[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INVESTIGATION OF PROTECTION PAYMENTS FOR SAFE PASSAGE ALONG AFGHAN
SUPPLY CHAIN
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 22, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-144
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
65-553 WASHINGTON : 2011
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
DIANE E. WATSON, California PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM JORDAN, Ohio
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
Columbia BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
JUDY CHU, California
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island DAN BURTON, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
PETER WELCH, Vermont LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BILL FOSTER, Illinois PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio JIM JORDAN, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
JUDY CHU, California
Andrew Wright, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 22, 2010.................................... 1
Statement of:
Phillips, Lieutenant General William, Principal Military
Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, Office of the
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics,
and Technology, U.S. Army; Gary Motsek, Assistant Deputy
Under Secretary of Defense for Program Support, Office of
the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology
and Logistics, Department of Defense; and Brigadier General
John Nicholson, Director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan
Coordination Cell, the Joint Staff, Department of Defense.. 95
Motsek, Gary............................................. 102
Nicholson, Brigadier General John........................ 112
Phillips, Lieutenant General William..................... 95
Schwartz, Moshe, Specialist in Defense Acquisition,
Congressional Research Service; Carl Forsberg, Research
Analyst, Institute for the Study of War; Colonel T.X.
Hammes, senior research fellow, Institute for National
Strategic Studies, National Defense University; and S.
Frederick Starr, Ph.D., the Paul H. Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University.... 148
Forsberg, Carl........................................... 167
Hammes, Colonel T.X...................................... 179
Schwartz, Moshe.......................................... 148
Starr, S. Frederick...................................... 201
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Forsberg, Carl, Research Analyst, Institute for the Study of
War, prepared statement of................................. 169
Hammes, Colonel T.X., senior research fellow, Institute for
National Strategic Studies, National Defense University,
prepared statement of...................................... 181
Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, followup question and response........ 127
Motsek, Gary, Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Program Support, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Department of
Defense, prepared statement of............................. 104
Nicholson, Brigadier General John, Director of the Pakistan/
Afghanistan Coordination Cell, the Joint Staff, Department
of Defense, prepared statement of.......................... 114
Phillips, Lieutenant General William, Principal Military
Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, Office of the
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics,
and Technology, U.S. Army:
Followup questions and responses...................... 120, 137
Prepared statement of.................................... 98
Schwartz, Moshe, Specialist in Defense Acquisition,
Congressional Research Service, prepared statement of...... 151
Starr, S. Frederick, Ph.D., the Paul H. Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University,
prepared statement of...................................... 203
Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Massachusetts, prepared statement of.............. 5
INVESTIGATION OF PROTECTION PAYMENTS FOR SAFE PASSAGE ALONG AFGHAN
SUPPLY CHAIN
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign
Affairs,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John F. Tierney
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tierney, Murphy, Foster, Quigley,
Welch, Issa, and Flake.
Staff present: Andrew Wright, staff director; Talia Dubovi
and Scott Lindsay, counsels; Boris Maguire, Aaron Blacksberg,
Brendon Olson, Victoria Din, and Alexandra Mahler-Haug,
interns; John Cuaderes, minority deputy staff director; Rob
Borden, minority general counsel; Jennifer Safavian, minority
chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Adam Fromm,
minority chief clerk and Member liaison; Seamus Kraft, minority
director of new media and press secretary; Justin LoFranco,
minority press assistant and clerk; Tom Alexander, minority
senior counsel; and Christopher Bright and Mark Marin, minority
senior professional staff members.
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing entitled,
``Investigation of Protection Payments for Safe Passage Along
the Afghan Supply Chain'' will come to order.
I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking
member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening
statements up to 10 minutes each. Without objection, so
ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept
open for 5 business days so that all members of the
subcommittee will be allowed to submit a written statement for
the record. Without objection, so ordered.
In our constitutional democracy, Congress is charged with
overseeing that the executive branch executes its
responsibilities in accordance with the law. Toward that end,
this Congress has invested the Subcommittee on National
Security and Foreign Affairs with a clear mandate to root out
waste, fraud and abuse wherever we may find it. Real oversight
is a powerful tool for transparency and accountability, not for
political grandstanding.
Today's report by the majority staff represents the best
tradition of constructive oversight. After 6 months, 31
witnesses, 25,000 documents, hundreds of hours of work, and,
yes, even meeting with one of the warlords at the heart of the
investigation, the report provides the subcommittee, the
Congress, and the American people with significant insight into
how the Department of Defense has managed the supply chain for
the U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
An investigation of this nature is akin to a puzzle. We
have laboriously gathered the pieces on the table, fit together
the edges, and filled in enough sections for us to understand
what the picture will look like, but there are still portions
to be completed. Though the puzzle is unfinished and important
questions remain, the portrait that emerges is of the
Department of Defense's systematic failure of management and
oversight of contractors along the Afghan supply chain.
