Afghanistan Contracting Flawed, DoD IG Says (FOUO)
The Government of Afghanistan is not equipped to manage contracts and “as a result, future direct assistance funds are vulnerable to increased fraud and abuse,” the Department of Defense Inspector General said in a report last month. The IG report was marked “For Official Use Only” and was not publicly released.
See The Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s Controls Over the Contract Management Process for U.S. Direct Assistance Need Improvement, DoD Inspector General, February 26, 2015.
The Inspector General assessment was reported by Bloomberg News yesterday (“Afghanistan Can’t Manage Billions in Aid, U.S. Inspector Finds” by Anthony Capaccio, March 10).
Also yesterday, the Department of Defense reissued guidance specifying that unclassified geospatial intelligence products may be withheld from public release under certain conditions, including international restrictions or operational security concerns. See DoD Instruction 5030.59, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Limited Distribution Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT), March 10, 2015.
Denice Ross, former U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Data Policy Institute lead at the Federation of American Scientists, will be honored for her stewardship of public data by the National Academy of Public Administration, where she has been named a Fellow.
Confirmation that the construction of the security perimeter and associated security infrastructure at RAF Lakenheath are still ongoing once again raises questions about whether U.S. nuclear weapons have already been deployed to the base.
Alaskans are sensibly pulling back from the vogue for bans and returning to a western tradition that has worked for more than half a century – one that welcomes innovation but also oversees it closely.
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