Dear FRONTLINE,

Great job focusing on the negative once again. God help us if any publicly American funded organization ever tries to report the good things we are trying to do to help protect our fellow American as we rebuild a nasty place. God help us if you try and make a man who wants to earn for his family out to be a hero and not some pawn of the military industrial complex. God help America!

James Norman
richmond, va

Dear FRONTLINE,

Kudos for highlighting the debacle in Iraq. Your commitment to provide the American public with the basic facts of the situation in Iraq is singularly noteworthy. The American media and press has been derelict in their duty to monitor this administration and its actions and responsiblities for loss of lives and treasure in this unfortunate war. A proper response to the 9/11 attack was necessary. Attacking Iraq was not the proper response. Inept response to the warnings prior to 9/11 resulted in inept actions to bring those responsible to justice!

Frank King
Dillsburg,PA, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am really sick of folks proudly stating that their love ones are there in Iraq to susport the troops and all that patriot garbage. The bottom line is they are there because of the money. Lets be real. As for the troups, a lot of them are national guards men who joined for the money and are not stuck in Iraq. The conflict is all about money, and nothing else. The few patriot one are far and few.

Gregory
Washing, DC

Dear FRONTLINE,

I believe that with cuts in numbers of soldiers signing up for service, both in the UK and US, i feel that PMFs are certainly the way forward for the future. Invariably, they are ex-soldiers, but with the added advantage that they are older and possibly wiser than your average soldier. I would certainly feel more comfortable in having troops in their 30s and 40s going to battle rather than your late teen gunhoe kid.
Alot of the time, senior management of these companies have strong ties with the governing countries from where they originate. What is certainly needed is clearer legislation.
Additionally, it certainly makes sense to the taxpayer to outsource such activities if it can be done a whole lot cheaper by PMFs as opposed to the government.
Certainly, it is a waste of US/UK soldier time to be guarding, for example diplomats. This activity has been outsourced in Iraq and Afghanistan freeing up soldiers to carry out missions they were trained to do.

Dr Bal Powar
London, England,

Dear FRONTLINE,

How did financial accountability become a partisan issue? And why does it appear that small government conservatives appear to be against this idea?

No matter the size of an operation, successful businesses know the cost to manufacture a unit.

GM officials could easily find the average cost of each model it makes. They could also easily tell you how many people purchased each of their models.

This directly relates to the cost of severing each meal, and how many are served at each meal. This information is very necessary for KBR to have in order to function efficiently. They can not come even close to maximizing their profits with out running their business efficiently, these are necessary details!

Which leaves us with two possibilities, either they aren’t efficiently using their resources, or they know these exact figures. If they know the figures, why are they withholding them?

Imagine how many stockholders a large corporation would have if they refused to give financial reports? That’s right, none, no educated investor would have anything to do with the company.

As tax payers we deserve to have full disclosure of KBR’s financial reports.

I would not argue against soldiers having 32 ice cream flavors to choose from. Unless 600 servings of dirt flavored sundaes were prepared at each meal, and 600 servings were thrown out after each meal.

I would like to optimistic that our tax dollars are being used efficiently. But without full disclosure, I have to ask what are they hiding?

Jeff Pierce
Clarkston, Washington

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for providing such an insightful program. I was (or so I thought) fortunate to meet Lady Bird Johnson in the mid-'70's while bussing tables. Later, Dad remarked that part of her wealth came as a stockholder in Morrison-Knudsen, prime contractor for a number of the isolated super-bases that had been built in SE Asia, and were noted in comments regarding construction of similar facilities in SW Asia today. Is the administration returning to a similar dis-jointed strategy of staging one campaign to "win the hearts and minds" with community assistance programs on the one hand, and a second to quiet insurgents by force of technology and arms on the other.
"American Soldier" by Gen. Tommy Franks provides interesting background on this period in Iraq, as he warned superiors to be prepared for a rapid end to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and to leave him alone to pursue that objective, as he anticipated the aftermath to be more complex and time-consuming, requiring more planning.
From a "military brat", thank you very much.

