The contractor must provide personnel capable of facilitating, coordinating, obtaining, and reporting critical movement control data and information from the appropriate US government personnel at qualifications in transportation movement control procedures and operations. They shall have the ability to obtain necessary identification (i.e. CAC) to gain access to base camps within Afghanistan without escort. Personnel must have a valid US Secret Security Clearance and speak and write in fluent English. The contractor provided personnel shall be able to respond to such request within a 72 hour period.
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I want to thank Cannoneer #4 for sending me this goody via Twitter. With this contract, there are two key points to focus in on. The first one is that using contractors is a way to bypass the whole ‘we will not deploy US military troops to Pakistan‘. The second point in which the first point is built on, is that this solicitation requires a US citizen to escort these convoys. That’s unless they plan on issuing CAC cards and Secret Clearances to non-citizens?(I doubt it)
This is nothing new in the context of contracting in this war. In Iraq and Afghanistan, expat contractors run teams of local nationals or third country nationals all the time. What is interesting with this solicitation is the amount of work this thing could bring. 5,000 movements per month is a whole lot of road work. I certainly hope that these convoys will be running with some heavy armaments and some decent vehicles.
I also understand the reasoning behind having expats as escorts for these convoys. They can effectively manage these convoys and insure there are no payments going out to warlords or tribes along the way. They can also insure the goods get from A to B in one piece without being ransacked. With the amount of cargo being transported to support the thousands of troops surging into Afghanistan, every last bit of cargo needs to be accounted for. Having some adult supervision on these convoys is a good thing.
Finally, if the Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban have a bounty system on NATO and US soldiers, I fully expect that contractors will be next. If attacking forces know that there is a US citizen on some ‘5,000 movements a month’, well then I could see the potential interest in that by the enemy. Which further emphasizes the idea that adequate protections should be given to these convoys. Especially for the Pakistani side of things. That’s unless the Pakistani military or drones will be used to provide overwatch and QRF’s? Other than that, these convoys have to be self sufficient. Here is the link to the solicitation here. –Matt
Edit: 5/27/2010 -One of my readers has pointed out that non-US contractors have received CAC cards and clearances in this war, so it is possible that the US Army could use non-US contractors for this stuff. It is hard to say what the specifics are, and maybe someone from the team that put this solicitation together could confirm for us what is required?
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Here is a quote from the solicitation ‘Pakistan Third Party Logistics Support Services’ detailing what they require.
16 March 2010 Page 3
The 831 DDSB requires a large Third Party Logistics (3PL) contractor presence in the combined areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to provide / perform the below services:
a) Cargo movement reporting at designated locations throughout both countries – to include the submission of daily operational reports
b) Sealing operations (bolt, cable, or other) at locations throughout both countries
c) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) / Container Intrusion Detection Device (CIDD) operations at pre-determined locations where appropriate training and equipment has been provided by the US Government
d) IBS-CMM (Integrated Booking System – Container Management Module) status updates