Interagency Contracting: Problems with DOD's and Interior's Orders to Support Military Operations;Report to the Congress

摘要

In recent years, federal agencies have increasingly turned to interagency contractswhere one agency, for example, places an order under an existing contract for another agencyas a way to streamline the procurement process. Interagency contracting can offer benefits of improved efficiency, but this approach needs to be effectively managed. To learn more about some of the challenges of interagency contracting, we reviewed the process that the Department of Defense (DOD) used to acquire interrogation and certain other services through the Department of the Interior to support military operations in Iraq. On behalf of DOD, Interior issued 11 task orders, valued at over $66 million, on an existing contract. This report identifies breakdowns in the procurement process, contributing factors that led to the breakdowns, and the extent to which recent actions by Interior and DOD address these contributing factors.