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How Many Private Contractors Are There In Afghanistan? Military Gives Us A Number

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Private contractors employed by the Defense Department in Afghanistan will continue to outnumber the size of the American troop presence, even after President Obama sends 30,000 more soldiers to fight in the war, according to the military's most recent contractor count.

The latest figure on DOD contractors in the country is a whopping 104,100, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command tells TPM. That number, which is expected to grow, is already greater than the 98,000 U.S. troops that will be in the country after the new deployments.

We told you yesterday about the little-noticed but giant shadow army of contractors that allows the United States to prosecute the war by providing food, transport, construction, security, and other services. Many believe the size of the contracting force presents security and transparency concerns.

And the lack of discussion of the topic -- Obama, for example, didn't mention contractors in his address last night -- warps perceptions of the size of the American commitment in Afghanistan.


Contractors on plane departing from a base in Eastern Afghanistan in May of 2009.

Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel sent TPM these numbers, declining to peg them to a specific date, and saying a breakdown of types of contractors is not available:

Third Country Nationals 16,400
Local/Host Nation 78,400
US Citizens 9,300
Total 104,100

As of June, the number of contractors was 73,968, so the new figure is a considerable increase. All of this data should be viewed skeptically; a commission on contracting created by Congress has complained about widely varying contractor counts and lack of good data.

Kloppel told TPM yesterday that there are roughly 9,000 private security contractors, though the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan says there are at least 14,000. That would not include private security for other countries or contractors. The Army Times published a story yesterday showing just how damaging bad contractors can be to the counterinsurgency strategy: along one route in Kandahar province, over 30 civilians have been killed or wounded by heavily armed security contractors, who are mostly Afghans.

Still not clear is whether the projected escalation cost of $30 billion includes the cost of more contractors. Good numbers are notoriously hard to pin down, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated a cost of $5 billion for DOD contracts in Afghanistan back in fiscal year 2007 and the first half of 2008.

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December 2, 2009 2:47 PM   

I can't think of any better symbol of American democracy than an invisible army of (in many cases) non-American mercenaries and third-world slave labor... except, perhaps, the war profiteers who get billions to hire them.

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December 2, 2009 2:51 PM   

Get invaded and get a job. I'm curious how the job descriptions of the Local/Host[gotta love that descriptor] Nation 78,400 breakdown into percent of support(laundry, barrack upkeep, food service, etc.), security or line troops and why Kloppel didn't have that info.

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December 2, 2009 4:44 PM   

I have a question for Justin: what exactly is the appropriate, best-practice, optimum ratio of the number of contractors relative to the number of troops?

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December 2, 2009 4:58 PM    in reply to Lalo35adm

zero to one million, give or take

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December 2, 2009 5:12 PM   

Can we please stop acting like hiring a local who owns a truck to carry a load of MRE's from one point way behind the lines to another point way behind the lines is EXACTLY THE SAME THING(!!!!) as a squad of Blackwater gunsels? Makes for yummy tabloidy goodness, but it's kind of the opposite of informative.

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December 2, 2009 6:15 PM    in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

Thank you, TCFKaNCSteve!

Rational discourse and nuance... Crazy, outdated notions, but I like your old-fashioned ways! "Private Contractor" is one of the least descriptive terms you could possibly use in this context.

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December 2, 2009 7:48 PM    in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

one point way behind the lines to another point way behind the lines-----------Just how do they know where the lines are? This is old terminology. Lets get educated as to what the conditions actually are.

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December 2, 2009 6:52 PM   

I've never had this question answered: in wars past - who performed the duties these contractors now perform?
I'm inclined to believe that the answer is 'the military'.
So, why are they no longer able to perform such duties? Do we not trust the military to perform these duties any longer? I don't get it.

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December 2, 2009 8:27 PM    in reply to mikedrevguy

Dunno about other wars but in vietnam, the hooch maids, barbers and some of the laundry folks (indigenous independant contractors, I suppose?) were paid by the remfs that used their services.

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December 2, 2009 9:57 PM    in reply to mikedrevguy

Because we have a volunteer military. Because the PRIVATE market will spend money more efficiently than the big bad government. But most of all because war is a business sector.

(some of comment is a little snarky)

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December 3, 2009 10:45 AM    in reply to mikedrevguy

Civilians have been involved in logistics since the days of Romans, albeit not always voluntarily. We have more involved in transportation now than we did during the Vietnam War because equipping a soldier costs a lot more than it used to, because you have to pay a volunteer a more than you pay a conscript, because it costs a hell of a lot more to train a modern soldier than it did in the conscript wars when they often went straight into combat out of boot camp, and, most important of all, because we have a much smaller Army and Marine Corp than we did in those days.

What's different is the extent to which we're outsourcing the shooting to what are basically incorporated mercenaries. That's dangerous, disturbing and it the number that's really critical to me. It's why I'm decrying mashing up a guy in Kabul who owns a truck with Blackwater and Brown & Root.

