THE PEACOCK REPORT (TPR)

Navy Cracking Down on Steroid Use

The U.S. Navy is stepping up efforts to clamp down on steroid use by agency personnel, recent contracting documents show. The Naval Logistics Medical Command, through its Ft. Detrick, Md.-based Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, is assessing the availability of qualified labs capable of conducting about 400 steroid-specific urine-specimen analyses annually over the next five years. According to a sources-sought notice dated Dec. 12 and located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, the endeavor aims to detect the use of performance-enhancing drugs listed in the Anabolic Steroid Act of 2004, such as 19-nor-androsterone, Boldenone, Nandrolone, Stanozolol, Methandienone, Drostanonlone, Trenbolone, Methenolone, as well as other compounds. Though unconnected to the recent spate of high-profile cases in the media, the stepped-up testing coincides with the release of a Major League Baseball report revealing pervasive steroid use among professional ball players (see Steroid Report Names Star Players; Washington Post, 12/14/2007; free registration required).

U.S. Contractor to Oversee Afghanistan 'Good Governance' Initiative

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) intends to deploy a "Legislative Strengthening Specialist" to Afghanistan, where a private contractor will guide Afghani legislators on matters of "good governance" spelled out by the Bush Administration, The Peacock Report has discovered. The primary duty of the specialist will be, ironically, to oversee U.S.-financed legislative-strengthening initiatives separately carried out by other private contractors.

In addition to serving as U.S. Mission liaison to the Afghanistan National Assembly, Provincial Councils, and the United Nations, the specialist will be tasked with coordinating "programs designed to strengthen the functioning of political parties [and] the Office of the President..." according to a solicitation that TPR located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database.

Violence in Colombia = More Sole-Source Contracts For U.S. Weapons Makers

More Submachine Guns, Grenade Launchers En Route to Colombia is Steve Peacock's latest contribution to the Narcosphere. It is the 80th article he has written for his Narcosphere Reporter's Notebook Follow the Money; Bird's Eye View, which he launched in Feb. 2005.

New DHS Project Seeks To Create Border Surveillance Airships is Steve Peacock's latest contribution to The Narcosphere.

A collection of over one-hundred previous pieces that Peacock has written on U.S. "drug war" and economic development policy can be found in his Narcosphere "reporter's notebook," Follow the Money: Bird's Eye View.

Interior Dept. Starts Arizona Border Fence Project

The U.S. Dept. of the Interior earlier this week issued a call for bids to build a fence along the border with Mexico, preceding House passage of legislation on Wednesday and Senate approval just a few hours ago (May 18) to erect 370 miles of such border-protection fencing.

To view the entirety of this report, please visit the NarcoSphere, where the article originally appeared.

USAID Says NGOs Need Enhanced Ability to Investigate Colombian Security Forces

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday shed some light on how it anticipates strengthening the ability of civil-society groups -- who would be hired to work in consultation with the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) -- to investigate human rights violations in Colombia.

To view the entirety of this article, please visit The NarcoSphere, where the piece originally appeared.

State Dept. Contractor to Train Bolivian Internal Investigators

The U.S. State Dept. is planning to deploy a law enforcement training & development advisor to Bolivia, where the still-unnamed private contractor annually will train about 1,500 officers and agents of the Government of Bolivia (GOB). The contractor will serve as an "expert advisor" to the director of the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) as well as to the Bolivian National Police (BNP) and the national counternarcotics police, known as Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotrafico, or FELCN. The advisor will be tasked with providing technical assistance to internal affairs investigators at BNP/FELCN as well as implement a management reform initiative.

To read the article in its entirety, please visit The Narcosphere, where this piece originally appeared.

'Riverine' Advisor Gets Million to Train Colombian Forces

The U.S. Army Contracting Agency (ACA) has awarded a $1 million contract to an Amarillo, Texas man to assist the Colombia Marine Corps in conducting waterway-based counternarcotics missions. Steven Berger, operator of Products & Services of the Americas, will provide strategic- and tactical-operations training to Colombian forces under the contract.

In an apparent move to keep a low-profile on the award, ACA buried the contract notice in the FedBizOpps database-archives on Monday, April 10 -- the same day it had posted the legally required notice for the first time.

To read the remainder of this article and for more background info on this and other "drug war" issues, please visit The Narcosphere.

South American, U.S. Herbicide Contamination to Be Studied Under Legal Pot-Farm Contract

An ongoing assessment of potential contamination caused by U.S.-sponsored herbicide eradication of drug crops in South America and domestically will soon begin, according to a recently obtained National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) planning document. The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) has received a five-year, $6 million federal contract to carry out this and other cannabis-related tasks at its National Center for Natural Products -- which operates the only legal marijuana farm in the U.S.

In addition to analyzing marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Center will, ironically, grow and harvest up to 1,000 kilos of bulk pot, while separately producing and distributing hundreds of thousands of high, low and zero-potency marijuana cigarettes to be used in clinical research. The Ole Miss facility also must “extract, analyze, store [and] prepare” the cannabis for the sake of determining its potency. According to the project’s "statement of work," one of those tasks includes the extraction and storage of one kilo of pure THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

U.S. Intends to Share 'Stewardship' of Amazon Conservation Efforts

The U.S. government wants to heighten its role in coordinating conservation efforts in South America’s Amazon Basin, asserting a shared “responsibility for the stewardship” of this and other critical regions of biodiversity. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) acknowledged last week that commodity markets are driving much of the overfishing, logging, petroleum and minerals extraction in the basin, leading to deforestation and the construction of poorly planned dams and other infrastructure in the area.

Contributing to the challenges of resource management in this region is coca production and narco-trafficking, USAID claims.

Visit The Narcosphere to read this report in its entirety.