House focuses on phone costs, leave policies

[unhappycamper]

House focuses on phone costs, leave policies
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday May 19, 2008 17:24:20 EDT

The House Armed Services Committee is pushing for two morale-related policy changes for troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: lower costs for telephone services for troops in combat zones and a standard policy for granting leave after deployments.

In both cases, the committee has asked for reports rather than passing binding legislation, leaving doubt about whether anything will change.

Since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, service members have complained that the telephone service contracts signed by the Defense Department do not provide the lowest prices.

The 2008 Defense Authorization Act, enacted in January, included a new policy requiring a determination that future contracts, or renewed ones, would provide both flexibility and low costs to service members.

In its report accompanying the 2009 defense policy bill, the committee now says it is not sure the government is following the law. The report orders the Pentagon to provide the average cost of telephone calls made by service members from the war zone and how much profit contractors are making on the calls.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_deployment_fairness_051908w/