Inside Defense
Feb. 16, 2010 -- During the Iraq war, the Defense Department depended most heavily on contractors performing logistics services, followed by private interpreters and trainers and information technology specialists, according to an unreleased Joint Staff study.
The results, showing logistics contractors making up the vast majority of personnel deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq, are hardly surprising, officials said. But the study is the first-ever attempt to take an in-depth look at the contractor force accompanying U.S. forces in Iraq, and its results are expected to help answer questions about what kinds of capabilities the military should purchase as needed, and what capabilities should reside in the force.
The study is the result of a multi-phased effort initiated by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, who asked his staff for a formal analysis that would allow him to gauge DOD's reliance on contractors during wartime. During phase two of the effort, which is slated to wrap up soon, officials waded through 36,000 lines of contract data, considered eight quarterly censuses of U.S. Central Command contractors and grouped all contracted services into nine so-called joint capability areas, according to a January 2010 Joint Staff briefing.
In total, there were 151,000 contractors providing logistics services in Iraq during the third quarter of fiscal year 2008, according to the briefing. In addition, 14,000 were providing services belonging in the “building partnerships” rubric (including interpreters); and 9,000 were performing work classified as force protection operations, the document states.
When comparing the contractor numbers to the amount of uniformed personnel dedicated to the same JCAs, the contractor-military discrepancy in the logistics field was greatest, at 4.8 to 1, followed by a ratio of 1:1 for net-centric services, 1.3:1 for building partnerships and 2.5:1 for the field “corporate management and support,” according to the briefing. The 0.3:1 ratio in the force protection JCA represents a “high reliance” on contractors, versus a “high dependence” in the other fields.
The traditional military disciplines of force application and command and control had only minute contractor involvement, the slides state.
“DOD is dependent on contract support for large-scale, long-term overseas contingency operations in key areas where executive force cap, troop rotations, dwell time, high-demand/low-density skill sets, and quality of life for military personnel are preserved,” the document reads.
The contractor study's upcoming phase III will focus on improving DOD planning processes so contractor use becomes predictable during future operations. Ad-hoc oversight by government officials and an unprecedented flow of private workers to Iraq was to blame for instances of waste, fraud and abuse there during the past years, officials have said.
Joint Staff officials are pushing for upcoming revisions of the senior-level Guidance for the Employment of the Force and the Global Force Management Implementation Guidance to include language that would require combatant commanders to “plan for contracted support to the same level of fidelity as forces,” according to the Joint Staff briefing. -- Sebastian Sprenger
2162010_feb16d