Comptroller General

of the United States

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

The decision issued on the date below was subject to a

GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been

approved for public release.

Decision 

Matter of: Morris Corporation 

File: B-400336 

Date: October 15, 2008 

James H. Roberts, III, Esq., and Carrol H. Kinsey, Jr., Esq., Van Scoyoc Kelly PLLC, 

for the protester. 

Christine M. Choi, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. 

Paula A. Williams, Esq., and Ralph O. White, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Protest that agency improperly determined that a task order for detainee food 

services could be issued under an existing indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity 

(ID/IQ) contract that expressly anticipated providing food services for Iraqi police 

and military forces is denied because the record shows that offerors could have 

reasonably anticipated during the original ID/IQ competition that feeding 

requirements, like those here, could be obtained through task orders issued against 

the resulting contracts.

DECISION 

Morris Corporation protests the decision of the Department of the Army, Joint

Contract Command-Iraq (JCC-I), to obtain detainee food services through a task

order proposal request issued under multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinitequantity (ID/IQ) contract No. W91GYO-07-D-0017. Morris, which does not hold one 

of the ID/IQ contracts at issue in this procurement, argues that detainee food 

services do not fall within the scope of the ID/IQ contract. The protester also argues 

that by acquiring these services under the ID/IQ contract, the Army is effectively 

precluding Morris from competing for this work.

1

We deny the protest.

 1

 Since 2006, Morris has been providing detainee food services in various Iraqi 

detention centers.
The JCC-I is the contracting authority under which 15 individual contracting 

divisions or regional contracting centers administer various contracting functions in 

Iraq. In July 2007, the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) 

Support Division, one of the JCC-I contracting divisions, awarded multiple-award 

ID/IQ contracts to five firms with an ordering period of 3 years and a not-to-exceed 

ceiling of $495 million. ID/IQ Contract at 3. 

The ID/IQ contract contains two statements of work (SOW). One is for Iraqi training 

camp support services and the other, for coalition support services. SOW at 11-26, 

27-40. The SOW for Iraqi training camp support describes the services to be 

performed as follows: 

1.0. SCOPE OF WORK: The contractor shall provide all 

resources, personnel, equipment and management necessary to

provide life support operations at Iraqi Police Training Sites or 

Iraqi Military Training Sites identified on each Task Order issued

against this [ID/IQ] contract. 

SOW at 13. The second SOW, coalition life support, provides: 

20.0. SCOPE OF WORK: The contractor shall provide all 

resources, personnel, equipment and management necessary to

provide life support operations at coalition bases identified on 

each Task Order issued against this [ID/IQ] contract. 

Id. at 29. Section B of the ID/IQ contract included separate contract line items for 

the various SOW requirements such as the requirements for food operations and 

dining facility services. ID/IQ contract at 3-10.

In April 2008, JCC-I Theater-Wide Requirements (TWR) Division received a purchase 

request from the requiring activity for a contractor to provide food services for up to

5,000 detainees and 150 local nationals at the Theater Internment Facility 

Reconciliation Center (TIFRC) to be constructed at Camp Taji in Iraq2

. Agency 

Report (AR) exh. 7, Requirements Package. 

In preparing for this acquisition, the agency acknowledges that it initially intended to

acquire the required services as a single-award, fixed-price contract. In connection 

with that planned acquisition strategy, the agency published a presolicitation notice 

on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website advising potential 

offerors of its requirements, and of its intent to issue a solicitation. The anticipated 

solicitation release date was June 12, 2008. AR exh. 9, Presolicitation Notice (May 

 2

 A coalition base and an Iraqi facility are both located at Camp Taji; TIFRC will be 

located on the coalition side. Agency Legal Memorandum at 10. 

Page 2 B-400336 
28, 2008). As explained at the hearing conducted by our Office,3

 subsequent to the 

FedBizOpps posting, the requiring activity learned of the existing ID/IQ contract and 

requested and received copies of the ID/IQ ordering guide from the CO administering 

the ID/IQ contracts.4

 After reviewing the scope of the contracts, the requiring 

activity concluded that the detainee feeding requirements could be met under the 

ID/IQ contract. Hearing Transcript (“Tr.”) at 76-85. 

