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SoF Mag expose'
I am informed that the issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine will cover a Dept of Justice Inspector General's report on ATFE deployment in Iraq. Gist of reports is that millions have been claimed in fraudulent overtime (as in everyone consistently reporting 16 hour workdays, 7 days a week, or everyone reporting 15.5 hour workdays).
· BATFE
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That's a pretty piss-poor excuse for having the ATFE (presuming that is the ATF/BATF performing any overseas duties whatsoever). This has gotten WAY out of hand.
Allowing 16 hours to be claimed every day was the only way they could get volunteers to go.
Volunteers, hah!
Every soldier or marine over there is a real volunteer, and none of them are getting paid anywhere near this atrocious rate for much shittier and more dangerous duty.
More gov't drones, that's all they are.
Give 'em a break... there's just more unarmed women with babies in Iraq; they have to go where the targets are.
I don't know how SoF Mag can call this an expose. It's been kicking around the 'Net for months...
BTW, twisting the rules in government pay and allowances is common. When I flew C-141s for the USAF Reserve, and we were flying between two US airports or bases, we could take drill pay in lieu of being put on orders and drawing active duty pay.
Flying for a day netted us 2 1/2 days of drill pay, or 2/3 of what we got by attending drill for a whole weekend, and that rate was good for all the flying we did, so if we beat around the Pacific from McChord to Alaska to Guam and back, we could "attend" all our drills for a full quarter in one trip.
Small potatoes, but that rule has been in effect through at least 7 Presidential Administrations that I know of.
The rules for Federal pay are ALWAYS bent. How they get bent might make for interesting reading, but it's not a stop-the-presses scoop.
Wow, DaveP, you make quite a persuasive argument! Why don't you call them JBTs while you're at it. If you don't like what an agency does, try to change it through the voting booth and letters to your representatives/senators/executive branch appointees, etc. rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks which nullify your point of view from the beginning as just a crackpot!
Demonizing all cops or agents or whatever is a false argument and it makes you sound like an Internet Tough Guy!
..says the guy beefing on a message board.
If you don't like what an agency does, try to change it through the voting booth and letters to your representatives/senators/executive branch appointees, etc. rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks which nullify your point of view from the beginning as just a crackpot!
It's not ad hominem if they really do shoot unarmed women with babies; and while their tally thereof is not large in absolute numbers, the insitution never has publically admitted even to changing policies to prevent a recurrence, much less admitted any wrong-doing. And the "vote, don't complain" charge is just juvenile by now. Do you really think DaveP. hasn't voted and written his reps, given his views expressed here? And is he/are we supposed to vote in silent isolation, without ever reminding the general public of that little misunderstanding over lawful rules of engagement?
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I'm amazed by the weak excuses some people offer for a man in uniform. "Everybody does it a little," so we should excuse sixteen hour days in seven day weeks with overtime after forty hours. (Blackwater might have been cheaper, and probably better qualified for the actual job and region.) "Blogs have had the rumor," so we should ignore a print publication getting the documentation.
Beware that report, as they claim Law Enforcement Availability Pay is the only overtime authorized to DOJ special agents from the FBI and ATFE. In fact, LEAP only covers unscheduled overtime. If overtime is scheduled, and scheduled means that the agency knew by the Sunday of the previous pay period, that overtime was needed, then agents can receive overtime. In this case it was scheduled as after 8 hours, the next two hours were LEAP and anytime after that was overtime.
Now, agents were required to be on duty 16 hours a day, regardless of the work level, the SOF claim is that the agents did non-work on work hours. Well, if an agency overschedules overtime, and does not assign work, or, in the case of ATFE agents, they could not perform duties because they did not have an available escort in a war zone, then there is not much they can do about that.
One of the reasons for the heavy scheduling was that they just wanted armed agents in the green zone and at American diplomatic facitilies to provide an unofficial back-up to the Diplomatic Security Service agents and contractors in the event of an attack.