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Fluor builds LOGCAP housing
in southern Afghanistan
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As readers of DID are aware, the U.S. Army’s sole provider LOGCAP 3 contract, which provided food, housing and fuel for U.S. troops worldwide, generated lots of controversy because government audits of the sole supplier’s (Halliburton-KBR) work were unable to fully account for millions of dollars or justify all charges to the Pentagon’s satisfaction.

To address perceived problems of LOGCAP 3, the Army awarded the follow-on contract, LOGCAP 4, to 3 companies, including KBR, who compete for task orders. The other companies are DynCorp and Fluor. In fact, both DynCorp and Fluor recently won task orders under LOGCAP 4 to provide support to the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

DID has more on the recent LOGCAP 4 contracts, as well as a court ruling regarding KBR’s LOGCAP work…

DynCorp, along with team members CH2M Hill and Taos Industries, won a task order (W52P1J-07-D-0007) with a potential value of $5.9 billion to provide logistics support for U.S. troops in the southern area of responsibility (AOR) in Aghanistan. The task order has a base year worth $643.5 million plus four 1-year options.

Under this task order, the DynCorp team will provide existing bases within the Afghanistan South AOR with operations and maintenance support, including facilities management, electrical power, water, sewage and waste management, laundry operations, food services, and transportation motor pool operations. DynCorp will also provide construction services for additional sites.

Not to be outdone, Fluor said it won a task order (W52P1J-07-D-0008), with a potential value of $7 billion, to provide logistics support for U.S. troops in the northern AOR in Afghanistan. The task order has a base year plus four 1-year options. Fluor will provide construction services, power, water, housing, base operations, sustainment services and logistics support to 74 U.S. operating bases in Afghanistan’s Northern region.

Fluor said that this latest task order is the 4th it has received under the LOGCAP 4 contract. Previously, Fluor was awarded task orders to expand and operate 4 forward operating bases in northern Afghanistan, to provide measurement and testing services in Kuwait, and to build and operate 8 additional forward operating bases in Afghanistan.

In an announcement related to its LOGCAP work, KBR said a federal appeals court ruled that the Political Question Doctrine bars a lawsuit against KBR for civil liability related to its activities as a contractor to the U.S. military under the LOGCAP contract. The court affirmed in this case that the military, not civilian contractors, decides and directs the activities of contractors in battlefield situations.

DID’s article “Vanity Fair’s ‘The People vs. the Profiteers’” has an in-depth discussion of a Vanity Fair article on KBR’s legal trouble over its LOGCAP work.

The Army Sustainment Command (ASC) is hoping that the new structure of LOGCAP 4 will help avoid the controversies associated with LOGCAP 3. In addition to selecting 3 contractors to compete for task orders, the ASC selected a 4th contractor, Serco-North America, to provide planning support, essentially monitoring the 3 other contractors. This structure, according to ASC, introduces competition into the contracting process and allows the Army to manage the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) more effectively.

Although the new contract structure has improved the situation, there remain issues concerning protests from contractors on the losing end of specific task orders. ASC offers details some of these issues in “Army segues from LOGCAP III to IV.”