The commission’s visit to Afghanistan comes as US commanders weigh cutting back on desk jobs and other support staff to free up troops for combat, a move that could require more private contractors to fill the gap.
I know, why don’t we send the cooks to the frontli….. oh, my bad, the cooks are all KBR contractors. lol (I had to say it)
Outstanding news, and I hope the team is able to collect some good scoop on how things are going. One thing this group might want to consider though, is the massive dog and pony show that will go on as soon as these folks hit the deck. Now will they get an accurate assessment of how things are really going, who knows? But I guess it is the thought that counts. If you are one of the folks that this group visits, please do not be vocal in any issues you might have. How can anything be fixed, if no one says anything about it? I am sure the latest Program Support report is floating around in the team’s heads right now, as is the enormous pressure from the administration to not have any more embarrassments that could impede the war effort, so now is a perfect opportunity to get this right because folks actually care.
The other part of this article that I wanted to point out, was the latest troop shuffling game that General McChrystal and gang has been throwing around. The article mentioned briefly the idea, and I thought it was important to mention it again seeing how the MSM kind of glanced over it. All joking aside, that is scraping the barrel if the goal is to use support personnel to throw to the front lines.
The MSM is missing the big story on this as well. We have more contractors in Afghanistan than troops, we have a massive surge of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the MSM is fixated on the idea that we are evil and not worth the attention because of a company called Xe. Really? It seems to me that it is contractors that are saving the day when it comes to man power issues for these wars, and yet the media and the public continues to ignore that fact. Yet again, if you read the reports, the dirty little secret seems to be that contracting is a good idea to the Obama administration and the Generals of this war. Losing the war in Afghanistan or Iraq tends to weigh pretty heavily on the minds of our leaders, and obviously contractors have become an important part of that strategy of not losing. –Matt
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US panel on wartime contracting to return to Afghanistan
August 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — A US commission investigating wartime contracting said it plans to return to Afghanistan on Sunday as part its effort to stem fraud and waste by private defense contractors.
