Report today in the Washington Post about another system in the Great Transfer Payment to Government Contractors War on Terror that completely failed to work–in this case, a new database for the FBI.

I’m on record as having zero sympathy for people who can’t build or can’t buy a database. On SAIC’s side, rule one of ethical consulting is, “It’s your job to tell your clients when their heads are firmly lodged in their nether reasons.” Or so I hear. None of my clients have ever exhibited such qualities. The fact that one of them said today that he reads my blog had no impact on this paragraph.

Once you’ve told your clients they’re wrong, it’s their prerogative to insist on staying wrong, at which point it’s perfectly fine to bill them out the wazoo, for work you know you’ll get paid double for when you redo it later. You just remind them as you go along, document the hell out of everything, and then be ready with Plan B when the time comes.

This is one of the big value-adds you bring to the table–their employees can’t tell their bosses they’re idiots, but you can. When managed well, your clients will even thank you for it, as you have now saved them a great deal of time, money, and heartache. If your customer is always right, then clearly you’ve got nothing to add to the conversation–so why the hell are you there in the first place? You’re not a consultant, you’re a parasite.

It seems to me that profiteering from national defense by knowingly building a broken system is dangerously close to treason–and wouldn’t it be interesting to see if we got more quality out of government spending if we defined it as such? Of course, that might send many rich white Republican donors to jail, so it would never happen. But I digress.

But incompetence, like the tango, takes two. I simply cannot fathom how the FBI, which at its heart is dedicated to information processing, can be managed by people so utterly devoid of understanding of database systems. Surely one of these people has a bright daughter-in-law with a rudimentary grasp of this sort of thing? A bright high-school student nephew? A dog who growls when he smells an idiot? Apparently not.

I think the Post buried the lede here, as is their wont when it comes to criticizing failure. Sure, you can blame the FBI as a whole for having the managerial experience of a gerbil, but check out the timeline for the guy at the top:

It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF). It appeared to work beautifully. Until [Zalmai] Azmi, now the FBI’s technology chief, asked about the error rate. Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds, Azmi recalled in an interview. The problems were multiplying as engineers continued to run tests. Scores of basic functions had yet to be analyzed. Within a few days, Azmi said, he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that the $170 million system was in serious trouble.

In March [2004], testifying before a House subcommittee, Mueller said that the FBI had experienced “a delay with the contractor” but that the problem had been “righted.” He said he expected that “the last piece of Virtual Case File would be in by this summer.”

In my book, when a top official charged with protecting the nation blatantly lies to Congress to cover his own ass, he deserves harsh and swift justice. A Presidential Medal of Freedom should do it.