tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post7732437328161664907..comments2024-03-27T12:56:38.992-07:00Comments on The Skeptical Bureaucrat: Antiterrorism Assistance Program 2009 Year In ReviewTSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02790614121966204073noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-39935728908279857042010-06-12T08:15:09.340-07:002010-06-12T08:15:09.340-07:00Anonymous,
Thanks for your comments. My own exper...Anonymous,<br /><br />Thanks for your comments. My own experience with ATA has been overall positive. I supported a course ATA - meaning, its contractors - taught to a foreign security agency, and have participated in two country needs assessments. <br /><br />The training course surprised me. The material was amazingly out of date (which is why my office, from another part of DS, was supplementing it), and the contractors were a mixed bag; one was very effective and also foreigner-friendly, the others, uh, not so much. I recommended ATA do a complete re-write of that course's curriculum and materials.<br /><br />The country assessments, however, were extremely well done. In both cases ATA used people from several specialized USG agencies and offices, assessed the training needs of every security and criminal justice sector in the target country, and made recommendations to the embassy and to local officials, in about one week. <br /><br />There was no slack time in either of the country assessment visits, but I know what you mean about flying people in for vacations. Personally, almost all my official travel is to places like Pakistan, so vacations aren't a possibility (unless you like that kind of thing, which some do). But there always seems to be a disproportionate need to travel to the nicer places, and I have no doubt that afflicts ATA at least as much as any other office. The only good solution to that is for post management to be more skeptical when granting country clearance.TSBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790614121966204073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-4715646622532317322010-06-12T01:04:45.825-07:002010-06-12T01:04:45.825-07:00It would be nice if the contractors in ATA knew so...It would be nice if the contractors in ATA knew something about DS. I attended a training course and the two instructors did not know anything about DS or their agents.<br /><br />I guess they would have to admit they were contractors then instead as required but no one in DS or DOS holds them to that either.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-45007201705523048922010-06-12T01:02:04.745-07:002010-06-12T01:02:04.745-07:00It is a great program but they waste a lot of mone...It is a great program but they waste a lot of money flying excess people to post to conduct reviews. Why do i as a taxpayer have to pay for people to come to post and have a vacation?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com