In the past 8 years the United States has placed an
enormous burden on our brave men and women in uniform. The
military has been asked to fight two grueling conflicts in some
of the most difficult and hostile conditions imaginable. The
challenge of supplying our troops in the field is simply
staggering.
To absorb the strain of these burdens the Department of
Defense has increasingly looked to civilian contractors. In
some cases using contractors rather than military personnel
makes sense. What initially was a cost effective expediency,
however, has morphed into an institutionalized reliance and wht
can be a dangerous shortcut.
As the Congressional Budget Office put it, the recent
increase in the size and scope of contractor support in the
battlefield has been unprecedented in U.S. history. In
Afghanistan today we have roughly 90,000 troops but reportedly
use almost 110,000 contractors. As the Department of Defense
has increased its reliance on contractors in conflict zones, it
has not sufficiently increased its capability and expertise to
manage and oversee those contractors.
At the Defense Contract Management Agency, for example, the
civilian work force fell by 60 percent between 1990 and 2006.
The combination of a massive increase in contracting and
insufficient management and oversight capability is a recipe
for disaster. In the case before us today we have just such a
disaster. The Department of Defense outsourced almost all
operational components of the supply chain that provides our
troops with the food, water, fuel, and equipment they need to
do their job.
Critically, despite laws and regulations mandating strict
oversight of armed private security guards in conflict areas,
the Department outsourced management responsibility for those
hired gunmen to other contractors. The Department put trucking
contractors, many of which only had two or three employees in
theater, in charge of procurement, management, and oversight of
small armies of private security contractors. The trucking
companies were then directed to send their subcontracted trucks
and subcontracted security through many of the most dangerous
locations on Earth while carrying millions of dollars of
critical supplies for our troops.
According to the report, many in the Department of Defense
apparently took comfort in these arrangements. The
responsibility for security and risk of loss was on the
contractors and their subcontractors. The prevailing attitudes
seemed to be that as long as the trucks got to their
destination, don't rock the boat. When problems did arise, the
response was to rap the prime contractors on the knuckle and
remind them to follow the terms of the contract.
To their credit, many of the contractors immediately
recognized that they could not adequately procure, manage, or
oversee mass scale security services in Afghanistan and they
raised red flags. They told the military that they were being
extorted, making massive protection payments for safe passage
and possibly, ``funding the insurgency.''
These extraordinary warnings appear to have fallen on deaf
ears. The contracting officers, contract managers, and relevant
regulators consistently responded that the companies just
needed to get the trucks to their destination. Contractors
raised serious concerns about extortion payments funding
warlords within 2 days of the contract performance beginning,
and here we are 14 months later and nothing has changed.
Nothing has changed.
The benefits of outsourcing trucking and security in the
supply chain are clear: No U.S. troops are put in harm's way
and they can instead focus their energies on higher priority
missions.
This report, however, must also weigh the cost of
contracting out the supply chain. In short, this contract
appears to have fueled warlordism, extortion, corruption, and
maybe even funded the enemy. U.S. taxpayer dollars are feeding
a protection racket in Afghanistan that would make Tony Soprano
proud.
Further consideration must now be given to determine
whether the Department of Defense's failure to provide
management, or properly manage or oversee its supply chain
logistics contracts has undermined the overall U.S. mission.
In January of this year, Major General Michael Flynn, our
principal military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, wrote a
public report saying that the United States is largely blind,
deaf, and dumb when it comes to understanding local politics,
power dynamics and economic structures within Afghanistan. I
would add that the United States is also largely blind,
sometimes willfully so, to the corrupting influences of our own
contracting and development work. We must be self-aware of how
our massive footprint in Afghanistan could affect such a
sensitive environment.
Before I close, I want to address a recurring retort to
this investigation. Some say this is just the way things are
done in Afghanistan. Others have compared the funding of
warlords and possibly insurgents in Afghanistan to the Anbar
Awakening in Iraq. There, General Petraeus used cash and other
incentives to strategically co-opt insurgents. Blindly funding
warlords by extortion and corruption in Afghanistan through
multiple layers of invisible subcontracting is no Anbar
Awakening. If the Department of Defense wants to co-op warlords
or strongmen or insurgents with U.S. taxpayer dollars, military
commanders in the field need to take direct responsibility for
those relationships in order to ensure absolute accountability.
This oversight committee is charged by Congress with the
stewardship of American taxpayer dollars, and rooting out
waste, fraud and abuse wherever we may find it. With this
report in hand, we intend to hold the Department of Defense
accountable to the subcommittee, to Congress, and to the
American people.
With that, I defer to Mr. Flake for his opening remarks.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]
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Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman for holding this hearing
and I thank the chairman for initiating this very thorough,
enlightening, and very sobering investigation.
