Contract Management
Contracting for Iraq Reconstruction and for Global Logistics Support Gao ID: GAO-04-869T June 15, 2004The General Accounting Office (GAO) discussed some of the work the it is undertaking to address various operations and rebuilding efforts in Iraq. Specifically, GAO has a body of ongoing work looking at a range of issues involving Iraq, including Iraq's transitional administrative law, efforts to restore essential services to the Iraqi people, and the effectiveness of logistics activities during Operation Iraqi Freedom, among others. Importantly, given the challenging security environment in Iraq and the various other accountability organizations involved in the oversight process, it is attempting to coordinate its engagement planning and execution with other organizations as appropriate. In this testimony it discussed (1) its report (GAO-04-605) that was released yesterday on the contract award procedures for contracts awarded in fiscal year 2003 to help rebuild Iraq and (2) its preliminary findings on the military's use of global logistics support contracts. These support contracts have emerged as important tools in providing deployed military services with a wide range of logistics services.
With regard to the award of fiscal year 2003 Iraq reconstruction contracts, GAO found that agencies generally complied with applicable laws and regulations governing competition when using sole-source or limited competition approaches to award new contracts. However, they did not always do so when issuing task orders under existing contracts. In several instances, GAO found that contracting officers issued task orders for work that was not within the scope of the underlying contracts and which should have been awarded using competitive procedures or, because of the exigent circumstances involved, supported by a justification for other than full and open competition in accordance with legal requirements. With regard to DOD's use of global logistics support contracts, GAO found mixed results in each of the four areas it reviewed: planning, oversight, efficiency, and personnel. GAO also found that while some military commands actively looked for ways to save money, others exhibited little concern for cost considerations. Finally, shortages in personnel trained in contract management and oversight is also an issue that needs to be addressed. The report will make a number of recommendations to address these shortcomings.
GAO-04-869T, Contract Management: Contracting for Iraq Reconstruction and for Global Logistics Support
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Testimony:
Before the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 11:00 a.m. EDT:
June 15, 2004:
Contract Management:
Contracting for Iraq Reconstruction and for Global Logistics Support:
Statement of David M. Walker:
Comptroller General of the United States:
GAO-04-869T:
Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Waxman, and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to discuss some of
the work the General Accounting Office (GAO) is undertaking to address
various operations and rebuilding efforts in Iraq. Specifically, GAO
has a body of ongoing work looking at a range of issues involving Iraq,
including Iraq's transitional administrative law, efforts to restore
essential services to the Iraqi people, and the effectiveness of
logistics activities during Operation Iraqi Freedom, among others.
Importantly, given the challenging security environment in Iraq and the
various other accountability organizations involved in the oversight
process, we are attempting to coordinate our engagement planning and
execution with other organizations as appropriate.
Today, I would like to discuss (1) our report that we released
yesterday on the contract award procedures for contracts awarded in
fiscal year 2003 to help rebuild Iraq[Footnote 1] and (2) our
preliminary findings on the military's use of global logistics support
contracts. These support contracts have emerged as important tools in
providing deployed military services with a wide range of logistics
services.
Before I discuss our findings, I would like to briefly touch upon the
scope of these two efforts. First, given the widespread congressional
interest in ensuring that Iraq reconstruction contracts are awarded
properly and administered effectively, we initiated a review under my
authority that focused on reconstruction-related contract actions by
the Department of Defense (DOD) (primarily the U.S. Army, including the
Army Corps of Engineers), the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), and the Department of State. Specifically, we judgmentally
selected 25 fiscal year 2003 contract actions, consisting of 14 new
contracts awarded using other than full and open competition and 11
task orders issued under existing contracts. These 25 contract actions
represented about 97 percent of the nearly $3.7 billion that had been
obligated for Iraqi reconstruction through September 30, 2003. We
conducted this work between May 2003 and April 2004 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Second, our work on the military's use of global logistics support
contracts, initiated at the request of the Ranking Members of this
committee and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is one of a
series of studies we have done on the military's use of private
contractors to support deployed forces.[Footnote 2] This work looks
broadly across each of the services and includes four contracts:
(1) the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract;
(2) the Air Force's Contract Augmentation Program (AFCAP) contract;
(3) the U.S. Army, Europe's Balkan Support Contract (BSC); and (4) the
Navy's Construction Capabilities (CONCAP) contract. We have completed
our fieldwork and are now drafting our report, which we expect to
publish this summer. In performing our work, we examined a wide range
of contract documents and contracting guidance and met with contracting
officers, contract customers, and the contractors to gain a
comprehensive understanding of the contracts, the contract management
process, and the issues related to using these contracts. We conducted
this work between August 2003 and June 2004 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Summary:
With regard to the award of fiscal year 2003 Iraq reconstruction
contracts, we found that agencies generally complied with applicable
laws and regulations governing competition when using sole-source or
limited competition approaches to award new contracts. However, they
did not always do so when issuing task orders under existing contracts.
