and business is good
This year, the annual conference of the International Peace Operations Association "will be held in Washington, D.C., home to some of the world’s largest clients in the global peace and stability operations industry."Stop for a moment and admire the deadpan perfection of that description.
This year's conference theme: "Engaging Africom."
Sadly, Paddy Chayefsky is dead.
posted by Chris Bray @ 10:17 PM
12 Comments:
Sorry you don't like the name of the Association! You might want to do some background research on it to see where we come from, or for more recent 'history' read our bi-monthly journal the Journal of International Peace Operations at PeaceOps dot COM.
Regards,
Doug Brooks
President, IPOA
Dear Mr. Bray,
Sorry you don't like the name Dachau. You might want to do some background research and read about the many innovative techniques in human resource management we are pioneering.
Regards,
Mojo
Chief, Department of Missed Points
I'm delighted by this exciting opportunity to address our shareholders, the German people. We are really quite excited this year by the Einsatzgruppen, a major extension of the Final Solution brand, and I want to assure each and every one of you that we are workshopping a variety of bold new synergies that will assure our continuing ability to serve our Jewish clients.
This message brought to you by Pulmonary Oncology Brands, maker of Pall Mall cigarettes.
Very nice. When in doubt: compare to Nazis.
If you're ever interested in serious discourse, drop me a note.
-doug
Dear Doug,
Here's a serious question: How can anyone take your trade association seriously when it has corporate members like DynCorp International?
DynCorp has been one of many private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan that have come under scrutiny for being involved in many incidents where employees have acted in an overly aggressive manner, resulting in the loss of innocent lives.
Furthermore, federal auditors have criticized contractors such as DynCorp for wasting millions of dollars on unapproved projects and mismanaging contracts to such an extent that it is impossible to determine how billions of dollars have been spent.
Given these realities, it seems that the IPOA's Code of Conduct serves merely to provide a front for its members to point to as "proof" of their ethical credentials, while behind the scenes they do whatever they feel they can get away with.
If you can point to specific actions that the IPOA has taken to prevent future violations of the Code of Conduct by its members, and to any punitive measures that such violations have already resulted in, then please do so.
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that you genuinely believe in the stated mission and goals of the IPOA. However, until you provide such evidence as I requested above, I will remain convinced that the overriding motivation for corporate members to attain membership in IPOA is their belief that it might help bolster their public image without requiring any real change in behavior.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Dylan Hirsch-Shell
Doug still doesn't know which part is the joke and which part is the not-joke.
Still, here's some serious discourse for your consideration.
Mr. Hirsch-Shell,
Many thanks for the more thoughtful response.
Companies in our industry do indeed operate in dangerous places, the same places as militaries and peacekeepers. We founded IPOA to support international peace operations, which are by their nature dangerous. Our companies succeed by being ‘risk managers’ – mitigating dangers while accomplishing their contracted mission.
Originally IPOA’s focus was in Africa with the UN and AU operations in peace operations like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Eastern Congo that had been essentially abandoned by the West. The private sector held those missions together providing everything from logistics to helicopters and - yes - even some private security to the UN and AU. We used a Code of Conduct originally written by NGOs and human rights lawyers in Sierra Leone and expanded it – the goal has been to get all the high-end companies under one ethical umbrella. You might find my articles on the origins of IPOA of interest in the March – April 2008 issue of the Journal of International Peace Operations which can be downloaded for free from our web site or from www.peaceops dot com. Private companies still underpin international peace efforts, and if you go to Mogadishu today to look at the struggling peace operation there, the only peacekeepers you will find will be Ugandans, Burundians and DynCorp. There are no Western troops of course; the West continues to ignore these critical humanitarian operations.
IPOA expanded after 9-11 when our supporting companies followed the U.S. military to Afghanistan and Iraq. The location of an operation matters less than the principles of how companies should operate in areas of conflict. Ultimately, the better a stability operation or peacekeeping job is done – by militaries or by the private sector - the more people are alive at the end.
Private security only makes up 5% of our industry and most of our industry is locals. Of 180,000 U.S. government hired contractors in Iraq, 120,000 are Iraqis (few news articles raise this fact). Less than 10,000 are private security, and about 1,500 are Americans doing private security (most of the American PSCs are doing high-end diplomatic security). The rest of the 180,000 are doing reconstruction, logistics for the military, landmine removal, medical services, aviation etc.
