My Way News

Contractors:

Grim's Hall is one of the prime defenders of the use of contractors in Iraq and elsewhere. This is probably due in part to a vested interest--being a contractor is the way I've found to contribute to the war, and I want to continue contributing. On the other hand, a lot of the defense of contractors comes from experience. I have seen a fair amount of contract work up front, and I know that it provides a real and indeed an indispensible service to our country. Contractors provide skills in numbers that the military needs.

Human nature being what it is, however, if a good thing is to remain a good thing, accountability is important:

In a sign of continued problems with the tracking of contracts, Pentagon officials on Thursday acknowledged they have yet to identify which Army entity manages the multimillion-dollar contract for interrogators like the one accused in the Iraq prisoner abuse probe.

Pardon me, but what? I mean, this is a Pentagon problem rather than a problem with the contractor, but it's a serious problem. The government ought not to be spending taxpayer dollars in any case without a clear chain of accountability. We need to be able to call people to account for how they've spent (or misspent) our money, regardless of the project.

I think contractors do a world of good for the military, and I believe I have good reasons for saying so. Still, clear rules and guidelines are a wise precaution in any undertaking. It ought also to be an obligation of the government to account for how it spends our coin. It appears there has been a failure in both regards, at least in some cases. I know exactly which department signs my contracts, so it's not true where I work. I know too that the government can get it right some of the time, so there's no excuse for getting it wrong here.