In several instances, we found that contracting officers issued task
orders for work that was not within the scope of the underlying
contracts. The out-of-scope work under these orders should have been
awarded using competitive procedures or, because of the exigent
circumstances involved, supported by a justification for other than
full and open competition in accordance with legal requirements. In
this regard, given the needs relating to and the challenges associated
with Iraq reconstruction efforts, such justifications were likely
possible but needed to be made and documented to comply with the law
and protect the taxpayer's interests. We made several recommendations
to the Secretary of the Army, including reviewing out-of-scope task
orders to address outstanding issues and take appropriate actions, as
necessary. We also recommended that the Secretary of Defense evaluate
the lessons learned in Iraq and develop a strategy for assuring that
adequate acquisition staff and other resources can be made available in
a timely manner. DOD generally concurred with our recommendations.
With regard to DOD's use of global logistics support contracts, we
found mixed results in each of the four areas we reviewed: planning,
oversight, efficiency, and personnel. For example, we found that some
DOD customers planned quite well for the use of the contracts,
following service instructions and including the contractor early in
planning. Conversely, we found that the use of the LOGCAP contract in
Kuwait and Iraq was not adequately planned, nor was it planned in
accordance with applicable Army guidance. Given the lack of early and
adequate planning and contractor involvement, two key ingredients
needed to maximize LOGCAP support and minimize cost--a comprehensive
statement of work and early contractor involvement--were missing. We
also found that while oversight processes were in place and functioning
well in some places, there were several areas needing improvement, such
as in reaching agreement on terms, specifications and prices of
services to be delivered. We also found that while some military
commands actively looked for ways to save money, others exhibited
little concern for cost considerations. Finally, shortages in personnel
trained in contract management and oversight is also an issue that
needs to be addressed. Our report will make a number of recommendations
to address these shortcomings.
Compliance with Competition Requirements:
We found that the agencies responsible for rebuilding Iraq generally
complied with applicable requirements governing competition when
awarding new reconstruction contracts in fiscal year 2003. While the
Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 requires that federal contracts
be awarded on the basis of full and open competition, the law and
implementing regulations recognize that there may be circumstances
under which full and open competition would be impracticable, such as
when contracts need to be awarded quickly to respond to unforeseen and
urgent needs or when there is only one source for the required product
or service. In such cases, agencies are given authority by law to award
contracts under limited competition or on a sole-source basis, provided
that the proposed actions are appropriately justified and approved.
We reviewed 14 new contracts that were awarded in fiscal year 2003
using other than full and open competition: a total of 5 sole-source
contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Army Field
Support Command, and USAID; and 9 limited competition contracts awarded
by the Department of State, the Army Contracting Agency, and USAID. For
13 of these new contracts, agency officials adequately justified their
decisions and complied with the statutory and regulatory competition
requirements. For example, USAID officials awarded seven contracts
under limited competition and two sole-source contracts citing an
exception to the competition requirements that was provided for under
the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act.[Footnote 3] USIAD
concluded that the use of standard competitive procedures would not
enable it to put in place foreign aid programs and activities for Iraq
in a timely manner. We found that USAIDís justification and approval
documentation supporting the award of these contracts complied with
applicable requirements. As I will shortly discuss in more detail, we
also found that the Army Corps of Engineers properly justified the
award of a sole-source contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
In one case, however, the Department of State justified and approved
the use of limited competition under a unique authority that, in our
opinion, may not be a recognized exception to the competition
requirements. At the same time, State took steps to obtain some
competition by inviting offers from four firms. In addition, it is
likely that State could have justified and approved its limited
competition under recognized exceptions to the competition
requirements.With respect to issuing a task order under an existing
contract, the competition law does not require competition beyond that
obtained for the initial contract award,[Footnote 4] provided the task
order does not increase the scope of the work, period of performance,
or maximum value of the contract under which the order is issued. The
scope, period, or maximum value may be increased only by modification
of the contract, and competitive procedures are required to be used for
any such increase unless an authorized exception applies. As we noted
in our report released yesterday, determining whether work is within
the scope of an existing task order contract is primarily an issue of
contract interpretation and judgment by the contracting officer.
