Over the past five years, the U.S. government has spent a combined $80 billion on contractors to support its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that has U.S. military leaders concerned: On Friday, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan suggested that the coalition had become too dependent on private contractors to carry out its mission there effectively.
On a visit to France's Institut des hautes études de défense nationale, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said that the military had "gone too far" in hiring private contractors. "I actually think we would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved," he said.
McChrystal's remarks are likely to come up when the Commission on Wartime Contracting convenes today for a hearing on oversight of the private-sector workers who provide everything from Pashto interpreters to guns-for-hire. The hearing will include testimony from Shay Assad, the Pentagon's director of defense procurement; Lt. Gen. William Phillips, the principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army, Acquisition Logistics and Technology; Edward Harrington, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement.
The commission is a bipartisan panel created by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 to bolster legislative oversight of the booming wartime services industry. In an advance statement, commission Co-Chairman Michael Thibault said the Army -- which manages around two-thirds of Iraq and Afghanistan contracts -- had failed to get a grip on management of the contracted workforce. “Congress specifically required improved management and coordination of service contracts in the National Defense Authorization Acts for fiscal years 2002 and 2006,” he said, “but it appears that the Army has not responded effectively to this direction.”
Despite the calls for reining in contractors, it seems unlikely that their numbers will go down anytime soon. In addition to logistics support, security and other functions, the U.S. military depends on contractors to oversee infrastructure projects and support the Afghan government. And, often to the chagrin of traditional aid groups, it sees development agencies as as a key "force multiplier" in counterinsurgency and stability operations.
It also seems that the Taliban have identified U.S. and coalition contractors as a soft target. On Thursday, a pair of car bombs in downtown Kandahar targeted the offices of a number of foreign aid contractors. As the New York Times reported today, the attacks hit the offices of the Louis Berger Group, a construction firm; the Afghan Stabilization Initiative, which supports local governance; and Chemonics, a large, for-profit USAID contractor. Employees of at least two other aid contractors were wounded or killed in the attacks.
[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Defense]
