles in its archives, thereby regularly helping to bring critical attention to some of the federal government's activities that otherwise would remain obscured from public view.

UAE Touts Helping U.S. Coalition Forces... USAID at Same Time Building Gas Pipeline Benefiting UAE

The United Arab Emirates embassy in the U.S. a little while ago bragged in a tweet that "UAE participated with US in 5 coalition actions in 20 years: Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Bosnia-Kosovo, Gulf War." U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor in response poses the question, "Does that possibly explain why the U.S. Agency for International Development is planning to build a 47 km. pipeline extension in the former Soviet republic of Georgia -- a project whose goal is to promote the UAE-owned Poti Free Industrial Zone near the Black Sea?"

Just a thought.

Related: "U.S.-Financed Pipeline Benefiting UAE Royal Family Moves Forward" (Monitor, May 4)

Nearly Half-Billion Army Corps Award Goes to Contractor Led By ex-CIA, Defense Officers

A U.S. Army  Corp of Engineers contract potentially worth about a half-billion-dollars has been awarded to GLOBAL Integrated Security, a Reston, Va.-based company largely run by former CIA and military personnel. GLOBAL will provide a range of security and transportation services in Afghanistan. The Army Corp's Middle East District announced today that it awarded the contract -- which has a first-year value of up to $120 million -- last week. If it exercizes all three option-years, this support-services arrangement alone could cost taxpayers a total of $480 million.

USAID Small Business Initiative in Jordan Gets Extended -- Again

Yet another extension of a U.S.-funded small business initiative in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has been granted, along with an additional financial infusion to keep the Sustainable Achievement of Business Expansion and Quality, or SABEQ, program going. 

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported back in May, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) already upped the $69.2 million contract ceiling for Deloitte Consulting (formerly Bearing Point) by $4 million, elevating the cost of the five-year endeavor to $73.2 million. According to a Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition, or JOFOC, document released today but dated June 7, a second, additional installment will bring the contract maximum above $77.3 million while extending the program, which had been slated to final year of the program for six months, thereby ending the project in March 2012. (Contract Award #278-C-00-06-00332-00)

USAID is using the same justification as before, claiming that the noncompetitive extension is required to “sustain the current momentum in creating jobs and increasing revenues, exports, and investments” in Jordan.

FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

FOR RELATED REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S JORDAN PAGE.

ALSO VISIT OUR MIDDLE EAST PAGE.

Obama Launching Appeal to Palestinians -- Media Blitz to Promote U.S. Role in 'Building' Future State

The Obama administration is launching a media- and public-outreach program to improve Palestinian opinion of U.S. policy – a project that also seeks to promote the U.S. role in financing "Palestinian development and building the future Palestinian State," a federal contracting document reveals.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, through its Development Outreach and Communications Office, is overseeing U.S. State Department efforts to change its image among Palestinians.

USAID's strategy includes the delivery – carried out by a private-sector contractor – of U.S. government-approved feature articles and video productions to media outlets and to pass them off as news coverage.

The selected contractor primarily will be tasked with influencing Palestinian, pan-Arab and, to a lesser degree, international news organizations, while also directly engaging Palestinians via "community" events.

The agency recently released a draft Request for Proposals, solicitation #RFP294-2011-210, seeking comments from potential contractors on the viability of its preliminary plan.

Until fairly recently, according to the RFP, few Palestinians knew that USAID since 1995 has "provided more than [$]3.4 billion in assistance to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza."

USAID points to a comparison of 2009 and 2010 poll results, which indicate an 8 percent jump in the number of Palestinians "who have heard of both USAID and the U.S. Agency for International Development" and a corresponding rise in the percentage of those who recognized the USAID logo.

Likewise, whereas in 2009 only 31 percent of Palestinians were aware that USAID was implementing projects in their area, the level of awareness rose to 44 percent by 2010, according to the RFP.

USAID attributes that heightened consciousness of U.S. efforts to previous communications outreach programs, but it says many Palestinians nonetheless remain wary of U.S. intentions.

