Feral Jundi

Iraq as a democracy in our own image is a foolish dream. The State Department will now be expected to be the firewall against its descent back into chaos. Be ready with the fire hoses … um, sorry, Congress had just slashed the money for the fire hoses. –Diplopundit

What I wanted to point out here is that there are several forces that are at play, that might result in contributing to DoS and WPS failure. Congress has never really been excited about funding DoS and has always thrown way more money at defense related initiatives. (thanks to defense industry lobbyists). To get Congress to recognize the value of DoS is like pulling teeth. But folks like the DoS are essential to soft power initiatives and solving problems diplomatically, as opposed to killing people in costly wars. Remember that whole Sun Tzu quote about winning a war without fighting?

With today’s penny pinching endeavors as a result of the economy, or lack of a coherent energy policy, or the cost of fighting two ‘costly’ wars for close to ten years, there is more of an effort to cut costs. Which is good to a point, and I would love to see government get smaller and more efficient. But common sense should be applied to some of these cost cutting initiatives, and especially where lives are on the line.

There are some areas that should not be cut or messed with, because the consequences of not properly funding these functions of government could have grave consequence. Specifically, the DoS mission in places like Iraq or Afghanistan.  And to really boil it down, when agencies get less money to effectively handle projects that are vital to the stability of an already weakened country like Iraq, then you start to see the really negative effects. Things like a lack of, or poor condition of equipment or weapons for security contractors.  Or the amount of oversight decreases or is not fulfilled, because there is no money for such things.

The other forces at play is the public desire to just pull out of these wars, and not care about these programs that we have invested billions of dollars in. This public opinion fuels Congress, and in order to politically survive, they must meet the demands of the public. That is democracy, but it also could lead to half measures or poorly funded programs that really do need sufficient support in order to be successful. I will not sit here and say we should do one thing or the other, and my only goal here is to show the potential consequences of such things.  I would hate to see this industry get thrown under the bus once again, all because of the politics of the war.

Which by the way, I really would like to hear more from the WPS folks, both DoS and contractors, as to how your program is going? The public and this industry needs to know if your operations are negatively impacted because of  these political factors. I will really be mad and sad, if men and women die or get hurt because of these poorly funded and managed initiatives. You are either all in, or all out, and half measures and poor funding can have dangerous consequence. Congress and the public needs to hear it as well.

Another point I wanted to make is WPS will be vital for the ‘other’ DoS missions out there as a result of the Arab Spring.  The cards are being re-shuffled in the middle east and diplomatic missions in these countries will be vital for national interest. These are dangerous times, and security for these diplomatic missions is essential. Congress should do all it can to ensure DoS and it’s security apparatus is successful, because lives and national interest are on the line.

Oh, and the main stream media might be easily influenced by the winds of politics, but this blog is not, and I am concerned with the reality on the ground. I want to know if this industry is getting a fair shot at success out there, or if they are being set up for failure. Of course I want our industry to provide an excellent service to it’s clients, but I am also wary of the factors that are out of the hands of private industry. That way, at the end of the day, we can point the finger at what really was the cause of failure as opposed to letting folks with personal or political agendas define the causes and reasons for failure. Please check out the four articles I have posted below, and let me know what you think? –Matt

Budget woes poised to hit State Department hard
By KATE BRANNEN
June 2, 2011
The State Department’s budget has already taken a hit in 2011, but it appears that its finances will be squeezed even tighter just as the department is trying to regain ground lost to the Pentagon over the past decade.
In the final budget resolution passed for 2011, Congress agreed to provide $48 billion for State and foreign operations. This marked an $8.4 billion reduction from the president’s budget request. It was also $504 million less than the department received in 2010.
For 2012 spending, the House Appropriations Committee announced that it plans to cut $11 billion from the State Department and foreign operations budget request of $47 billion. This includes funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Meanwhile, it plans to cut only $9 billion from the Pentagon’s requested budget of $671 billion, which includes $118 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cuts have already forced the department to make tough choices, said Jake Sullivan, director of policy planning at the State Department, speaking Thursday at the Center for a New American Security conference in Washington.
In the final continuing resolution for 2011, the department’s Economic Support Fund (ESF) lost close to $2 billion from its budget request. The fund provides money to countries around the world to help them overcome short- and long-term political, economic and security problems.
“That is a huge cut when you’re talking about the relatively small ESF account, and it has impacts on countries around the world and it’s forcing us to make very hard choices about where to invest our dollars and where to cut,” Sullivan said.
The cuts also come as State is trying to increase its operational capability so that it can better partner with the military services in the field, he said.
To stave off further reductions, the State Department is making its case to Congress that it needs every possible dollar requested.
“We have to show them that we are finding ways to increase efficiency and deliver more effectively,” Sullivan said.
But the case needs to be made beyond Capitol Hill, he said. Recent polls show that Americans support cuts to foreign aid, but they also dramatically overestimate its portion of the federal budget.
“We have to build a broader constituency across the country for what we’re trying to do,” Sullivan said. “At the end of the day, the dollars that go into the State Department and USAID are national security dollars, and many of those dollars come at a huge savings for what we’d have to spend on military action down the road.”
One of the biggest proponents for a bigger State Department budget is outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In February he urged Congress to fully fund the State Department, saying the money was urgently needed in places like Iraq where the military’s role is being phased out.
In 2008, he described the “creeping militarization” of American foreign policy and said, “diplomatic leaders — be they in ambassadors’ suites or on the seventh floor of the State Department — must have the resources and political support needed to fully exercise their statutory responsibilities in leading American foreign policy.”
Story here.

