I want the drugs this guy is using.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eubulides" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 9:33 PM Subject: cronysm? What cronyism? > washingtonpost.com > No 'Cronyism' in Iraq > By Steven Kelman > Thursday, November 6, 2003; Page A33 > > > There has been a series of allegations and innuendos recently to the > effect that government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan are > being awarded in an atmosphere redolent with the "stench of political > favoritism and cronyism," to use the description in a report put out by > the Center for Public Integrity on campaign contributions by companies > doing work in those two countries. > > One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of > how federal contracts are awarded -- whether a career civil servant > working on procurement or an independent academic expert -- who doesn't > regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and > utterly absurd. > > The premise of the accusations is completely contrary to the way > government contracting works, both in theory and in practice. Most > contract award decisions are made by career civil servants, with no > involvement by political appointees or elected officials. In some > agencies, the "source selection official" (final decision-maker) on large > contracts may be a political appointee, but such decisions are preceded by > such a torrent of evaluation and other backup material prepared by career > civil servants that it would be difficult to change a decision from the > one indicated by the career employees' evaluation. > > Having served as a senior procurement policymaker in the Clinton > administration, I found these charges (for which no direct evidence has > been provided) implausible. To assure myself I wasn't being naive, I asked > two colleagues, each with 25 years-plus experience as career civil > servants in contracting (and both now out of government), whether they > ever ran into situations where a political appointee tried to get work > awarded to a political supporter or crony. "Never did any senior official > put pressure on me to give a contract to a particular firm," answered one. > The other said: "This did happen to me once in the early '70s. The net > effect, as could be expected, was that this 'friend' lost any chance of > winning fair and square. In other words, the system recoiled and prevented > this firm from even being considered." Certainly government sometimes > makes poor contracting decisions, but they're generally because of > sloppiness or other human failings, not political interference. > > Many people are also under the impression that contractors take the > government to the cleaners. In fact, government keeps a watchful eye on > contractor profits -- and government work has low profit margins compared > with the commercial work the same companies perform. Look at the annual > reports of information technology companies with extensive government and > nongovernment business, such as EDS Corp. or Computer Sciences Corp. You > will see that margins for their government customers are regularly below > those for commercial ones. As for the much-maligned Halliburton, a few > days ago the company disclosed, as part of its third-quarter earnings > report, operating income from its Iraq contracts of $34 million on revenue > of $900 million -- a return on sales of 3.7 percent, hardly the stuff of > plunder. > > It is legitimate to ask why these contractors gave money to political > campaigns if not to influence contract awards. First, of course, companies > have interests in numerous political battles whose outcomes are determined > by elected officials, battles involving tax, trade and regulatory and > economic policy -- and having nothing to do with contract awards. Even if > General Electric (the largest contributor on the Center for Public > Integrity's list) had no government contracts -- and in fact, government > work is only a small fraction of GE's business -- it would have ample > reason to influence congressional or presidential decisions. > > Second, though campaign contributions have no effect on decisions about > who gets a contract, decisions about whether to appropriate money to one > project as opposed to another are made by elected officials and influenced > by political appointees, and these can affect the prospects of companies > that already hold contracts or are well-positioned to win them, in areas > that the appropriations fund. So contractors working for the U.S. > Education Department's direct-loan program for college students indeed > lobby against the program's being eliminated, and contractors working on > the Joint Strike Fighter lobby to seek more funds for that plane. > > The whiff of scandal manufactured around contracting for Iraq obviously > has been part of the political battle against the administration's > policies there (by the way, I count myself as rather unsympathetic to > these policies). But this political campaign has created extensive > collateral damage. It undermines public trust in public institutions, for > reasons that have no basis in fact. It insults the career civil servants > who run our procurement system. > > Perhaps most tragically, it could cause mismanagement of the procurement > system. Over the past decade we have tried to make procurement more > oriented toward delivering mission results for agencies and taxpayers, > rather than focusing on compliance with detailed bureaucratic process > requirements. The charges of Iraq cronyism encourage the system to revert > to wasting time, energy and people on redundant, unnecessary rules to > document the nonexistence of a nonproblem. > > If Iraqi contracting fails, it will be because of poorly structured > contracts or lack of good contract management -- not because of cronyism > in the awarding process. By taking the attention of the procurement system > away from necessary attention to the structuring and management of > contracts, the current exercise in barking up the wrong tree threatens the > wise expenditure of taxpayer dollars the critics state they seek to > promote. > > The writer is a professor of public management at Harvard University. He > served from 1993 to 1997 as administrator of the Office of Federal > Procurement Policy. He will answer questions about this column during a > Live Online discussion at 2 p.m. today at www.washingtonpost.com.
