[News] US Currently Has 189, 000 Personnel in Afghanistan - Majority are Private Contractors
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Dec 18 12:29:11 EST 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill12182009.html
December 18-20, 2009
The US Currently Has 189,000 Personnel in Afghanistan
Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know
By JEREMY SCAHILL
A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskills Contract
Oversightsubcommittee 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 Defenses total
workforce, the highest ratio of contractors to
military personnel in US history. Thats not in
one war zonethats 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 McCaskills 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
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156858394X/counterpunchmaga>
[]
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, thats 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
McCaskills 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 Officers Representatives (CORs) in
Afghanistan were currently vacant.
A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the
former director of USAIDs 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 McCaskills
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. Thats 16% of
the total contract dollars reviewed.
Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who
reports frequently for the national radio and TV
program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time
reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is
currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation
Institute. Scahill is the author of
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156858394X/counterpunchmaga>Blackwater:
The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary
Army.His new website is <mailto:RebelReports.com>RebelReports.com
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