[Peace-discuss] Obama's mercs

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Stunning Statistics About the War Every American Should Know

Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground 
in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising.

	by Jeremy Scahill

A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight subcommittee on 
contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that 
provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up 
the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors 
now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense's total workforce, "the 
highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history." That's not in 
one war zone-that's the Pentagon in its entirety.

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of 
the privatized water. According to a memo [PDF] released by McCaskill's staff, 
"From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense 
Department contractors in Afghanistan.  During the same period, the number of 
armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in 
Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000."

At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. 
According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a 
result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 
56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors 
that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID 
contractors. That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is 
approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And 
remember, that's right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative 
estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded 
personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.

The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. 
By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when 
taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.

Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, 
oversight is utterly lacking. "The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not 
seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight," according 
to McCaskill's briefing paper. "In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management 
Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting 
that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) 
in Afghanistan were currently vacant."

A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID's Office of 
Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission 
that many USAID staff are "administering huge awards with limited knowledge of 
or experience with the rules and regulations." According to one USAID official, 
the agency is "sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over 
how it is spent." As a result, the agency does not "know ... where the money is 
going."

The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors 
to oversee contractors. According to the McCaskill memo:

In Afghanistan, USAID is relying on contractors to provide oversight of its 
large reconstruction and development projects.  According to information 
provided to the Subcommittee, International Relief and Development (IRD) was 
awarded a five-year contract in 2006 to oversee the $1.4 billion infrastructure 
contract awarded to a joint venture of the Louis Berger Group and Black and 
Veatch Special Projects.  USAID has also awarded a contract Checci and Company 
to provide support for contracts in Afghanistan.

The private security industry and the US government have pointed to the 
Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker(SPOT) as evidence of greater 
government oversight of contractor activities. But McCaskill's subcommittee 
found that system utterly lacking, stating: "The Subcommittee obtained current 
SPOT data showing that there are currently 1,123 State Department contractors 
and no USAID contractors working in Afghanistan." Remember, there are officially 
14,000 USAID contractors and the official monitoring and tracking system found 
none of these people and less than half of the State Department contractors.

As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit 
Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs 
submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That's 16% of 
the total contract dollars reviewed.

	Published on Friday, December 18, 2009 by Rebel Reports
	© 2009 Jeremy Scahill