Addicted to Contractors

The United States is hooked on privatized warfare in Afghanistan. And it's more costly than you think.

BY ALLISON STANGER | DECEMBER 1, 2009

Bring up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and one of the first things bound to come up is contractors -- companies such as Blackwater/Xe, DynCorp, and ArmorGroup. But what most Americans do not realize is that they've only seen the tip of the iceberg. The United States has become addicted to contractors -- and it's an unsustainable habit.

In 2009, contractors accounted for 48 percent of the Defense Department's workforce in Iraq and 57 percent in Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service. The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) use them extensively as well. Compare that with the height of the Vietnam War, when contractors accounted for 13 percent of the U.S. presence on the ground; today, contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan outnumber American men and women in uniform.

In addition to providing security, contractors feed, clothe, and house U.S. troops; they train army and police units, spearhead development projects, and even oversee other contractors and subcontractors. Without contractors, the United States would undoubtedly need a draft to ramp up its troop presence in Afghanistan.

Waging war through contractors also means a lot of waste. Money must change hands multiple times in a foreign country -- a standing invitation for corruption. The contracting apparatus spawns a web of complex financial transactions that the U.S. Congress cannot effectively oversee. Funding it is equally problematic; Washington continues to finance the struggle against terrorism through supplemental appropriations as though they were emergency operations. As the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) has painstakingly documented, throwing taxpayer money at a problem in this fashion has led to astonishing waste, fraud, and abuse. Unless something changes, Afghanistan will be no different.

But perhaps most alarmingly, Washington's addiction to outsourcing has rendered much of its war-fighting wholly opaque. Despite having spearheaded the Federal Funding Transparency and Accountability Act (FFATA) as a senator, Obama is now leading a war in Afghanistan whose funding is effectively a black hole. The website USAspending.gov, created by FFATA, provided data for the analysis below. Yet information on subcontracts, the vehicle for operationalizing most contractor spending, was supposed to be made available to the public by January 2009. Nearly a year later, it remains shrouded in secrecy (the site is still "under development").

This means that taxpayers have little information about whom their government is paying to carry out the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. Thanks to USAspending.gov, we can at least follow the money flowing through prime contracts and grants for the main government agencies involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's a taste of how bad it has gotten:

John Moore/Getty Images

 

Allison Stanger is the Russell Leng '60 professor of international politics and economics at Middlebury College and author of One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy. Brian Fung, Eric Harvey, Vrutika Mody, and Daniel Sheron provided research assistance; John Palguta of the Partnership for Public Service shed light on federal employee data.

GUYVER

1:08 AM ET

December 2, 2009

Cut the middleman

The government obviously needs the contractors so why not just hire them as civil servants and cut the middleman. About half of each contract's cost goes to the company, which simply prints the paychecks, while the other half is the actual employee salaries.

 

BDL2010

5:23 AM ET

December 2, 2009

the answer

At the risk of sounding jaded I had to reply to your question. Yes the government needs the contractors. Simply put they can make things happen vs giving reasons why things can't be done. They don't have to be kept on the payrolls so there is no retirement or health benefits to pay for long term. I've been inside the system and I am not impressed with the civil service system. I am sure there are plenty of dedicated GS employees that give 100% but they are the minority. If all contracts were cut immediately the government would come to a halt and all you would get are excuses and regulations thrown at you as to why. And then you'd quickly realize that you can't fire a single one of the incompetent lot because they are protected by red tape that they create. Sorry to be so blunt but it is the sad truth.

 

SOCAL55

5:03 PM ET

December 2, 2009

That only works in theory

In truth government contracts are forever. Unlike Government employees private contractors can bribe , I mean lobby congress. They can sub-contract and sub-sub contract and sub-sub-sub contract often to their own offshore "cutout" subsidiaries. Each one adding it's overhead onto the costs. As the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as projects like building housing on military bases, to use but a few examples, have shown that the use of private contractors does not necessarily get anything done even when billions of dollars get spent..

 

HOOSIER84

1:44 AM ET

December 4, 2009

Left out of the story . . .

Although contractors are the universal bogeyman these days, few people look at all sides of the issue. lots of things can be improved obviously, but we need to recognize the value as well as the concerns.

In fact, most contractors - especially in Afghanistan - are local nationals. Utilizing locals stimulates the economy, does important capacity building and training, and reduces the risks for everyone. They also cost significantly less than the $15-25,000 that deployed U.S. soldiers cost the government every month. Yes, contractors bring significant savings over U.S. government employees or military.

Also, worth noting that the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq are the best supplied, best supported military force in history as a result of effective use of the contracting community. One could argue that they are too well supplied, but ask the field commander if he or she would want their personnel doing kitchen duty, cleaning toilets or guarding warehouses instead of focusing on carrying out U.S. policies. Indeed, while only about 10% of contractors are doing security, utilizing Afghan security guards makes far more practical sense than using American troops to guard the bases - effectively 'targets guarding targets'.

Local contractors and subcontractors cost far less than Western companies, but if the goal is to account for every dollar in the middle of a war zone - good luck. Many Afghan companies had never heard of receipts, much less computers, prior to 2001 . . .

Regards,

Doug Brooks, IPOA