BAKER
if not posted-may be notable
I can't wait to find out where this $ actually ended up
http:// freebeacon.com/national-security/48m-no-bid-state-department-grant-isis-bomb-removal-faces-scrutiny-pompeo/
Janus, a for-profit company which claims to be the largest munitions management and demining company in the world, at the time was the only U.S. commercial company under State Department contract for this type of work.
In 2016, the company cleared thousands of IEDs and explosives planted by ISIS in Ramadi alone.
Optima, a British company that bills itself as "leaders in explosive threat mitigation," in mid-2016 was in the middle of surveying an area in Fallujah littered with IEDs and planning a major clearing operation, according to
Tetra Tech is an engineering services company that specializes in construction management and has much more limited experience in munitions and ordnance clearance than Janus and other foreign NGOs such as HALO Trust and for-profit companies such as Optima, FSD/Crosstech, Mechem, and others, sources said.
The State Department's PMWRA office had never worked with Tetra Tech before the $48 million grant for large-scale IED removal in Syria, spurring more questions in the contracting community about why it was selected, the sources said.
Tetra Tech, according to its website, had experience in supporting the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center in the disposal of unexploded ordnance and munitions removal in Iraq. The website does not cite a date for that project.
Munitions handling, however, is different than IED clearance work, which requires more sophisticated experience and skill sets. IEDs set by ISIS are hidden boobytraps, difficult to detect and even more difficult to safely disable.
Officials in the U.S. State Department's PMWRA office worked to expedite a start date for Tetra Tech's IED removal grant before Jan. 19, 2017, the day before President Trump was inaugurated, the sources said.
"There was a mad dash in the PMWRA and NEA bureaus to get this done by Jan. 19," said one source familiar with the internal State Department effort. "They got the grant funded by Dec. 29, 2016, and then got the internal paperwork finished by Jan.19, working in theater with the NEA regional bureau to lock this in."
According to the website USAspending.gov, the State Department's PMWRA Office provided the grant money for "Syrian Conventional Weapons Destruction" with the funds doled out in tranches for work performed over the course of two years and two months.