This review was followed by a second CO’s review (also at the requiring activity), 

who again compared the requirements for the detainee food services with the 

decentralized ordering guide and SOWs for the ID/IQ contract. At the end of this 

review, the activity again concluded that the detainee food services requirement was

within the scope of, and could be satisfied under, the existing ID/IQ contracts. 

According to the second reviewer: 

The TIFRC is located on a coalition base at Taji. An Iraqi Army 

facility is also located at that base . . . as is clearly stated in the 

second scope of work, the contractor is required to provide life 

support operations, and Dining Facility services are clearly a 

part of life-support services at coalition bases. Although 

detainees are not specifically mentioned, they are also not 

excluded . . . [a]s Coalition bases are set up to house many 

different nationalities and encompass many different missions, 

detainee feeding services are clearly within the scope of this 

contract. 

CO’s Statement at 4. As further explained at the hearing, the CO was not concerned 

with “the specifics of who we were feeding” rather, she was focused on whether “all 

of the requirements that were in my statement of work could be met under [the ID/IQ

contract].” Tr. at 125. 

The CO for the requiring activity then submitted a written request for a task order 

scope determination--and a request for authorization to issue a task order request 

under the contract--to the CO administering the ID/IQ contract. AR exh. 11, Email 

from CO (June 20, 2008). In response, the CO administering the ID/IQ contract

separately determined that the detainee food services at issue here are within the 

scope of that contract, and assigned a solicitation number for the task order 

 3

 Our Office convened a hearing in this protest. The primary hearing witnesses were 

procurement officials from the Army and a representative from Morris. 

4

 Among other things, the CO administering the ID/IQ contract reviews and approves 

requests from requiring activity COs to issue task orders under the ID/IQ contract. 

Declaration of ID/IQ CO; AR exh. 6, Ordering Guide, at 2. 

Page 3 B-400336 
proposal request. AR exh. 12, Email from ID/IQ CO (June 24, 2008). Specifically, the 

CO administering the ID/IQ contract concluded: 

. . . after reviewing the [ID/IQ contract] and the Taji TIFRC draft 

statement of work, I determined that the requirements for food 

service operations, facilities and housing maintenance, 

demobilization/ decommissioning of equipment, anti-terrorism

and force protection, a safety and health plan program, vector 

control, environmental protection, and deliverables were within

the scope of the [ID/IQ contract] and use of the streamlined/ 

decentralized ordering tool was appropriate. Additionally, the 

expected value of the task order for the Taji TIFRC life support

services falls within the maximum contract value limits set forth 

in Section B of the [ID/IQ] contract. 

Declaration of the ID/IQ CO at 2 (July 30, 2008); Tr. at 169-173. Thereafter, on July 

12, 2008, the agency issued the task order request to all five ID/IQ contract-holders 

for the Taji TIFRC feeding requirements. AR exh. 16, Task Order Proposal. 

DISCUSSION 

Morris argues that providing food services to detainees is outside the scope of the 

underlying ID/IQ contracts. Morris acknowledges, however, that the scope of work

for the underlying contracts includes providing food services for Iraqi police, Iraqi 

military personnel and coalition forces at the same location. Protester’s Comments

at 2. Nonetheless, Morris contends that extending these food services to detainees is 

materially different from the currently-provided food services because the 

nutritional requirements for feeding detainees are different, and because of 

differences in the command structure applicable to detainees. We disagree. 

The Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) of 1984 requires that agencies specify 

their needs and solicit offers in a manner designed to achieve full and open 

competition, so that all responsible sources are permitted to compete. 10 U.S.C. 

§ 2305(a)(1)(A)(i) (2000). When a protester alleges that the issuance of a task or 

delivery order under a multiple-award contract is beyond the scope of the contract, 

we analyze the protest in essentially the same manner as those in which the 

protester argues that a contract modification is outside the scope of the underlying 

contract. The fundamental issue is whether issuance of the task or delivery order in 

effect circumvents the general statutory requirement under CICA that agencies use 

competitive procedures when procuring their requirements. Specialty Marine, Inc., 

B-293871; B-293871.2, June 17, 2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 130 at 4. 