There is a growing percentage of the population that has flat-out refused U.S. assistance, a development that otherwise contrasts elevated USAID name and logo recognition, the agency laments in the document.

"Despite this growing awareness, the 2010 survey indicates that the number of Palestinians refusing aid from the American people increased to 33 percent from 27 percent in 2009," the agency acknowledges. "Also, a majority of Palestinians (54 percent) believe that the motive behind aid from the United States Government is political rather than humanitarian."

USAID, therefore, is reaching out to contractors capable of stemming the negative perceptions.

The selected vendor will carry out various media and public awareness activities, ranging from the cultivation of relationships with regional and global news outlets to the distribution of USAID-branded "visibility items."

The RFP stops short of calling for the exclusion of journalists who are not overtly sympathetic to USAID and Palestinian causes. The document, however, explicitly advocates a reporter-filtering process to accommodate U.S. government needs.

Indeed, the RFP calls on the contractor to selectively, "Identify friendly or potentially friendly journalists and organize visits to USAID projects for Palestinian and international journalists and community representatives, as per the instructions of the Outreach Office."

The media outreach segment of the project entails the traditional acquisition of print, billboard and broadcast advertising of USAID endeavors.

But the plan also calls on the contractor to create and successfully place "news" products for public consumption – products that are distinct from ads and public service announcements:

"In coordination with the Outreach Office, the contractor will produce and publish or broadcast at least 6 success stories and project features a year in local newspapers, on local radio and TV, as well as design at least once a year special paid newspaper ads or inserts to showcase USAID's assistance activities."

The contractor, likewise, must produce video news releases, or VNRs, for broadcast via Arab satellite stations.

A corollary component of the initiative will assess the "internet and social media habits of Palestinians and the Arab world."

The goal of that effort is to enable USAID and the U.S. Mission to more effectively leverage platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The selected contractor will be responsible for monitoring overall media coverage of USAID in the West Bank and Gaza, the provision of English translations and statistical analysis of that coverage to agency officials, and subsequent advisement on how to counteract negative reporting.

"In addition to providing monitoring, it is expected that the contractor shall make its own assessments of the coverage and suggest communication strategy modifications in order to improve the volume and tone of media coverage of USAID activities," the RFP says.

Public outreach events will target "marginalized communities" with a particular focus on Palestinian women and girls as well as all youth from 16 to 30 years of age.

"These events include, but are not limited to, Palestinian Mothers' Day celebrations, International Youth Day events, community sports events, school outreach activities, and trainings and contests in the fields of sports, arts, IT, and media."

Finally, the project will involve buying, stocking and distributing "high-quality visibility items branded with the USAID logo."

Possible items include basketballs, baseball caps, notebooks, pens, schoolbags, soccer balls, tee shirts and even computer USB cords.

USAID expects to award a two-year base period contract followed by a two-year option and an additional one-year option period. The agency did not disclose an estimated cost of the project.

USAID, which provided a five-day comment period on the draft RFP ending July 15, expects to release a formal RFP in the coming weeks.

Source document: Solicitation #RFP294-2011-210.

This article originally appeared July 23 in WorldNetDaily (Reprinted with permission). 

FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S ISRAEL PAGE AND GAZA/WEST BANK PAGE.

ALSO VISIT OUR MIDDLE EAST PAGE.

U.S. Coughs Up Millions More for Iraq -- This Time, for Civil-Service Reform

A project to create a modern civil-service system in Iraq is about to unfold—and U.S. taxpayers will shell out an additional $151 million in an attempt to accomplish that task.

The awarding of this contract (award #AID-267-C-11-00005) to Management Systems International, Inc., (MSI) a Washington, D.C.-based subsidiary of Coffey International Ltd., comes at a time when the United States government increasingly, and internally, is coming under fire for waste and corruption specific to Iraqi aid programs. Indeed, as the LA Times reported today, $6.6 billion in U.S. currency shipped to Iraq not only is missing, but is likely to have been stolen.