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December 2, 2009 7:39 PM   

How much US treasury money is spent on these contractors ?

How much profit are the businesses making ?

It is less interesting to note that a Pakistani is doing laundry than to note that we may have paid $200,000 a year for his services.

I made up that number. But it may be pretty close.

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December 2, 2009 11:10 PM    in reply to BrianSkuse

Good point Brian.

I think its essential that peripheral services are provided locally - checkbooks work better than guns at spreading freedom. I spoke to a young private who was headed back to his 2nd tour in Afghanistan a few months ago and he told me how at his base when they got bombed the first thing they did was to kick off all local contractors from the base until the perpetrators were turned over. Usually took a few days, but the bad actors were usually delivered via duct tape at the front gate. The local contractors depend on that relationship to feed their families and they don't tolerate a lot of interference - not for long.

But if those laundry services are akin to the $10,000 toilet seat AND the U.S. Economy is staggering under the weight of the cumulative costs of such arrangements, it is self defeating.

It's not commentators or journalists who are lumping all contractors together. Its the military, they must be required to describe where all the money is going and Congress needs to get off its ass and ask. Better yet, the contractors should be required to submit verifiable/audited reports of such statistics as a condition of their contract.

The idea that billions (if not trillions) in federal dollars are spent without analyzing the outcome came from the Bush administration. Yes, Mr. President you DO have to tell us where all the money is going.

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December 2, 2009 7:44 PM   

"All of this data should be viewed skeptically;..." Hell, most of what we do in the Middle East should be viewed skeptically.
I`d like to know who the hell is paying for all of this.

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December 2, 2009 8:07 PM    in reply to sully18

"I`d like to know who the hell is paying for all of this."

Why, you are, of course...

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December 2, 2009 8:04 PM   

I wish responsible journalist everywhere would stop dignifying mercenaries as contractors, unless it is stated that they are under "contract" as killers.

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December 2, 2009 11:15 PM    in reply to ETSpoon

Agreed.

Blackwater is still operating as a private force under contract for the DoD, they form joint-venture agreements with other companies to obscure it.

I'm personally more offended by the rise of the mercenary army than I am about torturing anyone in Gitmo. If all of it wasn't for Cheney's ego they would have just "disappeared" all these criminals instead of going through the effort of Gitmo. Just sayin.

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December 3, 2009 11:50 AM   

I'm a DoD Federal Employee working directly for the military. I was just offered a DoD contractor position in Afghanistan doing IT logistical support with a 1-year committment for $200k, with free meals, lodging, and a 28-day paid vacation. The hardest obstacle to overcome according to the recruiter was finding candidates with the right job experience, a 4-year degree, and an acitve security clearance.

I think the Government is intentionally under reporting the number of non-Blackwater types of US Contractors in Afhganistan. By doing this, the military presence in number of personnel is less than what it actually is. The invisible elephant in the room that no one wants to openly discuss is that the Government knows that the American People do not want this war and will not support reinstating the draft. After almost 7-years of war, our military personnel are stuggling with multiple tours and moral is bad. The obvious solution is to farm out the work that would have normally been filled by military personnel to civilians and free up more military personnel for front-line combat duty. Non-US Citizens are offered jobs at a fraction of what the Government will pay US Citizens with skills, degrees and active security clearances. The sad truth is that the privatization of military logistics support is nothing new historically.

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December 3, 2009 12:53 PM    in reply to Breeser89

Thanks for posting - you know a lot of details I would like to hear.

Of course the government is telling the public almost nothing except what they think the public wants to hear. We hear platitudes and patriotic formulae and almost no information. The American public cannot handle unhappy details.

Telling unpleasant facts to the public is a sure way to lose one's job - to be voted out - to have one's military career come to a complete halt. The American people are satisfied with this arrangement.

How much does the contractor clear for signing up to provide a Pakistani or Thai or Sri Lankan laborer ? If the third-world national is paid something like 5 - 10 thousand a year to wash dishes or pump gas, how much does the businessman make - the man who signed the contract ?

I guess something like 200 to 500 thousand. This guess is based on the figure that slipped out lately : gasoline is booked at four hundred dollars per gallon once it arrives at the vehicle in the battlefield.

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June 8, 2010 8:14 PM   

I've never had this question answered: in wars past - who performed the duties these contractors now perform?
I'm inclined to believe that the answer is 'the military'.
So, why are they no longer able to perform such duties? Do we not trust the military to perform these duties any longer? I don't get it.

m65 kamagra

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tom

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August 16, 2010 6:10 PM   

private contractors in afghanistan must comply with all cpa orders, regulations, memoranda, and any implementing instructions or regulations governing the existence and activities of private security companies like in iraq, including registration and licensing of weapons and firearms.
____________________
contractors license bonds

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