The chairman has already summarized the report, so I won't
go into detail. Let me just make a couple of broad
observations.
The counterinsurgency plan that we are employing in
Afghanistan is dependent on a central government in Kabul that
will extend its writ beyond Kabul. This report presents strong
evidence that this is not occurring. The counterinsurgency plan
we are employing in Afghanistan is dependent on our ability,
the ability of our military and those of our NATO partners, to
provide security to the Afghan citizenry. This report presents
strong evidence that this is not occurring. In fact, it seems
that security in any meaningful sense does not extend beyond
the security gates of our military bases.
I hope that the Department of Defense takes the
recommendations contained in this report seriously. But let's
face it, even if the recommendations are implemented in their
entirety, we are just tinkering at the margins here. In my
view, the real value of this report is that it presents more
irrefutable evidence that our overall strategy in Afghanistan
needs to be examined and overhauled. It is not something that
can be salvaged with time and troop levels. I look forward to
the witnesses' statements.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Flake. The
subcommittee will now receive testimony from the first panel
before us here today. I will take a moment to just introduce
all three before we start the testimony.
Lieutenant General William Phillips is the Principal
Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, as well as the Director
for Acquisition Career Management. He served previously as the
commanding general of the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq and
Afghanistan and the program executive officer for ammunition.
Lieutenant General Phillips holds a BS from Middle Tennessee
State University, an MS in procurement and materials management
from Webster University, and a Master's of Personnel Management
from Troy State University. In 2001, he was named the Army's
Acquisition Commander of the Year.
Mr. Gary Motsek is the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of
Defense for Program Support. In his current capacity Mr. Motsek
is the principal adviser to the Office of the Secretary of
Defense leadership on policy and program support to the
Geographic Combatant Commands. Previously, he served as the
Deputy G3 for Support Operations, the Assistant Deputy Chief of
Staff for Ammunition in the U.S. Army Material Command, among
other positions within the U.S. Army and NATO. Mr. Motsek
received a BS in environmental engineering from Syracuse
University, an MS in management from Troy State University and
a level three certification from the Defense Acquisition
University.
Brigadier General John Nicholson is the Director of the
Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff,
where he is responsible for synchronizing the military
activities of the services and combatant commands in the
region. Previously, he served in Afghanistan as the Deputy
Commanding General for Regional Command South as part of the
International Security Assistance Force and Deputy Director for
Operations for the National Military Command Center. General
Nicholson has a Bachelor's Degree from the U.S. Military
Academy and Georgetown University, a Master's in Military Arts
and Science from the School for Advanced Military Studies, and
an MA in National Security Studies from the National Defense
University.
I want to thank all of you for making yourselves available
today and for sharing your substantial expertise. It is the
policy of this committee to swear in the witnesses before you
testify, so I ask you to please stand and raise your right
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. The record will please reflect that
all the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
I think, as you gentlemen know, that your full written
statement will be entered into the record by previous agreement
of the committee. I would ask you to summarize it if you could
within as close to 5 minutes as possible. You will be able to
determine that from the lights before you. When it is green you
go, when it is amber you have about a minute left, and when it
is red if you would please start to wind up and bring it to a
conclusion so we can have time for people to ask questions as
well.
General Phillips, if you would.
STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM PHILLIPS, PRINCIPAL
MILITARY DEPUTY TO THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR
ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS, AND TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS, AND
TECHNOLOGY, U.S. ARMY; GARY MOTSEK, ASSISTANT DEPUTY UNDER
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PROGRAM SUPPORT, OFFICE OF THE UNDER
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS,
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; AND BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON,
DIRECTOR OF THE PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN COORDINATION CELL, THE
JOINT STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM PHILLIPS
General Phillips. Chairman Tierney, Congressman Flake,
distinguished members of the Subcommittee on National Security
and Foreign Affairs, thank you for this opportunity to discuss
the role of the U.S. Army in the Department of Defense's
management and oversight of the Host Nation Trucking contract
in Afghanistan. I am pleased to represent the Army leadership
and the over 40,000 members of the Army acquisition work force,
to include contracting, and the more than 1 million soldiers
over 8\1/2\ years who have served in combat in support of our
country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most importantly, I have worked with the Host Nation
contract as the Commander of Joint Contracting Command in Iraq
and Afghanistan where we have served greatly to provide
supplies, services, and equipment at the right place and right
time for our soldiers and all our service members.
As I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, I had the privilege of
serving as Commanding General of Joint Contracting Command Iraq
and Afghanistan [JCCIA]. Although my duties and my office was
in Baghdad, I traveled frequently throughout Iraq and to
Afghanistan.