* We found several compliance problems when agencies issued task orders
under existing contracts. Specifically, of the 11 task orders we
reviewed, 7 were, in whole or part, not within scope. For example, the
Defense Contracting Command-Washington (DCC-W)[Footnote 5] improperly
used a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule contract to issue
two task orders to the Science Applications International Corporation
with a combined value of over $107 million for work that was outside
the scope of the schedule contract. One order involved developing a
news media capability--including radio and television programming and
broadcasting--in Iraq. The other required the contractor to recruit
people identified by DOD as subject matter experts, enter into
subcontracts with them, and provide them with travel and logistical
support within the United States and Iraq. The GSA schedule contract,
however, was for management, organizational, and business improvement
services for federal agencies. In our view, the statements of work for
both task orders were outside the scope of the schedule contract.
* Another example of an agency issuing a task order that was outside
the scope of the underlying contract involved the Army Field Support
Command's $1.9 million task order for contingency planning for the
Iraqi oil infrastructure mission under the LOGCAP contract with Kellogg
Brown & Root.[Footnote 6] This task order, issued in November 2002,
required the contractor to develop a plan to repair and restore Iraq's
oil infrastructure should Iraqi forces damage or destroy it. Because
the contractor was knowledgeable about the U.S. Central Command's
planning for conducting military operations, DOD officials determined
that the contractor was uniquely positioned to develop the contingency
support plan. DOD also determined that developing the contingency plan
was within the scope of the overall LOGCAP contract. We have concluded,
however, that preparation of the contingency support plan for this
specific mission (i.e. restoring Iraq's oil infrastructure) was beyond
the scope of the contract. Specifically, we read the LOGCAP statement
of work as providing for contingency planning only when the execution
of the mission involved is within the scope of the contract. In this
regard, all parties--including GAO and DOD--agree that repairing Iraq's
oil infrastructure would not have been within the scope of the LOGCAP
contract. Consequently, we concluded that planning the oil
infrastructure restoration was also not within the scope of the
contract. The Army Field Support Command should have prepared a written
justification to authorize the work without competition. In light of
the exigent circumstances, such a justification was likely possible but
needed to be made and documented to comply with the law and protect the
taxpayer's interests.
* DOD planners believed early on that issuance of this task order would
result in Kellogg Brown & Root being uniquely qualified to initially
execute the plan for restoring the Iraqi oil infrastructure, the so-
called "RIO contract." Subsequently, the RIO contract was awarded in
March 2003 to Kellogg Brown & Root.[Footnote 7] The contracting
officer's written justification for the sole-source contract outlined
the rationale for the decision.[Footnote 8] The justification was
approved by the Army's senior procurement executive, as required. We
reviewed the justification and approval documentation and determined
that it generally complied with applicable legal standards.
We made several recommendations to the Secretary of the Army to review
out-of-scope task orders to address outstanding issues and take
appropriate actions, as necessary. DOD generally concurred with the
recommendations and noted that it was in the process of taking
corrective actions. DOD also agreed with our recommendation that the
Secretary of Defense evaluate the lessons learned in Iraq and develop a
strategy for assuring that adequate acquisition staff and other
resources can be made available in a timely manner.
DOD's Use of Logistics Support Contracts:
I will now turn to discussing our ongoing work on DOD's use of global
logistics support contracts. As I previously noted, we looked at four
such contracts, which have been used by all the military services to
provide a wide array of services, including operating dining facilities
and providing housing, in more than half a dozen countries, including
Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. In total, the estimated value of the
work under the current contracts is $12 billion, including $5.6 billion
for work in Iraq through May 2004. Before summarizing our preliminary
findings, let me first make an overall observation about the vital
services that these types of contracts provide. The contractors and the
military services have, for the most part, worked together to meet
military commanders' needs, sometimes in very hazardous or difficult
circumstances. For example, the LOGCAP contract is providing life and
logistics support to more than 165,000 soldiers and civilians under
difficult security circumstances in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and
Djibouti, and customers told us they are generally pleased with the
service the contractor is providing. The AFCAP contractor is providing
air traffic management at air bases throughout central Asia,
supplementing scarce Air Force assets and providing needed rest for Air
Force service members who also perform this function. Using the CONCAP
contract, the Navy has constructed detainee facilities (including a
maximum security prison) at Guantanamo Bay on time and within budget.
