[Free Beacon] The State Department is reconsidering an $850 million contract award for IED and bomb removal in hot spots around the world after a previous agency grant to the same company received new scrutiny just weeks into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's tenure.The State Department's Political-Military, Weapons Abatement (PMWRA) Office awarded the lucrative bomb-removal contract in May to Tetra Tech, an engineering services company that has a more limited history in munitions and ordnance clearance than several other companies and NGOs the U.S. government has worked with previously.
The contract would have made Tetra Tech the only commercial entity responsible for U.S. taxpayer-funded IED and other bomb clean-up efforts around the world.
The bomb-removal work is extremely dangerous but critically important for communities displaced by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which left IED booby traps intended to maim or kill returning families or government workers.