Feral Jundi

   This is funny. If you take a step back and look at all the pieces–Xe, DynCorp and others are fighting for a chunk of a training contract that is vital to the war effort. But then the government decides to cut the already condensed training schedule from 8 weeks to 6 weeks.  All I know, is that for the next review that the IG does of this training program, it should be well documented that the government set up this contract for failure.

    How can they possibly expect a quality product with this kind of training program? All I know is that whatever companies get involved with this contract, they are going to be earning every penny of their contract. And the Coalition in Afghanistan should do a little more to support this industry in the media, seeing how we are ‘coming to the rescue’ it seems. All I know is that I certainly hope the industry can pull this off, and I will be cheering them on.

    Which makes me wonder.  Is this an outcome of the Dutch leaving, and is this an example of contractors ‘picking up the slack‘?  Boy, if it is, I think the Obama Administration, and the war planners, should do a little more to show their thanks to this industry.  Politically and militarily speaking, we are absolutely vital to the war effort right now.  Especially if any other NATO folks decide to bail out last minute. –Matt

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GAO blocks contract to firm formerly known as Blackwater to train Afghan police

By Joby WarrickTuesday, March 16, 2010

Federal auditors on Monday put a stop to Army plans to award a $1 billion training program for Afghan police officers to the company formerly known as Blackwater, concluding that other companies were unfairly excluded from bidding on the job.

The decision by the Government Accountability Office leaves unclear who will oversee training of the struggling Afghan National Police, a poorly equipped, 90,000-strong paramilitary force that will inherit the task of preserving order in the country after NATO troops depart.

GAO officials upheld a protest by DynCorp International Inc., which currently conducts training for Afghan police under a State Department contract. DynCorp lawyers argued that the company should have been allowed to submit bids when management of the training program passed from State to the Army. Instead, Pentagon officials allowed the training program to be attached to an existing Defense contract that supports counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

Xe Services, the new name of Blackwater, was poised to win one portion of a much larger group of contracts, shared among five corporations, that could earn the companies more than $15 billion over five years.

GAO officials said the decision will allow a new round of bidding by DynCorp and other firms, including Xe Services.

“We recognize the Army’s position that it needs to swiftly award a contract for these services,” said Ralph O. White, an attorney with the GAO’s procurement oversight division. But he said the Army must conduct a “full and open competition,” or explain in writing why DynCorp had been excluded.

The Pentagon’s decision to allow Xe to run the training program drew a strong protest last week from Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin cited a history of allegedly abusive behavior by the contractor’s employees, including misappropriation of government weapons and hiring of workers with criminal records that included assault and drug offenses. He also accused managers of the private security company of lying to win lucrative jobs in Afghanistan.

Levin, responding to Monday’s GAO decision, said government contracting practices had too often been unfairly exclusive, though he acknowledged that Xe may ultimately end up as the winner in competitive bidding.

“If this contract is re-bid and Blackwater is among the bidders, I hope that the Defense Department will take a close look at the company to determine if it is a suitable contracting partner for the U.S. government,” he said.

A spokesman for Xe declined to comment.

DynCorp President Bill Ballhaus welcomed the decision.

“We are performing this crucial training mission now, and will continue to meet all objectives of the commanders on the ground while a full and transparent bidding process can ensure the best outcome for the taxpayer, our mission and the Afghan people,” he said.

Story here.

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To Speed Recruits, U.S. Cuts Afghan Police Training to Six Weeks

Decision Prompted by Shortages of Training Camps and Instructors

By Christine Spolar

15 Mar 2010

The U.S. government’s plan to rapidly grow the ranks of Afghan police officers has run into a shortage of instructors and training camps, prompting U.S. and NATO officials to cut basic training for Afghan recruits from eight weeks to six.

The schedule change—which crams the same hours of training into fewer weeks—underscores the pressures that the Pentagon faces as it tries to transform the police into an effective counterinsurgency force with a higher level of military skills. Afghan police have long been seen as the weak link in that nation’s security forces, suffering a disproportionate number of deadly attacks by the insurgents.

U.S. military officials in Kabul confirmed that the change took effect Saturday. They said the Afghan recruits, most of whom cannot read, write or count, would work longer days to make up for the compressed schedule.

The Afghan police training, contracted to DynCorp International, is now half as long as the 12-week program that DynCorp used to train Iraqi police recruits. DynCorp spokesman Douglas Ebner said the company was told of the change in training regimen in the past week.

The reduction goes against the advice given by some military advisors and contractors to an independent oversight panel late last year.  But the quicker turnaround is needed to keep pace with an ambitious schedule of growing the police force to help fight the Taliban, officials familiar with the program told the Investigative Fund.

The U.S. military and NATO commanders hope to double the number of Afghan police and troops by 2013 to pave the way for a withdrawal of U.S. forces. As of January, DynCorp has trained 96,800 Afghan police since 2004 and U.S. officials are pushing at a breakneck pace to have 134,000 total by next year. Military commanders, both U.S. and Afghan, have been deeply and openly critical about the skills and competence of the existing police force.

The decision to compress training was made in Afghanistan three months after contractors and a former military commander were questioned sharply on Capitol Hill about the disparities between U.S. efforts to train police in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At a hearing Dec. 18 before the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting established by Congress, trainers from DynCorp and the U.S. military indicated they would not recommend shortening police training in Afghanistan.

Several members of the commission, including co-chairman Christopher Shays, questioned DynCorp International trainer Don Ryder about the quality of Afghan recruits.

Ryder said the training is challenged by the nation’s high illiteracy rate. An average of one in four recruits drops out of the program before finishing, he told the commission.

Ryder resisted the suggestion that the training program could be streamlined, saying that at eight weeks it already was shorter than DynCorp’s program in Iraq.

“Right now the training we provide in the eight-week training program is, in my view, basic training that we should not and cannot walk away from if we are going to leave the Afghans with a law enforcement capability…We should not move away from that,” Ryder testified.

Commission member Grant Green — a former assistant secretary of Defense and a member of the National Security Council under President Reagan — emphasized the new demands of adding counterinsurgency training for police. “It is even more important, I think,” Green said, “that we do not reduce the length of that course.”

Training of police has been one of the costliest bills in the nation-building effort in Afghanistan. As of January, DynCorp had billed the government more than $437 million for its instruction.

In a telephone interview over the weekend, U.S. Army Col. Randall Cheeseborough, deputy commander of the police-training mission in Afghanistan, said the schedule adjustment would get more police out on the streets.

“The good news is that they compressed the basic training course from 8 weeks to 6 weeks with no loss of content. This will significantly increase training throughput and maximize training capacity,” Cheeseborough said.

Cheeseborough could not explain why training, if more efficient in six weeks, had been run for years as an eight-week program.

The debate over how best to train the Afghan police has been further complicated by a recent change in mission and oversight.

The State Department has overseen police training since 2004 when U.S.-based DynCorp, which works in hot spots around the world, won the Afghan contract. Last year, the Pentagon pushed to take over the contract to emphasize counterinsurgency skills over civilian law enforcement.

That effort stumbled in the bidding phase. The Army attempted to amend an ongoing program for technology and equipment—a multibillion contract held by five companies including Blackwater, Raytheon and Northrup Grumman—by just adding an order seeking a new paramilitary training program.

That contracting maneuver essentially prevented DynCorp from participating. The company filed a protest that is under review by the Government Accountability Office. In the meantime, DynCorp’s contract for basic law enforcement training, which was supposed to expire in January, has been extended until August.

Story here.