Projects at Guantanamo have increased the safety of both the detainees
and the U.S. forces guarding them and resulted in real savings in
reduced personnel tempo. Finally, the BSC continues to provide a myriad
of high quality services to troops in Kosovo and Bosnia, and the
customer works with the contractor to identify costs savings.
Within this overall context, we found mixed results in each of the four
areas we reviewed--planning, oversight, efficiency and personnel--with
variations occurring among the four contracts and among the various
commands using them. Our report, which will be issued later this year,
will make a number of recommendations to address the shortcomings we
identified in these areas.
Planning:
In assessing DOD's planning, we found that some customers planned quite
well for the use of the contracts, following service guidance and
including the contractor early in planning. For example, in planning
for Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. Army, Europe, was tasked with
supporting the anticipated movement of troops through Turkey into Iraq,
and our review of that planning showed that the command followed
applicable Army guidance to good effect. In October 2002, the command
brought contractor personnel to its headquarters in Europe to help plan
and develop the statement of work. According to a briefing provided by
U.S. Army, Europe, contractor planners brought considerable knowledge
of contractor capabilities, limitations, and operations, and their
involvement early in the planning efforts increased understanding of
the requirements and capabilities, facilitated communication regarding
the statement of work, and enhanced mission completion.
Conversely, we found that the use of LOGCAP in Kuwait and Iraq was not
adequately planned, nor was it planned in accordance with applicable
Army guidance. Given the lack of early and adequate planning and
contractor involvement, two key ingredients needed to maximize LOGCAP
support and minimize cost--a comprehensive statement of work and early
contractor involvement--were missing. Specifically:
* A plan to support the troops in Iraq was developed in May 2003, but
was not comprehensive because the contractor was not involved in the
early planning and it did not include all of the dining facilities,
troop housing, and other services that the Army has since added to the
task order. According to an official from the 101st Airborne Division,
there was a lack of detailed planning for the use of LOGCAP at the
theater and division levels for the sustainment phase of the operation.
He added that Army planners should develop a closer working
relationship with the divisions and the contractor.
* Task orders were frequently revised. These revisions generated a
significant amount of rework for the contractor and the contracting
officers. Additionally, time spent reviewing revisions to the task
orders is time that is not available for other oversight activities.
While operational considerations may have driven some of these changes,
we believe others were more likely to have resulted from ineffective
planning. For example, the task order supporting the troops in Iraq was
revised 7 times in less than 1 year. Frequent revisions have not been
limited to this task order. Task order 27, which provides support to
U.S troops in Kuwait (estimated value of $426 million as of May 2004),
was changed 18 times between September 2002 and December 2003,
including 5 changes in one month, some on consecutive days. As of May
11, 2004, the contracting office, DCMA, and the contractor had
processed more than 176 modifications to LOGCAP task orders.
Contract Oversight:
In some cases, we found that contract oversight processes were in place
and functioning well. For example, the Defense Contract Management
Agency (DCMA) had principal oversight responsibility for the LOGCAP and
AFCAP contracts and the BSC,[Footnote 9] and DCMA generally provided
good overall contract oversight, although we found some examples where
it could have improved its performance. For example:
* Effective oversight of the diverse functions performed under the
contracts requires government personnel with knowledge and expertise in
these specific areas. DCMA contract administrators are contracting
professionals, but many have limited knowledge of field operations. In
these situations, DCMA normally uses contracting officer's technical
representatives. Contracting officer's technical representatives are
customers who have been designated by their units and appointed and
trained by the administrative contracting officer. They provide
technical oversight of the contractor's performance. We found that DCMA
had not appointed these representatives at all major sites in Iraq.
Officials at the 101st Airborne Division, for example, told us that
they had no contracting officer's technical representatives during
their year in Iraq, even though the division used LOGCAP services
extensively.