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State Department blasted over private contractor management
By Charley Keyes
June 6, 2011
State Department blasted over private contractor management
The State Department came under sharp criticism Monday over how it hires and monitors thousands of private contractors.
A watchdog panel, the Commission on Wartime Contracting, has questioned whether the State Department is prepared to continue its work in Iraq, and protect American diplomats, once the U.S. military withdraws, now set for the end of this year.
“Our concerns remain very much alive,” the commission’s co-chairman, Christopher Shays, said in his opening statement.
Shays also focused on what he said was State Department refusal to document its rationale for not taking action against contractors officially recommended for suspension or disbarment.
That response approaches the borderline of government negligence,” Shays said.
The sole witness appearing before the panel was a senior State Department official, Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy. He described how the department has increased its oversight of contractors. “We fully understand that we still have challenges ahead as we carry out our diplomatic missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations where we rely on contingency contracting,” Kennedy said. “But we believe we have instituted a sound foundation to carry us forward.”
Monday’s hearing is the latest in a steady drumbeat of criticism of the department’s warzone operations. The State Department Inspector General last week reported that for Iraq, “several key decisions have not been made, some plans cannot be finalized and progress is slipping in a number of areas.”
The Inspector General report said that security concerns and poor contractor performance are major hindrances to the completion of 5,405 projects valued at more than $15 billion.
And a report from the Commission of Wartime Contracting, released on Friday, said billions of dollars of training programs and public works projects — funded by American taxpayers — could be wasted in both Iraq and Afghanistan because the host governments don’t have the trained staff or money to sustain them when the U.S. departs.
A key question raised in the hearing is whether private security contractors can provide adequate protection to U.S. diplomats in Iraq now handled by the U.S. military.
Kennedy said the Pentagon would provide the State Department with more than $200 million of equipment, including 60 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs).
But the State Department will not have so-called counter-battery weapons systems that hone in on where firing is coming from and automatically fires back.
Shays said at no other time have American diplomats been asked to work in such dangerous circumstances. “Host governments cannot provide effective, customary security, there are no front lines and large terrorist organizations are trying to kill our people and anyone who works with them,” Shays said.
Story here.
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U.S. Plans Private Guard Force for Iraq
State Department Prepares to Hire 5,100-Strong Security Detail and Take Over Military Hardware for After Army Leaves.
JUNE 7, 2011
By NATHAN HODGE
WASHINGTON—The State Department is preparing to spend close to $3 billion to hire a security force to protect diplomats in Iraq after the U.S. pulls its last troops out of the country by year’s end.
In testimony Monday before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said the department plans to hire a 5,100-strong force to protect diplomatic personnel, guard embassy buildings and operate a fleet of aircraft and armored vehicles.
Underscoring the security risks in Iraq, five American troops were killed Monday in an attack in Baghdad, the largest single loss of life for the U.S. military there since April 2009.
Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. Under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, all U.S. troops are supposed to leave the country by the end of the year, leaving behind only a small military office to oversee arms sales.
While U.S. officials have expressed a willingness to station a small residual force in the country, it is unclear if the Iraqi government will make the request, which faces strong opposition in Iraq.
A large U.S. diplomatic presence will remain, however, and the departments of state and defense are wrestling with how to provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad—which is a target of rocket attacks—and diplomatic outposts in the provinces.
As the military withdraws, Mr. Kennedy said, the State Department will rely on contractors to carry out a range of military-style missions that he said were “not inherently governmental,” including providing emergency medical evacuation, operating systems to detect and warn against incoming rocket or artillery fire, or rescue diplomatic personnel under attack.
The contract security force slated for Iraq would far outstrip the State Department’s in-house diplomatic security force. Mr. Kennedy said the State Department currently employs around 1,800 diplomatic security personnel around the world.
According to Mr. Kennedy, the military is handing over nearly 4,000 pieces of military hardware to the State Department, equipment valued at approximately $209 million. The hardware includes biometric equipment for screening personnel, and 60 armored vehicles designed to withstand roadside bomb attacks. The military is handing over systems that provide warning of attacks.
The State Department has awarded a series of multiyear contracts to private security companies for guard forces, including a $974 million award to SOC Inc. to guard the embassy in Baghdad, $1.5 billion to Triple Canopy Inc. for mobile security, and $401 million to Global Strategies Group Inc. for guarding a consulate in Basra. The State Department has also awarded a contract for medical services.
The department hasn’t released a breakdown of how much, exactly, it will spend on security in 2012, the first year after U.S. troops withdraw. When the department’s budget request was submitted in February, a senior State Department official said security costs would make up a “significant” portion of the department’s operating budget for Iraq. The State Department awards security contracts, but overall funding levels must be approved by Congress.