Armed Private Security Companies (PSCs) are required to follow rules when using lethal force. For Iraq, they are called the Rules for the Use of Force (RUF) – defensive security, as opposed to the military’s Rules of Engagement, which vary depending on the mission and situation, but generally allow proactive use of lethal force to accomplish a mission. For more information on this you might find my 2006 testimony to the House Committee on Government Reform of interest, which includes the full RUF used by contractors working for the U.S. Departments of Defense and State as well as the Iraqi government – http://ipoaonline.org/php/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110&Itemid=120&date=2010-02-01
Nevertheless, when an employee of DynCorp - or any other company - violates the RUF there needs to be a system of accountability, which can be tricky in an area of conflict. We don’t have a perfect legal system in the United States, without a war going on. The United States has the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) as the primary tool to hold non local civilians employees accountable (locals hired by companies are always under local law, such as it is). While MEJA is a good start, two bills in Congress (supported by the industry) will expand it and improve its capabilities (the Price bill was passed overwhelmingly in the House, the Obama bill is the Senate version is still in committee but is expected to pass too). A key improvement will be transparency, as we are aware of some 50+ MEJA cases being processed by DoJ but their rules do not allow them to share that information – which is frustrating for the industry, but even more frustrating for citizens in areas of conflict. Congress also changed the law to allow the Uniform Code of Military Justice to be used with contractors as well, but that is opposed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and IPOA, and is likely to be thrown out by the courts (there is a new case ongoing using UCMJ).
In terms of wasting money on unapproved projects, more often than not the problem ends up being a government oversight and control issue rather than a contractor issue. Steve Schooner of George Washington University has been hammering on this issue since 2003, as have I in my own testimony (already sourced). If this is of key interest you can learn more from the Gansler Report which highlights what the government needs to do to fix this issue. The report is available online here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.army.mil%2Fdocs%2FGansler_Commission_Report_Final_071031.pdf&ei=gXVPSMOBNJ_IiAH8g523DQ&usg=AFQjCNFoazVXEVuXTb8rik5GvwtgpMaYGg&sig2=gGnhys7DyVFGVhXkCyMIpA
One thing to keep in mind is that in any CCO having perfect or even ‘good’ accountability just ain’t going to happen. A buddy of mine is an army Civil Affairs officer and after Baghdad fell he was given a suitcase of money and told to put Iraqis to work. Unfortunately, U.S. government rules required companies that he hired to have DUNS numbers – which ruled out all but the Saddam-linked family firms. He ended up hiring lots of small Iraqi companies to do lots of things, but the receipts, when he got them, were hardly up to typical U.S. accounting standards. For Western firms working in Iraq in the early days, they faced exactly the same challenges, and in future stability operations we’ll see the same thing happening (and yes, we have done stability operations in the past and we’ll do them in the future). The U.S. government has a pretty good idea how most of it was spent, but yes, some no doubt got misdirected and while most of the problem has turned out to be the government itself (corrupt contracting officials), any private sector folks caught in such activities should be held accountable as well. And many have been.
Regarding the IPOA Code of Conduct, we set it up so anyone can bring a complaint based on the Code, and we have a Standards Committee to address those complaints. Keep in mind that industry standards cannot replace governments. We cannot detain or incarcerate individuals or hold legal trials – those are governmental activities. We can make sure complaints brought against IPOA companies get heard and companies are called to address violations by their peers. We actually have our annual ‘Standards Simulation’ coming up later this month where we assemble our Standards Committee in front of NGOs and human rights lawyers and run simulated complaints before them. The Committee discusses the issue and based on the Code and our bylaws, then designs a plan of action on how to address the alleged violation. Afterwards we go to the NGOs and they can ask questions, criticize and suggest improvements. We also will have an open Summit on our Code probably in September, after the ICRC/Swiss Government best practices are completed (aka the Swiss Initiative), where we will try to ensure our Code is fully compliant.
Contractors have been around for a long time supporting military operations – 700,000 in WWII, 80,000 in Vietnam, and more contractors than troops in the Balkans. We (as in taxpayers) pay for firms to do specific tasks and we should expect and demand they do so professionally. Ultimately, the better the oversight and the better the rules, the better it is for the more professional companies. It is a highly competitive industry with tiny profit margins. But if a company is screwing up, there are lots of others to pick from.
I hope that largely answers your questions (its 3am here . . .), but if you give me an email address I’d be happy to send along other articles and links if you have more queries.
Many thanks for the benefit of the doubt. Feel free to sign onto the IPOA mailing list (on our web page) and feel free to be critical. And if you’re in DC come to our events and decide for yourself if we’re doing enough.
Regards,
Doug Brooks
DBrooks AT IPOAonline.org
"Nevertheless, when an employee of DynCorp - or any other company - violates the RUF there needs to be a system of accountability, which can be tricky in an area of conflict."
"We can make sure complaints brought against IPOA companies get heard and companies are called to address violations by their peers."
A lot of typing to not actually say anything.
Dylan,
Also, regarding Doug's claim that, w/r/t to waste, fraud, and abuse, "more often than not the problem ends up being a government oversight and control issue rather than a contractor issue," you might also look at this story from the Wall Street Journal.
"A lot of typing to not actually say anything."
Chris,
I could write it out in crayon if that would help your comprehension?
Best regards,
doug
"Irony."
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