* For task orders executed in southwest Asia, the AFCAP procuring
contracting officer delegated the property administration
responsibility to DCMA administrative contracting officers. However,
contract administrators in southwest Asia did not ensure that the
contractor had established and maintained a property control system to
track items acquired under the contract. In addition, DCMA contracting
officers in southwest Asia did not have a system in place to document
what the contractor was procuring in support of AFCAP task orders and
what was being turned over to the Air Force. As a result, as of April
2004, neither DCMA nor the Air Force could account for approximately $2
million worth of tools and construction equipment purchased through the
AFCAP contract.
An important element of contract administration is the definitizing of
task orders, that is, reaching agreement with the contractor on the
terms, specifications, or price of services to be delivered. All of the
contracts included in our review were cost-plus award fee contracts.
These contracts allow the contractor to be reimbursed for reasonable,
allowable, and allocable costs incurred to the extent prescribed by the
contract and provide financial incentives based on performance. Cost-
plus award fee contracts allow the government to evaluate a
contractor's performance according to specified criteria and to grant
an award amount within designated parameters. Award fees can serve as a
valuable tool to help control program risk and encourage excellence in
contract performance. To reap the advantages that cost-plus award fee
contracts offer, the government must implement an effective award fee
process. Any delays in definitizing task orders, however, make cost-
control incentives in these award fee contracts less effective as a
cost control tool since there is less work remaining to be accomplished
and therefore less costs to be controlled by the contractor.
While we found that AFCAP and BSC task orders were definitized quickly,
and CONCAP task orders do not require definitization since the terms,
specifications, and price are agreed to before work begins, we also
found that many LOGCAP task orders remain undefinitized for months, and
sometimes more than a year, after they were due to be completed and
after billions of dollars of work had been completed. Because task
orders have not been definitized, LOGCAP contracting personnel have not
conducted an award fee board. I would like to note, however, that this
condition is not limited to the LOGCAP contract. We stated in our
report released yesterday that the Army Corps of Engineers has yet to
definitize its March 2003 contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure
or one of its contracts to rebuild Iraq's electrical infrastructure and
recommended that the undefinitized contracts and task orders be
definitized as soon as possible. DOD agreed with this recommendation
and identified a number of steps being taken to do so.
Economy and Efficiency:
We again found mixed results in evaluating the attention to economy and
efficiency in the use of contracts. In some cases, we saw military
commands actively looking for ways to save money in the contracts. For
example, U.S. Army, Europe, reported savings of approximately
$200 million under the BSC by reducing labor costs, by reducing
services, and by closing or downsizing camps that were no longer
needed. The $200 million is almost 10 percent of the current contract
ceiling price of $2.098 billion. In addition to these savings,
U.S. Army, Europe, routinely sends in teams of auditors from its
internal review group to review practices and to make recommendations
to improve economy and efficiency. In others, however, most notably the
LOGCAP contract in Iraq and Kuwait, we saw very little concern for cost
considerations. It was not until December 2003, for example, that the
Army instructed commands to look for ways to economize on the use of
this contract. Similarly, we found that the Air Force did not always
select the most economical and efficient method to obtain services. It
used the AFCAP contract to supply commodities for its heavy
construction squadrons, although use of the contract to procure and
deliver commodity supplies required that the Air Force pay the
contractor's costs plus an additional award fee. Air Force officials
said that they used AFCAP because not enough contracting and finance
personnel were deployed to buy materials quickly or in large
quantities. AFCAP program managers have recognized that the use of a
cost-plus award fee contract to buy commodities may not be the most
cost-effective method and said that the next version of the contract
may allow for either firm-fixed prices or cost-plus fixed fee
procurements for commodity purchases.
Personnel and Training:
We found that shortages of personnel have also made contract oversight
difficult. For example, while DCMA has deployed contracting officers to
several countries throughout southwest and central Asia and the Balkans
to provide on-site contract administration, DCMA officials believe that
additional resources are needed to effectively support the LOGCAP and
AFCAP contracts. Administrative contracting officers in Iraq, for
example, have been overwhelmed with their duties as a result of the
expanding scope of some of the task orders. Additionally, some Army and
Air Force personnel with oversight responsibilities did not receive the
training necessary to effectively accomplish their jobs. Finally, we
found that military units receiving services from the contracts
generally lacked a comprehensive understanding of their contract roles
and responsibilities. For example, commanders did not understand the
part they played in establishing task order requirements, nor did they
fully understand the level of support required by the contractors.
