Karzai-mania in Afghanistan, Acquisition Awards, and Drone Wars

FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM

1. Part II: Project Management – Project Cost. Contributor Jillian Hamilton explains why the lowest bidder in government contracting doesn’t have to be the lowest quality: “any slip in scope or schedule can devour whatever profit margin initially existed. With razor thin profit margins, it can be hard to keep employees happy during the project lifecycle, so it’s the PM’s job to promote a good working environment and find other retention strategies to make up for the lack of raises and financial incentives. Whether [lowest price technically acceptable] contracts are a good idea or not, chances are, until the ‘technically acceptable’ becomes unacceptable, this type of contract could be around for a while.” Don’t miss Part I: Project Management – Schedule.

2. But you don’t have an engineering degree! Contributor John Holst’s strategies for responding to the ill-informed recruiter’s confrontation with the obvious: “Once approached by a recruiter, it doesn’t hurt make sure everyone’s on the same playing field—to communicate effectively and clearly. Rude surprises await those who don’t, especially when working with a recruiter who’s blindly contacting potential hires via social media. . . . do everything you can to prove your case on your online profile and be prepared with a smart answer the next time a recruiter tries to peg you into a box based on one item.”

THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. In Afghanistan, we will take our Soldiers and go home. And we’re serious this time. Well, pretty serious, anyway. Left again to endure Karzai’s schizoid games, the U.S. threatens to fold. Reuters’ Jessica Donati and Mark Felsenthal report from Kabul, “Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign a security deal with the United States, the White House said, opening up the prospect of a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the strife-torn nation next year. Karzai told U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice in Kabul on Monday that the United States must put an immediate end to military raids on Afghan homes and demonstrate its commitment to peace talks before he would sign a bilateral security pact . . . . A senior politician in Kabul said it appeared that Karzai’s reluctance to let the deal go through stemmed from his eagerness to keep his hands on the levers of power in the run-up to a presidential election in April, when he is due to stand down.” Khaama.Com reports, “Afghan officials have said that president Hamid Karzai has demanded an immediate end to military raids on Afghan homes and demonstrate its commitment to peace talks before the bilateral security agreement is signed.” Meanwhile, getting stoned in Afghanistan may be the norm, again.

2. Bombs rock Baghdad – 150 killed in the past week: U.S. partners considered traitors. Aljazeera.Com reports, “At least 15 people were killed and another 35 injured as two bombs went off consecutively in a predominantly Shia neighborhood of the Iraqi capital. The bombs struck near a cafe in Baghdad’s busy Sadriyah shopping area Monday. More than 150 people were killed in Iraq in the past week, increasing fears that the country is on the brink of plunging back into a Sunni-Shia sectarian war. Worsening unrest in Iraq has killed more than 5,900 people this year alone. Elsewhere in Baghdad on Monday, a car bomb targeting a police station in the city’s northeastern outskirts killed four policemen, while another bomb, this one targeting Sahwa anti-al-Qaeda militiamen, killed one fighter and wounded four. Sahwa joined forces with US troops at the height of the Iraq war to fight al-Qaeda. Iraqi troops and Sahwa fighters have been a favorite target for Sunni fighters, who consider them to be traitors.”

3. Iran Geneva deal – POTUS’ personal stamp of approval. Reuters’ Matt Spetalnick reports, “When push came to shove in the closing hours of marathon negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program, it was President Barack Obama, back at the White House, who approved the final language on the U.S. side before the historic deal was clinched. It was perhaps only fitting that Obama had the last say. His push for a thaw with Tehran, a longtime U.S. foe, dates back to before his presidency, and no other foreign policy issue bears his personal stamp more since he took office in early 2009. Behind the risky diplomatic opening is a desire for a big legacy-shaping achievement and a deep aversion to getting America entangled in another Middle East conflict – motives that override misgivings to the Iran deal expressed by close allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.” And WaPo’s “9 questions about Iran’s nuclear program you were too embarrassed to ask” and Time’s “The Deal with the Iran Nuclear Deal.”

4. More magic in Geneva? U.N. looks to Syria talks in January. Aljazeera.Com reports, “The United Nations has set a date for talks between the Syrian government and opposition, in an attempt to push through the first such meeting since the start of the country’s 32-month-old war. . . . Laui Safi, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Coalition, said shortly after the announcement that the group would only attend if the Syrian regime met its preconditions: the release of prisoners and relief for besieged towns, and that the current president, Bashar al-Assad, has no part to play in the new transitional government. The SNC has also said it would need the support of all rebel brigades on the ground, including al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, before it began peace talks.” [And, they want the letter M stricken from the English alphabet.]

CONTRACT WATCH

1. David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award goes to . . . . American Forces Press Service’s Claudette Roulo reports, “Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter today presented four acquisition teams with the David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award, the highest Defense Department-bestowed honor for acquisitions. . . . The honorees include: The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle team . . . The Navy’s Air and Missile Defense Radar team . . . The Air Force’s HC-130J Combat King II and MC-130J Commando II Program team . . . [and] Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization and Air Force National Capital Region Information Technology Team . . . .”

2. Lockheed Martin gets $105 million for SATCOM. GovConWire.Com reports, “Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has been awarded a $105,083,207 contract modification to help operate and sustain two satellite communications systems for the U.S. Air Force. This modification covers the fourth option year of a cost-plus-award-fee contract for Milstar and the Defense Satellite Communications System, the Defense Department said Friday. Orbital operations and logistics sustainment work will occur in Sunnyvale, Calif. through Nov. 30, 2014.”