Charles Branch
Cordova, Alaska

Dear FRONTLINE,

Good expose' on a very disturbing key component of modern US warfare. Military outsourcing and contractor profiteering is rampant and for the mostpart, unchallenged. My previous employer, a US environmental firm, was purchased by a Canadian company, that in turn was owned by a global UK company. The primary purpose of this acquisition in 2000 was to get in on the US federal government contractor feeding trough. They were quite successful, ending up with a huge Iraqi subcontract that accounted for the singlemost portion of their revenue by the time I quit. To me, as an environmental scientist (biologist) and devoted US citizen, it turned my stomach to think that foriegn entities could do this. I hope your program brings to light the not-so-patriotic practice of outsourcing and profiteering going on under the guise of national security.

Jeff Trow

Dear FRONTLINE,

Although ANY report on what this American Administration is doing outside the territorial boarders of the USA, it is very disappointing and in my opinion, and to my knowledge of the facts and record, 'a whitewash' and a disservice that you have perpetrated against the american public with your current private warriors broadcast.

It is OBVIOUS that your managment has been taken over by the Neo Corporatist GOP. Your report COMPLETELY skirted the issue of crimes against humanity being committed by Private Contractors, CIA and the current Cheney Administration,in Iraq, GITMO and elsewhere.

joseph kosuda
Las Vegas, NV

Dear FRONTLINE,

Our daughter was a member of a USA Reserve MP company in Iraq at POW Camp Bucca in 2003. This was the initial set-up of the prisoner of war camp. The MP's ate MRE's (fighting off hordes of flies etc) and the POW's were served 3 hot meals a day. A nice clean portapoty was unheard of there too. They served all over Iraq for a year. I thought the Camp Anaconda "mess" halls and clean poties were something to behold. Our daughter provided security at a corporal's pay. We hope they don't go back.

George MacDonald

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for the thought-provoking coverage of several rather thorny issues. I am very proud of the fact that my husband is a KBR employee in Baghdad doing a job he strongly feels is providing a better quality of life for the soldiers who are serving our country in Iraq.

Karen Nuckols
Coatesville, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Great show! Please let's not forget the executives at home collecting big salaries, bonuses and stock options for furthering the private sector war machine and of course our politicians ex-military who end up having lucrative futures at those war companies, like our millionaire vice president.

Also, sadly, these 'fact-biased' shows are only going to lead to less funding for PBS. But keep up the good work!

Matt Berley
Chicago, Illinois

Dear FRONTLINE,

I want to thank you for your report about which I am sure is but only one of many difficult issues we as Americans are dealing with in "our" war on terror.
I am preparing as I write this to go to Iraq as a KBR truckdriver and as you can guess am very concerned about my well-being but being the descendant of war veterans on both sides of my family, the troops in the middle-east who are putting "their" lives in jepardy deserve more than just putting a sticker on the back of a car!

War is an ugly business and mistakes happen all the time but after speaking with KBR representatives,it is my conclusion that their main objective is to provide those courageous men and women with the best services that can be provided to them and that is exactly what I plan to do!

I realize that there is alot in your report that I may have misunderstood or just missed all together but one cannot expect to perservire in conflict if one continually takes the position that the glass is always half empty.

Again, I want to thank Mr. Smith for his journalistic efforts and the risks he took. It required I know a lot of courage to get his story but I question his motives.Were they to report historical world events or to give a political point of view?

Robert W. Kelly
Clarendon, Texas

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for another thought provoking program. Private contractors taking increasingly numerous and vital roles in Iraq has been a subject of concern for me throughout this war. It is clear from your program that if the US government continues to rely on contractors in a war zone then we all stand to lose something in our fight in the desert. The military loses control and effectiveness in the presence of more and more poorly trained and informed civilians not operating within the chain of command. The American public loses the transparency allowed to monitor government actions to private corporations.

We live in a country that always grants the prize and praise to the lowest bidder, yet we act surprised when we receive less than satisfactory results.

War should never become a business transaction.

