The Congressional Research Service report on military contractors came out last week, as well as Senator Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight Subcommittee's hearings report on Afghanistan contractors.  Her committee reports that contractors make up an astounding 69% of the total Pentagon workforce. 

First, some facts from the CRS report:

Table 1. Comparison of Contractor Personnel to Troop Levels (Ratios)

Type of Work Performed by Contractors

Contractors perform a wide range of services in Iraq. As of September 2009, 65,763 personnel

(58% of contractors) performed base support functions such as maintaining the grounds, running

dining facilities, and performing laundry services (see Figure 4). Security was the second most

common service provided, with 12,684 personnel (11% of contractors). Combined, these two

categories accounted for almost 70% of DOD contractors in Iraq.

DOD contractors in Iraq as of 09/2009

Base Support 65,763

Security 12,684

Other 12,228

Construction 9,933

Translator/Interpreter 8,765

Transportation 1,375

Communication 2,983

Contractors in Afghanistan

The DOD did not keep track of contractors until 2007:

Over the last seven quarters, contractors have made up between 55% and 69% of DOD's workforce in Afghanistan, averaging 62% of the workforce during that period (with a mode of 57%). Assuming that going forward contractors will continue to make up a similar percentage of DOD's workforce, deploying 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan could require an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors, for a total of between 130,000 to 160,000 contractors.  The contractor footprint in Afghanistan could increase further if the new strategy includes a more robust construction and nation building effort.

 Profiles of Contractors

As of September 2009, of the approximately 104,000 contractors in Afghanistan, 9,300 were U.S. citizens, 16,000 were third-country nationals, and 78,500 were local nationals (see Table 4).  Local nationals made up 75% of contractor personnel.

 An interesting question that the CRS was asked to address:

 Can Contractors Undermine U.S. Efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Though firmness by security forces is often necessary to establish a secure environment, a government that exceeds accepted local norms and abuses its people ... generates resistance to its rule. People who have been maltreated or have had close friends or relatives killed ...may strike back at their attackers. Security force abuses ... can be major escalating factors for insurgencies.

In accordance with the manual's assertion (the Army Field Manual) that the local population will ultimately determine the winner of the conflict, abuses and crimes committed by armed private security contractors and interrogators against local nationals may have undermined U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.42 There have been published reports of local nationals being abused and mistreated by some DOD contractors in such incidents as the shooting at Iraqi civilians by private security contractors43 and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.44 Local nationals may not draw a distinction between government contractors and the U.S. military, and the abuses committed by contractors may strengthen anti-American insurgents, as evidenced by the public outcry following such incidents.  (bold mine)

 From Claire McCaskill's subcommittee' staff memo, a few facts:        

Wasteful Spending on Defense Department Contracts Nears $1 Billion. According to federal auditors, approximately $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs has been submitted by Defense Department contractors for work in Afghanistan. This represents 16% of the total contract dollars examined.

 Afghanistan Contract Spending Exceeds $23 Billion. According to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), the United States has spent more than $23 billion on contracts performed in Afghanistan since 2002.

 Number of Defense Department Contractors in Afghanistan May Reach 160,000. There are currently 104,000 Defense Department contractors currently working in Afghanistan. The increase in troops may require an additional 56,000 Defense Department contractors, bringing the total number of Defense contractors in Afghanistan to 160,000.

 New Concerns about Troop Support Contracts. The Army continues to rely heavily on LOGCAP III, the monopoly troop support contract held by KBR, to support operations in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. In 2010, the Army anticipates spending more than $657 million under LOGCAP III and approximately $87 million under LOGCAP IV - despite the fact that the Army intends to complete the transition from LOGCAP III to LOGCAP IV in Afghanistan by June 2010.

 (Please note that the Army is still heavily reliant on Mr. Dick Cheney's KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, contracts.)  Recently Sec. Gates was grilled on the $34 billion paid to KBR, and its monopoly on troop support services under LOGCAP III; hence, now Fluor and Dyncrop have contracts, but they may not be working as efficiently as had been hoped; i.e. false claims, etc.

 Inadequate Contracting and Program Management Practices

The massive reconstruction and services contracts in Iraq were not accompanied by responsible contract management and oversight. This conclusion has been reached by multiple blue ribbon commissions, federal auditors, Congress, and the Obama Administration.

Inadequate contract management and oversight has also hampered U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. In October 2009, GAO found that federal agencies were unable to manage contracts in Afghanistan effectively.15 According to GAO:

DOD's, State's, and USAID's ability to effectively manage contractors in Afghanistan has been undermined by several systemic challenges, including a failure to clearly define contract requirements and a lack of acquisition and oversight personnel with experience working in contingency operations. These challenges have contributed to higher costs, schedule delays, and operational impacts.16

Problems with contract management and oversight may be affecting the larger mission in Afghanistan. According to the Congressional Research Service, "some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.   (my bold highlights)

 The report found that there is little oversight of contractors, and that 362 positions for contracting auditors are unfilled.  The USAID (reconstruction and development projects) Inspector General admitted that there are few monitors on contracts, and one aid said,

"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."

 There is a Waste, Fraud, and Abuse section that can curl your hair; the multi-billions for Sustainable Agriculture, schools, etc. had little verifiable results to sustain the contractors' claims of success.  If all these billions have been discovered as wasteful, the Lost funds may be substantial. 

While Congress has been attempting to track money and contracts, it is slow work.  From Jeremy Scahill:

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.

We can certainly look forward to more problems, both identified and as yet unidentified, depending how the Mission in Afghanistan shakes out and is defined.  I have tried not to editorialize too much here; that is hard.  That said, one number that I find hard to credit is the 78,500 local national contractors in Afghanistan.  But even this report said it not find some of the DOD numbers credible.

And it's unclear to me how many of the 'civilian dark-ops forces' are under any of these headings.

BONUS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-L0beA4Pw8

I just saw this on Crooksandliars.  It is a portion of a 2004 BBC documentary called The Power of Nightmares:

'This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. " The Power of Nightmares, Baby It's Cold Outside.