Inside Defense
Dec. 14, 2009 -- The number of contractors employed by the Defense Department in Afghanistan surpassed the 100,000 mark during this summer, according to newly released Pentagon figures.
The number of private workers in Afghanistan rose from 74,000 by the end of June to 104,000 by the end of September, according to a November Defense Department information paper made public on a DOD Web site earlier this month.
The “significant” increase of roughly 40 percent is due to workers needed on construction projects under the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an increase in operational tempo, the document states.
About three quarters, or 78,500, of the workers were Afghans; 9,300 were U.S. citizens; and 16,300 were “third-country nationals,” according to the document.
The number of DOD's private security contractors in Afghanistan has roughly doubled during the reporting period. As of Sept. 30, U.S. Central Command officials counted 11,423 private guards, of which 10,712 were armed. Within that category, the percentage of third-country nationals rose from about 5 percent to slightly under 10 percent, compared with figures from June 30.
The doubling of private guards in Afghanistan “correlates to the decentralized expansion of operations,” the document explains. Less than one percent of security guards are American citizens, the figures show.
In Iraq, the number of DOD contractors fell from 120,000 to 114,000 between June and September, according to the document. Multi-National Force-Iraq “remains ahead of its quarterly 5 percent reduction target established in January 2009,” it adds.
Meanwhile, U.S. defense officials are pursuing a “universal code of conduct” for private security contractors, the document notes.
“DOD is supporting the initiative of the Swiss government to move beyond the Montreux Document and implement an industry-led, government-supported international accountability regime that will apply to all PSCs in all operational environments,” it states.
The United States is one of 17 governments that signed the Montreux Document on Sept. 17, 2008, in Switzerland. It serves as a “guide on the legal and practical issues raised by private military and security companies,” according to the Swiss government, which helped broker the agreement. The Montreux Document has no legal ramifications for its signatories. Of the countries in CENTCOM's area of responsibility, Afghanistan and Iraq have ratified the document.
U.S. government officials, along with their counterparts from the United Kingdom and Switzerland, are now working on a draft universal standard of conduct with “broad” endorsement by the private security industry, the DOD document notes. Nongovernmental organizations in the fields of human rights law and armed conflict law would help craft the new document, according to the DOD paper. -- Sebastian Sprenger
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