Just days after the Pentagon released a post-mortem on a fatal ambush of U.S. combat troops in Niger last year, the department’s watchdog criticized U.S. Africa Command for mishandling a contract for conducting emergency evacuation services and airlifting cargo across the continent.

Defense Department rules required the command to conduct what is called a Service Requirements Review Board to analyze and verify its requirements before U.S. Transportation Command awarded a $900 million contract for trans-Africa airlift support.

The command’s contracting staff “did not take responsibility as the requiring activity” for the contract, with Transportation Command officials assuming that as long as they received funding and a performance work statement, “the requiring activity had validated the requirements,” said the report dated May 8.

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