The National and Provincial Administrative Reform Project, also known as "Tarabot," will not involve shipping truckloads of cash to Iraq; instead, this civil-service endeavor will center upon the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) writing checks to MSI.  The company, in turn, will seek to sway Iraqi national policymakers to craft new civil service laws, while also engaging provincial and local officials to transform their outdated systems into modern human-resources institutions.

According the solicitation (#RFP 267-10-012), USAID issued advance warning to potential vendors about the risks involved in performing these functions as well as the history of Iraqi reluctance to embrace such reforms:

The Contractor shall be responsible for its own security and will employ a security profile that is linguistically and culturally appropriate as well as cost-effective. Contractors must understand that Baghdad is currently insecure, even in the International Zone where some of the targeted institutions have branch offices. The Contractor should ensure that its staff fully understands the security risks prior to accepting employment. Information about security and life support services in Iraq is provided by the Overseas Security Advisory Council. 

In the past, lack of GOI political commitment to carry through on reforms has jeopardized efforts to achieve targeted reforms. Therefore, the existence of active and informed Iraqi champions and efforts to achieve dedicated GoI involvement during the course of implementation is critical to success. This requires an understanding of the political interests at play within Iraq, and a clear articulation of the implementation plan to be designed in close cooperation with Iraqi stakeholders, USAID, and other donors. Other critical variables for success or failure include 1) the high level of coordination required by the Contractor with USG, donor, and Golf entities; and 2) changes in government leadership. Therefore, building a broad and active Iraqi constituency is key to applying and sustaining pressure on the government to initiate and follow through with meaningful reforms.

The project duration is about four years.

State Dept. Arranges Delivery of Bullet-Proof Vests to Pakistani Government (NEWS BRIEFS)

U.S. Department of State

A $518,000 contract to provide 1,200 bullet-resistant vests to the Government of Pakistan was awarded to the Alexandria, Va.-based Surveillance Equipment Group, Inc., a company operated by former U.S. and South American military and intelligence officials. The threat-level III vests are made to sustain shots from ammunition as deadly as .44 magnum hollow-point bullets. The cost of the competitively awarded State Dept. contract, which was revealed on Monday, includes shipping to the Port of Karachi, Pakistan. (Solicitation #PR1120395; Contract Award #SGE50011F0175)

The State Dept. awarded a $61.4 million contract to CHS Middle East LLC to “establish a network of Contractor operated facilities in three regional support areas” across Iraq. The project is specific to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, where the responsibility to provide health care to about 17,000 personnel working under the authority of the U.S. Ambassador, “which includes U.S. Government civilians, military and local national employees; and supporting Contractors (U.S., third country, and local national),” will transfer from the U. S. Department of Defense to the State Dept.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

USAID is recruiting candidates for Senior Acquisition & Assistance Specialist to oversee the agency’s $1.2 billion portfolio of contract awards being implemented in Nigeria. The annual salary range for the position is $71,674 to $110,104. The selected candidate will be stationed in Abuja, Nigeria. USAID will offer a two-year contract, with three renewable one-year options up to a maximum five-year period. (Solicitation #620-11-011)

The development of new and improved methods for identifying the prevalence of poverty among households is the goal of USAID’s Poverty Assessment Tools III (PAT III) initiative. The agency says the five-year project will help U.S. missions and partner organizations to better estimate “the share of their clients who are ‘very poor’,” according to the Statement of Work. (RFP #APP-EGAT-11-000003). The agency says that previously developed PATs must be “updated and improved.” It did not disclose the estimated cost of the project. (Solicitation #APP-EGAT-11-000003)

U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA)

The proposal deadline to conduct a feasibility study on the upgrade of Pakistani urban bus fleets to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has been extended to June 15. As previously reported (Monitor, 04/07/2011), USTDA is offering a $482,000 grant to carry out the study and market survey as the first step toward integrating “LPG into the transportation sector in and surrounding seven major Pakistani cities.”