Thursday, April 29, 2004
Pentagon, Halliburton: Let's Take Away Iraq Contractor's Guns!
Well, just when you thought the government could not possibly be stupider, along comes this gem, courtesy of the five-sided freak show we call the Pentagon:
Pentagon Rule Would Bar Contractors From Carrying Guns in Iraq.
(Knight-Ridder) ORLANDO, Fla. - As the insurgency and violence in Iraq intensify, the Department of Defense has proposed a new rule for most of the estimated 70,000 civilian contractors working in the war-torn region: They can't carry guns.
Deidre Lee, the Pentagon's director of procurement and acquisition policy, whose office proposed the rule, said it was designed to settle one of the biggest questions facing contractors: "to arm or not to arm."
It is a life-or-death issue because "we don't have the military providing security for our contractors," Lee said.
At the same time, a top department official acknowledged that the war effort was suffering a "brain drain" of civilian workers who were fleeing Iraq because they did not feel safe.
The measure is supported by Kellogg, Brown and Root officials, who argue that they'll lose insurance coverage on employees when they pick up weapons.
Now, the measure would permit military commanders to allow contractors to carry firearms. And it's hard to imagine a commander saying 'no.' It's just one more memorandum that has to be written and somehow delivered across a battlefield to whatever ignorant loser rear-echelon bureaucrat is asking for it.
KBRs argument that armed contractors are more likely to be shot at or kidnapped is, frankly, delusional. Daniel Pearl wasn't armed. And neither were the three Japanese kidnapping victims from earlier this month. The World Trade Center wasn't exactly targeted because of the Phalanx miniguns on each roof.
And when the contractors were ambushed and killed and strung up like sheep carcasses in Fallujah, I can guarantee you they would not have been let go simply because they were unarmed.
The insurance for the workers is a nonissue. They can be adopted into the same risk pool as American servicemen, and pay SGLI premiums--probably elevated premiums, to reflect the brief time of their service in Iraq (military personnel pay premiums during peacetime and wartime as well, spreading the risk out over many years), but that can be figured out by actuaries, and the cost passed on to the US government.
The liability factor for Halliburton is a slightly more difficult issue. If they allow their contractors to carry firearms, over the objections of retarded bean counters in air conditioned offices who have no conception what the risk tradeoffs are in Iraq, then they potentially expose themselves directly to bank-breaking lawsuits on the part of aggrieved families.
Hey--ever hear of purchasing a rider?
Ever heard of reinsurance?
And if the insurance industry gives them a hard time, Insurance regulators could weigh in and force the issue.
It wouldn't be that hard, since supporters of the bill are proposing that we create an additional layer of expense to hire private security firms to protect KBR convoys. And presumeably someone insures them.
So there's a model actuarial table to start with.
It seems to me that A.) Halliburton and the other contractors are pushing the military to provide better security to their convoys in a kind of game of 'chicken,' B.) Since Brown and Root is compensated on a cost + percentage of cost basis for most services, they are trying to inject an extra layer of expense in order to increase their total earnings, or C.) Someone in the procurement office is weighing a post retirement offer to join a private security firm and would like the military-industrial complex to owe him a favor.
Whatever it is, ol' Joseph Heller himself couldn't come up with a more absurd plot line than this one.
Splash, out
Jason
(Via Grim's Hall)
Pentagon Rule Would Bar Contractors From Carrying Guns in Iraq.
(Knight-Ridder) ORLANDO, Fla. - As the insurgency and violence in Iraq intensify, the Department of Defense has proposed a new rule for most of the estimated 70,000 civilian contractors working in the war-torn region: They can't carry guns.
Deidre Lee, the Pentagon's director of procurement and acquisition policy, whose office proposed the rule, said it was designed to settle one of the biggest questions facing contractors: "to arm or not to arm."
It is a life-or-death issue because "we don't have the military providing security for our contractors," Lee said.
At the same time, a top department official acknowledged that the war effort was suffering a "brain drain" of civilian workers who were fleeing Iraq because they did not feel safe.
The measure is supported by Kellogg, Brown and Root officials, who argue that they'll lose insurance coverage on employees when they pick up weapons.
Now, the measure would permit military commanders to allow contractors to carry firearms. And it's hard to imagine a commander saying 'no.' It's just one more memorandum that has to be written and somehow delivered across a battlefield to whatever ignorant loser rear-echelon bureaucrat is asking for it.
KBRs argument that armed contractors are more likely to be shot at or kidnapped is, frankly, delusional. Daniel Pearl wasn't armed. And neither were the three Japanese kidnapping victims from earlier this month. The World Trade Center wasn't exactly targeted because of the Phalanx miniguns on each roof.
And when the contractors were ambushed and killed and strung up like sheep carcasses in Fallujah, I can guarantee you they would not have been let go simply because they were unarmed.
The insurance for the workers is a nonissue. They can be adopted into the same risk pool as American servicemen, and pay SGLI premiums--probably elevated premiums, to reflect the brief time of their service in Iraq (military personnel pay premiums during peacetime and wartime as well, spreading the risk out over many years), but that can be figured out by actuaries, and the cost passed on to the US government.
The liability factor for Halliburton is a slightly more difficult issue. If they allow their contractors to carry firearms, over the objections of retarded bean counters in air conditioned offices who have no conception what the risk tradeoffs are in Iraq, then they potentially expose themselves directly to bank-breaking lawsuits on the part of aggrieved families.
Hey--ever hear of purchasing a rider?
Ever heard of reinsurance?
And if the insurance industry gives them a hard time, Insurance regulators could weigh in and force the issue.
It wouldn't be that hard, since supporters of the bill are proposing that we create an additional layer of expense to hire private security firms to protect KBR convoys. And presumeably someone insures them.
So there's a model actuarial table to start with.
It seems to me that A.) Halliburton and the other contractors are pushing the military to provide better security to their convoys in a kind of game of 'chicken,' B.) Since Brown and Root is compensated on a cost + percentage of cost basis for most services, they are trying to inject an extra layer of expense in order to increase their total earnings, or C.) Someone in the procurement office is weighing a post retirement offer to join a private security firm and would like the military-industrial complex to owe him a favor.
Whatever it is, ol' Joseph Heller himself couldn't come up with a more absurd plot line than this one.
Splash, out
Jason
(Via Grim's Hall)
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