In determining whether a task or delivery order is outside the scope of the 

underlying contract, and thus falls within CICA’s competition requirement, our 

Office examines whether the order is materially different from the original contract, 

Page 4 B-400336 
as reasonably interpreted. Evidence of a material difference is found by reviewing 

the circumstances attending the original procurement; any changes in the type of 

work, performance period, and costs between the contract as awarded and the order 

as issued; and whether the original solicitation effectively advised offerors of the 

potential for the type of orders issued. In other words, the inquiry is whether the 

order is one which potential offerors would have reasonably anticipated. Symetrics 

Indus., Inc., B-289606, Apr. 8, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 65 at 5. 

In our view, the record in this case, particularly the scope determination analyses of 

both COs, quoted above, demonstrates that detainee food services are within the 

scope of the underlying contract. While the Army concedes that the ID/IQ contract 

does not make reference to either “detainees,” “detention centers” or “TIFRCs,” we 

find the absence of those terms does not mean that the detainee feeding 

requirements are outside the scope of the ID/IQ contract. 

For instance, the record shows that the agency considered two detainee specific 

requirements that arguably might differ from the food services operations provided 

to Iraqi police/military personnel and coalition forces--the requirement to deliver 

meals to the detainees, and the requirement that local nationals are not permitted to

serve detainee meals. The agency concluded that both requirements were within the 

scope of the ID/IQ contract. In this regard, the agency decided that the requirement 

to transport meals to the detainees was encompassed by paragraph 4.6 of the ID/IQ 

contract which requires the contractors to transport meals to locations designated 

by the CO or the CO’s representative. Similarly, the agency decided that the 

requirement prohibiting local nationals from serving food to detainees could be 

satisfied under paragraph 30.12 of the ID/IQ contract which specifically requires

contractor employees serving, preparing and handling food, to be third country 

nationals. Tr. at 127-29. Thus, the agency found that every aspect of the requiring 

activity’s specific needs could be provided under the ID/IQ contract. 

Nonetheless, the protester argues that the detainee-specific nutritional requirements 

and food portion sizes are distinguishable from the nutritional requirements and 

food portion sizes specified in the underlying ID/IQ contract. In our view, even if we 

assume for purposes of this argument that these differences are exactly as the 

protester contends, we do not think these differences support a conclusion that this

order exceeds the scope of the underlying contracts. 

For example, we recognize that the detainee-specific nutritional requirements and 

food portion sizes are not listed in the underlying ID/IQ contract. However, both 

COs testified that it was not unusual for ID/IQ contracts, such as the one at issue 

here, to set forth general requirements since the SOW for each task order proposal 

will delineate the specific requirements to be acquired against the underlying 

contract. Tr. at 107-112; 154-55. The record shows instead that the ID/IQ contract, at 

paragraph 4.1.2, specifies food services with Iraqi-style menus for breakfast, lunch, 

and dinner, and permits “substitutions of similar quantity and quality,” as well as

Page 5 B-400336 
permitting the contractor to “equitably adjust the menu based on the availability of 

meat, fresh fruits and vegetables, and other items from the local market.” ID/IQ 

contract at 16. Thus, the underlying contract clearly allowed the agency to tailor the 

quantity and quality of the nutritional requirements for detainees. At any rate, 

although Morris disagrees with the agency’s determination in this regard, it has not

shown that the detainee feeding requirements are materially different from the food 

services to be provided to coalition forces or Iraqi police/military personnel housed 

at Camp Taji. 

Finally, during the course of this protest, the parties argued about the reasons Morris 

did not compete for one of the underlying ID/IQ contracts here. We see no reason to

address this issue. Rather, the question for our Office is whether the current task 

order is of a nature which potential offerors would reasonably have anticipated. See

e.g., Anteon Corp., B-293523, B-293523.2, Mar. 29, 2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 51 at 5. We 

conclude it is. 

As discussed above, there is a logical connection between the broad scope of food 

service operations delineated in the ID/IQ contract--the feeding of individuals housed 

within a specified Iraqi training camp and/or coalition base--and the food service 

operations required to feed detainees located within an Iraqi training camp and/or

coalition base. Thus, we conclude that offerors could have reasonably anticipated 

during the original ID/IQ competition that feeding requirements, like those here, 

could be obtained through task orders issued against the existing ID/IQ contracts. 

Accordingly, we find that the record substantiates the agency’s determination that 

the detainee feeding requirements are within the scope of the existing ID/IQ 

contracts. 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel 

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