Stunning Statistics About the War Every American Should Know
SHOES THROWER
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
December 18, 2009 "RebelReports" -- 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.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater:
The Rise of the World�s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a frequent
contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national
radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation
Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has won numerous awards for
his reporting, including the prestigious George Polk Award, which he won
twice. While a correspondent for Democracy Now!, Scahill reported
extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24220.htm