IraqSlogger: StatCrunch:Reports

StatCrunch:Reports

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"At What Cost?" Blasts Contractor Oversight

New Report on Contingency Contracting In Iraq and Afghanistan

The Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC), is an independent, bipartisan legislative commission established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are mandated by Congress to study federal agency contracting for the reconstruction, logistical support of coalition forces, and the performance of security functions, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assessment of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts is part of their job, and it seems some folks made their work a bit too easy, according to its latest interim report, “At What Cost? Contingency Contracting In Iraq and Afghanistan”.

That top-notch, inexpensive contracting work (and oversight thereof) you’ve come to expect is documented in uncomfortable detail for all involved.

Download a PDF of the entire document here.

06/14/2009 04:00 AM ET

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Visser: Against Self-Determination in Kirkuk

The Practical Argument Against Self Determination in Kirkuk - A Turkmen City?

In the early twentieth century, many observers saw the north of Iraq as consisting of towns dominated by Turkmens (and sometimes Christians), and a countryside where the Kurds were often in the majority, as in this account in an article from the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society from 1937, where it is even claimed that Arbil...</a></i></b></div>
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05/27/2009 5:13 PM ET

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Report: Mental Health of War Zone Contractors

The Psychological Health of Contractors Working in War Zones

This study by Anthony Feinstein (Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario) and Maggie Botes (International Contractors Association, Pretoria, South Africa) examines the psychological health of contractors working in war zones. Depression, psychological distress, alcohol abuse, demographics were all factors in the study, as was whether an employer provided pre- and post- deployment support and the availability of psychological help while on deployment.

From the introduction...