According to a news story, the CNMI paid $160,000 to something called Project Management Operations LLC to define what the CNMI could offer the U.S. Department of Defense in the way of goods, services and facilities as DOD moves several thousand Marines from Okinawa to Guam over the next few years.
On Oct. 13, a request for comment for PMO LLC’s draft report was published in the paper — announcing a deadline of Oct. 16, 2009, by which to submit comments. That’s three days.
Three days? to review a 77-page document? to evaluate its proposals on how the CNMI might benefit from the Guam/DoD build-up? to prepare written comment on them? to, perhaps, offer additional suggestions, corrections, edits?
Outrageous! Insulting! Absurd!
As far as the illiterateness of the document goes, it begins with the title, which was used in the ad, on the Web, on the document itself: “A strategic approach utilizing CNMI’s natural resources to provide complimentary support to DoD Guam,” where what was meant was complementary, or supportive, and not “free,” as the word “complimentary” suggests. And it only gets worse from there. There are incomplete sentences. There are sentences that make no sense. There are misspellings. There is poor grammar, with singular verbs for plural subjects, and vice versa.
A sentence that made no sense to me, from page 49: “Competitive analysis of DoD contracts consists of lead systems integrators, their sub contractors and independents.”
Another, page 70: “The below quote indicates that the Military already knows that the value in the MIRC [Mariana Islands Range Complex] area and how perfect the MIRC is for operations such training.”
An incomplete sentence (and no, this was not used as a heading): page 39: “Command, Control Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (C4ISR) or the information grid.” p. 39
Another, page 71: Along with the fact that the CNMI is a U.S. territory, making it easier to for the DoD to perform military training exercises that would normally be hindered in foreign territories due to politics. P. 71
A word usage error, page 72: “MIRC states that there will be no significant affect to urban areas.” It should read, “effect on urban areas.”
Outrageous! Insulting! Offensive!
The report makes a dangerous assumption, page 41: “The DoD requires lots of space for maneuvers, training, living, commerce, and recreation. The CNMI’s abundance of undeveloped space provides a blank canvas on which the partnership can be designed to maximize value for the DoD and the CNMI.” (Emphasis added)
Then there’s the more than 30 pages of the document that are boilerplate, copied from other sources, generic in nature. And the fact that the document entirely ignores the limits to the size of the total CNMI workforce.
Does the document offer anything useful? Its breakdown into three categories of DOD need and interest — operational support, military supplies and maintenance, and quality of life — in which the CNMI could participate, and its breakdown into near- mid-and long-term outlooks were useful. But the document and its content aren’t that detailed, that complex, that sophisticated as to be worth the $160,000 it cost to obtain them.
At the very least, the comment period for the draft report should be re-opened for a minimum of another two weeks to allow some transparency in the process.
RUTH L. TIGHE
Tanapag, Saipan