3. A gold mine in contracting awaits the courageous contractor. DefenseOne.Com contributor Marina Koren explains, “Destroying the arsenal, which includes deadly mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin, can’t safely be done on Syrian soil ravaged by continued armed conflict, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons . . . . The agency, which won a Nobel Peace Prize last month, announced Friday that it is inviting commercial chemical-disposal firms to bid on getting involved in the demolition process. The offer extends to any private firm in the 190 nations party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, an arms-control treaty excluding only Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan, and Angola . . . . the firms would destroy 18 types of chemicals in the Syrian arsenal. Many are common industrial substances that pose a danger only when mixed together to create other, more harmful forms of chemicals. Some can be safely rendered harmless and destroyed. OCPW set the price tag of destroying these chemical weapons between 35 million and 40 million euros, or $47 million to $54 million.”

4. EADS ready to cut jobs. DefenseNews.Com reports, “A reduction in defense orders will have an impact on jobs in EADS’s defense unit, the head of the European aerospace giant said in an interview published Monday.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. “In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs / Of every head he’s had the pleasure to know.” AP’s Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo report, “The [CIA] program was carried out in a secret facility built a few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The eight small cottages were hidden behind a ridge covered in thick scrub and cactus. . . . Some of the men who passed through Penny Lane helped the CIA find and kill many top al-Qaida operatives, current and former U.S. officials said. Others stopped providing useful information and the CIA lost touch with them. . . .”

2. The Drone Wars – Pakistan joins the remote-control fight. WaPo’s Tim Craig and Haq Nawaz Khan report from Kabul, “Pakistan’s military unveiled two domestically produced drones Monday, even as the country is facing growing protests over U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani soil. After years of preparation, the Strategically Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were formally announced by Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of Pakistan’s military. The drones, called Burraq and Shahpar, will not be armed and are to be used only for surveillance . . . . The development of the drones, thought to have a range of about 75 miles, represents a milestone for the country’s military and scientists, Pakistani and Western analysts said.” [75 miles? My son’s remote controlled Cox airplane can do that.]

3. Bitcoin to take over the world. Wired.Com contributor Cade Metz explains, “Bitcoin is still so very young. It arrived little more than four years ago, when a programmer or group of programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto released an open source software platform onto the internet and others jumped on board, helping to develop the system and expand it to an ever-growing number of online machines. Driven by this distributed piece of software, the currency is just now beginning to reach the mainstream. The recent spike in value is only natural. It just means a large number of people are suddenly embracing the currency.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Leveraging JFK today: “This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a column in the Washington Post’s coverage of the 50th anniversary of former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. In it, University of Texas journalism professor Bill Minutaglio used the killing to impugn the Tea Party and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. . . . Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: ‘If new Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wants to get conservatives to read his newspaper, this is the kind of derisive silliness he needs to rid from his pages and site. No matter what ‘far right’ hostility to JFK existed in Dallas, it is irrelevant given a far-left communist committed the murder. And for the Post to use the 50th anniversary to impugn a modern conservative politician, Ted Cruz, as somehow ‘comfortable in Dallas 1963’ is an outrageous slander.’”

2. Now, without that pesky filibuster, we can nominate a DHS IG – suddenly, everyone agrees: “Some lawmakers are welcoming President Obama’s nomination of John Roth to become the next Department of Homeland Security inspector general. The job has been vacant since early 2011 when Richard Skinner retired; the interim inspector general has been under fire from Capitol Hill. Roth, who previously held a variety of Justice Department posts, has headed the Food and Drug Administration’s office of criminal investigations since last year. The DHS inspector general’s office has lacked a Senate-confirmed head ‘for far too long,’ Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement. The job is ‘especially critical,’ given the department’s size and complexity, he added. Carper’s committee will decide whether to forward Roth’s nomination to the full Senate for confirmation.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “The Iran Deal: A Humanizing Breakthrough.” Time contributor Robin Wright argues, “So the recent talks in Geneva between Iran and the world’s six major powers produced far more than a long-elusive deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear program. The new diplomacy also produced real human contact.”

2. “Why Netanyahu is wrong about Iran nuclear deal.” Christian Science Monitor contributor Matthew Bunn argues, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that this weekend’s nuclear deal with Iran increases Iran’s chances of building nuclear weapons. He’s exactly wrong – so much so that nuclear weapons advocates in Tehran are probably hoping that Israel and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf succeed in sabotaging the agreement.”

3. “Republicans mindlessly oppose Iran nuclear deal.” WaPo’s David Milbank argues, “Republicans are opposed to President Obama’s deal with the Iranians — whatever it is. . . . In the eyes of Republicans, the agreement with Iran has a fatal flaw: It was negotiated by the Obama administration. This president could negotiate a treaty promoting baseball, motherhood and apple pie, and Republicans would brand it the next Munich.”

4. “How Mary Cheney can save the GOP.” TheDailyBeast.Com’s Ford O’Connell argues, “The last thing on earth the Republican Party would brand itself as is ‘the party of gays.’ And yet if it weren’t for gay and lesbian Republicans, who now make up an undefined but significant voting bloc, it is unlikely that Republicans would have the few electoral victories they’ve been able to celebrate this past decade.”