So, let me see — State wants, say, a billion dollars worth of DoD hardware gratis…what does the Marine Corps Security Guard Battalion say about all that? I guess that means jobs for former aviation warrant officers and maybe retired SF NCOs….but who pays for the contractors?
Boston Globe June 15, 2010 Associated Press
Diplomats Seek War Gear As Troops Exit Iraq
WASHINGTON — The State Department says its diplomatic staff won’t be safe after the American military leaves Iraq unless it has its own combat-ready protection force, a warning that underscores concerns about the Iraq army and police the US has spent billions of dollars training and equipping.
Vehicles and aircraft used by the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security to protect personnel in other parts of the world are “inadequate to the extreme security challenges in Iraq,’’ according to documents the State Department sent to the Pentagon in April.
The bureau will need to “duplicate the capabilities of the US military’’ by December 2011, the documents say, when all American forces are scheduled to leave Iraq.
The State Department wants 24 of the Army’s Black Hawk helicopters, which cost between $12 million and $18 million each; 50 bomb-resistant vehicles; heavy cargo trucks; fuel trailers; and high-tech surveillance systems, according to the documents.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s undersecretary for management, wants the equipment transferred at “no cost’’ from military stocks.
