A $48 million State Department grant to a for-profit company for IED and other bomb removal in Syria was rushed in the final days of the Obama administration to lock it in before President Trump was inaugurated, according to two sources with detailed knowledge about the process, as well as State Department grant records.
The grant is receiving new internal State Department scrutiny just a few weeks into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s tenure, as U.S. government officials try to flag key areas of concern that the new secretary can address, the sources said.
The bombing and ordnance removal is extremely dangerous work but critically important for the safety of returning 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.
By the late summer of 2016, a joint effort by foreign non-governmental organizations from Western Europe, local Iraqi groups, and Janus Global Operations, worked under State Department funding to clear bombs in Iraq.
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