Contractors could make or break Afghanistan surge
Agencies are aiming to steer clear of the waste, fraud and corruption that plagued Iraq procurements.
On Dec. 1, 2009, President Obama announced in a televised address to the nation that 30,000 additional troops and nearly 1,000 federal civilians would be deployed to Afghanistan. The goal of the surge, which brings total U.S. military forces in country to roughly 100,000, is to reverse recent Taliban gains and strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces.
The armed forces aren't the only ones ramping up their involvement in Afghanistan. Quietly, and with comparatively little documentation, tens of thousands of private contractors are flooding into the country, reconstructing war-torn cities, drilling wells for drinking water and providing electricity to residents. The success of these contractors could accelerate the gains of the military and hasten America's exit from this increasingly deadly war zone. But if stories of waste, corruption and fraud emerge en masse from Afghanistan, as they did so publicly in Iraq, then the mission could be jeopardized and taxpayers could be left to pick up billions of dollars in unnecessary costs.
"There are a tremendous number of variables coming into play at the same time in Afghanistan," says Robert B. Dickson, executive director of the congressionally chartered Commission on Wartime Contracting. "And contractors are right in the middle of it."
In the March issue of Government Executive, Robert Brodsky looks at the role contractors are playing in the Afghanistan surge.