Wow, this contract is a big one. Also, thanks to Danger Room for posting an update on this contract. In the past I posted a deal about the transition of this contract from CIVPOL to CNTPO, and how DynCorp got edged out of the party when they were excluded under the new program. Then they protested and won the right to be a vendor, and this is where we are at now. It is a battle of the titans for a huge training contract.
This is also important to the war effort because as I have reported in the past, NATO tends to make promises it cannot keep. There are 900 training positions still open because of this lack of commitment. That is not good, and especially if the war strategy is highly dependent on getting the Afghan forces to a size and level of competency where they can take over the security of their country. Yet again, it will be contractors picking up the slack as NATO falters. –Matt
Edit: 12/21/2010- Here is the latest with this contract. DynCorp just got hooked up. Here is the quote:
“Danger Room has confirmed that DynCorp, one of the leading private-security firms, has held on to a contract with the Army worth up to $1 billion for training Afghanistan’s police over the next three years. With corruption, incompetence and illiteracy within the police force a persistent obstacle to turning over security responsibilities to the cops by 2014, NATO has revamped much of its training efforts — except, apparently, the contractors paid lavishly to help them out.
The details: DynCorp will provide security personnel to train the Afghan cops at 14 different locations across the country. Those trainers will support the NATO training command run out of Kabul by Lt. Gen. William Caldwell in getting the police into an “independently functioning entity capable of providing for the national security of Afghanistan,” the Army’s Research Development and Engineering Command says in the award. The contract runs for two years and earns DynCorp $718.1 million, but an option to re-up for a third year brings the total price to $1.04 billion.”
Quote From Danger Room:
“Before the New Year, the Army will finally award a much-delayed $1.6 billion-with-a-b contract for a private security firm to supplement that NATO training command’s efforts to professionalize Afghan cops. That bid touched off a bureaucratic tempest between Blackwater/Xe Services and DynCorp, which held an old contract for the same job, as well as the State Department and the Army.
But not for much longer. The Army’s Contracting Command is in “the very final stages” of selecting the firm for the bid, Col. John Ferrari of the NATO training command tells Danger Room. “We’re expecting an announcement before the end of December, sometime in the next week or two.”
The contract is for “mentoring, training, and logistics services” to backstop Ferrari’s efforts, placing security contractors in embedded positions with the Afghan interior ministry and police units themselves, according to the terms of the bid. More than 80 firms have registered as “interested vendors” on the federal website announcing the contract. NATO is trying to build a 134,000-strong Afghan police force by October, and it’s short 900 trainers promised by U.S. allies.”
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R–NATO Training Mission Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan (NTM-A/CSTC-A) Afghanistan Ministry of Interior (MoI) & Afghan National Police (ANP) Support Requirement
Solicitation Number: W91CRB10R0059
Agency: Department of the Army
Office: Army Contracting Command
Location: RDECOM Contracting Center – Aberdeen (RDECOM-CC)