Concluding Observations:
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the United States, along with its
coalition partners and various international organizations and donors,
has undertaken an enormously complex, costly, and challenging effort to
rebuild Iraq in an unstable security environment. At the early stages
of these efforts, agency procurement officials were confronted with
little advance warning on which to plan and execute competitive
procurement actions, an urgent need to begin reconstruction efforts
quickly, and uncertainty as to the magnitude and term of work required.
Their actions, in large part, reflected proper use of the flexibilities
provided under procurement laws and regulations to award new contracts
using other than full and open competitive procedures.
With respect to several task orders issued under existing contracts,
however, some agency officials overstepped the latitude provided by
competition laws by ordering work outside the scope of the underlying
contracts. This work should have been separately competed, or justified
and approved at the required official level for performance by the
existing contractor. Importantly, given the war in Iraq, the urgent
need for reconstruction efforts, and the latitude allowed by the
competition law, these task orders reasonably could have been supported
by justifications for other than full and open competition.
Logistics support contracts have developed into a useful tool for the
military services to quickly obtain needed support for troops deployed
to trouble spots around the world. Because of the nature of these
contracts, however--that is, cost-plus award fee contracts--they
require significant government oversight to make sure they are meeting
needs in the most economic and efficient way possible in each
circumstance. While the military services are learning how to use these
contracts well, in many cases the services are still not achieving the
most cost-effective performance and are not adequately learning and
applying the lessons of previous deployments. Because of the military's
continuing and growing reliance on these contracting vehicles, it is
important that improvements be made and that oversight be strengthened.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, this concludes my statement.
I will be happy to answer any question you may have.
Contact and Acknowledgment:
For further information, please contact Neal P. Curtin at (757) 552-
8111 or curtinn@gao.gov or William T. Woods at (202) 512-4841 or
woodsw@gao.gov. Individuals making key contributions to this statement
include Robert Ackley, Ridge Bowman, Carole Coffey, Laura G. Czohara,
Gary Delaney, Timothy J. DiNapoli, George M. Duncan, Glenn D. Furbish,
C. David Groves, John Heere, Chad Holmes, Oscar W. Mardis, Kenneth E.
Patton, Ron Salo, Steven Sternlieb, Matthew W. Ullengren, John Van
Schaik, Adam Vodraska, Cheryl A. Weissman, and Tim Wilson.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Rebuilding Iraq: Fiscal Year
2003 Contract Award Procedures and Management Challenges, GAO-04-605
(Washington, D.C.: June 1, 2004).
[2] See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, Contingency
Operations: Opportunities to Improve the Logistics Civil Augmentation
Program. GAO/NSIAD-97-63 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 11, 1997); U.S.
General Accounting Office, Contingency Operations: Army Should Do More
to Control Contract Cost in the Balkans. GAO/NSIAD-00-225 (Washington,
D.C.: Sept. 29, 2000); and U.S. General Accounting Office, Military
Operations: Contractors Provide Vital Services to Deployed Forces But
Are Not Adequately Addressed in DOD Plans, GAO-03-695 (Washington,
D.C.: June 24, 2003).
[3] The Act's authority for waiving competitive contracting procedures
that would impair foreign aid programs was recently recodified and
enacted into positive law (40 U.S.C. § 113(e)).
[4] If more than one contractor was awarded a contract, however, then
all the contractors are required to be provided a fair opportunity to
be considered for the task order.
[5] DCC-W, a division within the office of the Administrative Assistant
to the Secretary of the Army, provides administrative support,
including contracting support, to DOD components located in the
National Capital Region.
[6] The LOGCAP contract, which was competitively awarded in 2001,
requires the contractor to provide the Army and other entities with
planning and a broad range of logistics services in wartime and other
operations. The Army has used LOGCAP to support both military
operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
[7] According to the Army Corps of Engineers, more than $2.5 billion
had been obligated on the contract as of May 2004.
[8] As we reported, DOD concluded that there was only one source with
the capability to perform emergency repairs to the oil infrastructure
given (1) the classified nature of the planning efforts, (2) the
contractor's role in those efforts, and (3) the imminent commencement
of hostilities.
[9] While oversight of a contract is the responsibility of the
contracting officer, the contracting officer may delegate some
oversight responsibilities to DCMA.