Brandon Powers
Moultrie, Georgia

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your report points out some valuable information concerning contractors in Iraq, as regards the security situation. But from there, your report went downhill fast. The U.S. has been using contractors in war theaters since Vietnam. Decisions to use contractors to cook food and provide base support services were made in the 1970s as part of making the all-volunteer force more attractive for enlistments. Also, many military personnel fresh out of high school lack the skills to maintain today's complex equipment. The Army in particular has been using contractor personnel for equipment maintenance for at least 30 years, and I believe the Navy has also. If you want to go back to using World War II era equipment that can be maintained by someone with a couple of weeks of training, and go back to a draft to get all the food service workers and truck drivers you would have to add to the military for that purpose, then I suppose the military could get rid of its contractors. Otherwise, I would suggest that you get off their backs and commend them for the valuable services they are performing at as much personal risk as are the military personnel themselves incurring.

I am a former DoD civilian employee who was a Contracting Officer. Every DoD contract which is issued on a cost reimbursement basis requires that the payment vouchers be reviewed by Government personnel prior to payment. In most cases, this review is not only done by both the procuring and administrative contracting officers and uniformed program officials before payment is made, but is then re-reviewed afterwards by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and possibly by the Army Audit Agency as well for Army contracts. The reason these overcharges are becoming known is that people ARE doing their jobs; even though it might have been missed on the front end, it's being caught on the back side of the process by DCAA. And with the Halliburton fuel contract, someone probably had a bright idea to pay for gasoline by the gallon in an all-inclusive price rather than paying a separate price for the gas and a separate price for services to store and deliver the gas. Assuming that is what the Army did, they set themselves up for partisans in the news media to beat up on them by distorting the contract terms. If it was an all inclusive price, which I believe was the case, I'm surprised that Halliburton could deliver it for ONLY $3.00 per gallon.

In so far as monitoring contractor performance, this is the responsibility of individuals who are appointed as the Contracting Officer's Representative or Contracting Officer's Technical Representative. Unfortunately, DoD does have a problem in this area, but your report does not point that out. Military personnel are often not adequately trained to this task. This is a problem inherent in the Government procurement system. I was a rare DoD Contracting Officer in that I was both a former military member and also had technical training. In most cases, the Contracting Officers are not from this type of background. What DoD needs to do is to take some technical and operational personnel, both military and civilian, and teach them the business skills to become Contracting Officers. Instead, they bring in people with business skills who lack any kind of technical or operational skills. Many such people eventually pick up enough technical and operational knowledge on their own without any kind of systematic training to be able to do their jobs well; some do not. This is why some problems occur on the front-end of the operation I mentioned earlier which are eventually picked up on the tail end. Obviously, it would be better if they were picked up before the contractor was paid.

George Robertson
Culpeper, Virginia

Dear FRONTLINE,

I believe that the situation needs to be addressed by our military and our government. From what I can gather from this report, KBR and other companies in direct contract with the U.S. military is contracting out responsibilities of providing for our forces in Iraq. Companies such as KBR have security provided by the U.S. military which should be the case in the current situation. When these companies subcontract out some of the responsibilities in providing logisitic support for our troops to other companies they are not recieving military security, rather they are hiring private security companies to provide for their security needs. I do not oppose the presence of private security companies in Iraq but I do oppose the use of these "private soldies" in providing security for companies that are subcontracted to bring in supplies for the U.S. Military. It is primarily the U.S. military's responsibility to support our troops. When a company in direct contract with the U.S. military subcontracts some of their responsibility to provide logistic support for our troops then these subcontracted companies should have U.S. military security provided. However, the real problem with private security companies providing this security for our troops is that not only are they outside the chain of command of the military, it undermines the ultimate responsibility of our military to provide for its troops. In a situation such as Iraq, we are at war and it is not anyones place to be diing for providing for our troops, unless it is in direct contract with the U.S. military. I admire the efforts of private security companies in supporting our troops in Iraq, but believe if they are in some way contributing to the support of our troops they should be in the chain of command and or in direct coordination with the commanders on the ground in Iraq.

Chase Arnold