By Calvin Biesecker
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) yesterday said the Obama administration’s nominee to run the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has “adequately addressed” her concerns regarding the improper billing by Robert Harding’s former consulting firm related to a short lived contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency because it no longer needed additional interrogators in Iraq in 2004.
Harding’s former firm, Harding Security Associates (HSA), which he founded in 2003 and sold in 2009, last year reached a negotiated settlement with the government for a $1.8 million in repayment related to a potential five-year, $49.2 million contract the firm received in January 2004 to provide interrogators to the DIA under an urgent needs requirement. However, the DIA terminated the contract for convenience after it decided to focus on only a few “high-value detainees,” Harding testified yesterday at the second of his two Senate confirmation hearings.
Subsequently, Harding had to lay off the 40 interrogators he had just hired, and paid them severance costs that he eventually billed the government. However, those costs were not allowed under the contract, he said.
“I accept Sen. Collins, the mistakes that I made,” Harding said. “As a matter of fact, as a small business owner, I’m convinced that I made a mistake. This was our largest and, in my opinion, our most important contract and in my effort to stay engaged with my client, an effort to stay engaged with my employees and take care of them, an effort to take care of my stakeholders which is the Iraq Support Group, I lost sight of the fact that I also had to be cognizant of what was going on in my back room, in the accounting shop and in the contract shop.”
Ultimately, Harding said the lessons learned led to better accounting systems, internal controls, and enhanced accountability within HSA. As the company grew from about 60 employees at the time of the Defense Contract Audit Agency to over 400 when it was sold, those problems “never happened again,” Harding said.
Harding retired from the Army in 2001 after a 33-year career which included service as the Army’s deputy chief of intelligence and the director of operations for the DIA.
Also in response to questions from Collins, who is the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Harding said that his interrogators under the DIA contract never abused detainees nor violated the Geneva Convention. Collins said that HSA interrogators worked at a camp in Iraq where there were reports of numerous abuses of detainees.
“Based on today’s hearing and my review of the record, I believe General Harding has adequately addressed my concerns regarding his former firm’s contract with the Defense Department,” Collins said in a written statement after the hearing. “He also testified under oath that there were no allegations of abuse by any the firm’s interrogators who were sent to Iraq. Before making a final determination on the nomination, however, I want to review additional information in order to ensure that all relevant data regarding the nominee have been thoroughly examined.”
At the hearing, Harding also shed further light on some of his plans if he is confirmed as the next TSA administrator. He said that TSA is already beginning to do more Red Team exercises to explore for weaknesses in its security layers and capabilities and would like to do even more of this.
Harding said he wants to bring in experts “who think like bad guys” to constantly improve how the agency does security. On Tuesday, he testified to the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee that he wants to train and drill Transportation Security Officers more and also enhance the work of Behavior Detection Officers in spotting suspicious behavior among people in airports (Defense Daily, March 24).
Harding also repeated for Collins remarks he had made the previous day that he is satisfied that TSA is doing all it can to protect the privacy rights of individuals who are subjected to whole body imaging scans at aviation checkpoints. He also said he plans on being proactive when it comes to integrating with the intelligence community so that TSA can better understand the threats it is facing.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), the committee chairman, said his panel hopes to complete its mark-up of Harding’s nomination soon after the upcoming Easter recess.