Oversight of private security contractors has been a concern in both Washington and Baghdad, with some critics arguing that the U.S. has effectively outsourced military force. The Iraqi Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the plans to hire a private security force.
The bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting panel was created in 2008 to help oversee U.S. government spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the hearing Monday, members expressed concern that contractors were performing missions that should more appropriately be done by government personnel.
Former Congressman Christopher Shays, a co-chairman of the commission, raised the possibility that contractors might have to use force to rescue diplomatic personnel caught in a roadside improvised explosive device attack, potentially leading to an overt combat role.
“If you have an IED and you need to get a medic to deal with the injuries that are outside the embassy and—and/or you are under fire and you have to shoot your way out to get back to safety—in either case, you have to get someone there to attend to the wounded and you have to aggressively use force or you have to aggressively use force to get out, why do you think that’s not an inherently governmental function?” he asked Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy said he was comfortable with the distinction between the way the military used force, and the more defensive role of contract security.
“We fully understand that we still have challenges ahead as we carry out our diplomatic missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations where we rely on contingency contracting, but we believe we have instituted a sound foundation to carry us forward,” Mr. Kennedy said.
Story here.
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U.S. projects in war zones are unsustainable, study finds
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
June 2, 2011
Billions of dollars worth of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq could fall into disrepair over the next few years because inadequate provisions have been made to pay for their ongoing operations and maintenance, according to a report to be released Friday by a bipartisan legislative commission.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan says it “sees no indication” that the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development are “effectively taking sustainability risks into account when devising new projects or programs.”
If immediate steps are not taken to address sustainability issues, the commission says, “the United States faces new waves of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
One of the commission’s chairmen, Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut, said in an interview that the cost of projects that cannot — or will not — be sustained by the Iraqi and Afghan governments “will make other forms of [contracting] waste pale in comparison.”
In a report issued in February, the commission estimated that those other forms of waste, including fraud and abuse, amounted to tens of billions of dollars of the $177 billion obligated by Congress since 2001 to support U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military officials involved in Iraq and Afghan reconstruction have acknowledged problems with sustaining some projects, but they insist that many of their initiatives will provide benefits long after U.S. forces depart. USAID spokesman Lars Anderson said the agency “fully recognizes the importance of ensuring that the Afghan government and people have the interest, capacity and a plan to resource all the work that we are undertaking together, including putting systems in place to increase domestic revenues to support these efforts.”
High on the contracting commission’s list of concerns is the U.S. effort to build a new Afghan army and police force, which will cost an estimated $8 billion a year to maintain. That is a sum far beyond the means of the Kabul government, whose annual domestic revenue is about $2 billion.
Without a clear plan for paying for ongoing costs, the commission says, army bases, police stations, border outposts and other facilities built by the United States at a cost of $11.4 billion since 2005 could be at risk.
The Pentagon has received $35 billion from Congress to train and equip the Afghan security forces. The Obama administration is seeking an additional $12.8 billion for fiscal 2012 to continue that effort, which involves expanding the total force to 352,000 personnel.
Senior U.S. government officials have said that the United States will have to foot much of the bill for sustaining the Afghan forces. They maintain that doing so, even at a cost of $8 billion a year, is far cheaper than keeping large numbers of U.S. troops on Afghan soil.
But the commission’s other chairman, Michael Thibault, former deputy director of the Defense Department’s contract audit agency, warned that the military command responsible for training Afghan forces has not established an adequate oversight plan to ensure that U.S. funds will not be misspent once American troops step back from combat operations in 2014.
“Who is going to audit and award these contracts? Who is going to protect the interests of the American taxpayer to ensure these billions and billions of dollars are awarded appropriately?” Thibault said. “We believe the potential for waste is much more significant going forward.”
A spokesman for the training command could not be reached for comment. U.S. military officials have previously said that they intend to design oversight mechanisms before funneling money directly through the Afghan Defense Ministry.
The commission also cited a $300 million power plant, completed last year by USAID near Kabul, that sits idle most of the time because the Afghan government has been able to buy electricity from neighboring Uzbekistan at a fraction of the cost. The plant, the commission writes, stands “as an example of poor planning and waste.”
Anderson, the USAID spokesman, said the agency could not comment on the commission’s statements about the power plant without seeing the report.
Story here.