The White House isn’t sure if Obama will be hiring more private contractors for the Afghan war — there are currently 104,100 in the country — but one financial analyst thinks it’s a go. Reports the AP:
Engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. and contractor DynCorp International Inc. stand to benefit from the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an analyst said Thursday.
CEO Bill Ballhaus of DynCorp, which has contracts with the Defense and State departments for a range of services, said on a conference call yesterday he expects “relatively steady growth in our business in Afghanistan.” Forbes reported in July that Afghanistan accounted for over half of the company’s $3.1 billion annual revenue.
DynCorp’s work has not been without its black marks. In November, according to Reuters, DynCorp disclosed “in a regulatory filing that certain payments, which it believed totaled about $300,000, had been “made to expedite the issuance of a limited number of visas and licenses from foreign government agencies,” potentially violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”