Let me state from the outset that the Host Nation Trucking
contract is absolutely vital to the sustainment of our forces
in Afghanistan. Contracting for, obtaining, and overseeing
services in an austere environment and a fragile economy with a
poor financial system, limited rule of law and during
hostilities is a dangerous and difficult task that is being
performed daily throughout Afghanistan. Through the Host Nation
Trucking contract, more than 90 percent of our forces in
Afghanistan receive food, water, equipment, ammunition,
construction materials, and other badly needed supplies.
In the last year, or since May 2009, there have been more
than 60,000 trucking missions performed by Host Nation
Trucking. Each mission is a critical and effective means to
meet the needs of our warfighters, whose numbers today will
soon reach about 90,000 in Afghanistan.
Mr. Chairman, in all Army contracting operations worldwide
we strive to be responsive to our warfighters while ensuring
proper physical stewardship of taxpayer dollars. Our progress
in these areas has been steady, even though expeditionary
military operations have placed extraordinary demands on the
contracting system and our contracting professionals. Upholding
the highest ethical standards of discipline in contracting is
of paramount importance, sir, as you indicated in your opening
comments. And even though we have confidence in the talent and
professionalism of our Army's contracting work force, we remain
vigilant at all times. We are working continually throughout
the Army to actively engage with the Department of Defense to
eliminate areas of vulnerability in contracting.
During my time in JCCIA, I was deeply committed to
maintaining high standards of ethics and discipline in all
contracting operations. My team and I conducted over 11
internal procurement management reviews of regional contracting
center operations, and we have identified some of the hard
lessons and deficiencies and we have worked hard to
institutionalize those processes inside everything that we do
by applying lessons learned.
I often refer to my contracting work force that served in
Iraq and Afghanistan as contracting warriors because they serve
beside our warfighters in areas throughout Iraq and throughout
Afghanistan.
Last March, another comprehensive procurement management
review was undertaken in Afghanistan. The final report is
nearly complete, and the findings indicate strongly that
contracting officers continue to maintain the highest ethical
standards and discipline in their daily work. These positive
findings are attributed to the extraordinary talent of our
contracting officers. Again, I call them contracting warriors.
Sir, there really are five elements that I implemented as
JCCIA to work on ethics and discipline in everything that we
do. Briefly, first, before they enter theater they have to
complete the Defense Acquisition University ethics training.
Second, all personnel upon arrival must attend a newcomers
ethics briefing.
Third, all personnel must complete the Department of
Defense's standards of conduct annual ethics training.
Fourth, our judge advocate generals as they go around
theater also provide ethics training twice a year to every
contracting officer.
And fifth, during weekly meetings we focus on ethics.
Mr. Chairman, we are working constantly to improve our
contracting operations, our educational training ethics and
discipline in everything that we do. Our progress is
significant.
The Host Nation Trucking contract is a prime example. We
adhere to the statutes under the Federal acquisition
regulations for open and fair competition while ensuring that
our warfighters receive badly needed material and supplies.
Mr. Chairman, I assure you that we take the allegations
that you have outlined in your opening statement very seriously
within the Department of Defense and we will work hard to fix
the areas of concern.
Sir, thanks to you and this subcommittee for this
opportunity to appear before you. I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of General Phillips follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, General. We appreciate your
comments.
Mr. Motsek, if you would please.
STATEMENT OF GARY MOTSEK
Mr. Motsek. Chairman Tierney, Ranking Member Flake, and
members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the program management and
oversight of private security contracts.
As the Quadrennial Defense Review acknowledged, contractors
are part of the total force along with military forces and
government civilians and, as the chairman noted, provide an
adaptable mix of unique skill sets, local knowledge, and
flexibility that a strictly military force cannot cultivate or
resource for all scenarios. Contractors provide a broad range
of supplies, services, and critical logistics support in many
capability areas, while reducing the military footprint and
increasing the availability and readiness of resources.
Typically, there's a higher reliance on contracted support
during the post-conflict phases of an operation. This is
especially true in this current operation where we are
conducting multiple phases of the operation simultaneously and
not sequentially.
Current operations in the U.S. Central Command Area of
Operations require private security contractors to fulfill a
variety of important security functions for the Department of
Defense, Department of State, and other U.S. Government
entities supporting both Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring
Freedom. Relief, recovery and reconstruction of a post-conflict
region are traditionally civilian functions, and thus it is
entirely appropriate for civilian resources to be used to
protect them. By using civilian resources to accomplish these
selected civilian tasks, military forces can focus on the
military mission.
DOD's use of local nationals to perform private security
functions support the U.S. CENTCOM Commander's
counterinsurgency strategy. These local national jobs are
central to the COIN operations. In Afghanistan today 93 percent
of DOD contracted PSC employees are local nationals. Many have
assumed risk and have sacrificed protecting key movements and
facilities and freeing up key combat capability.
However, even as the COIN strategy is enhanced by employing
local nationals as armed contractors, security and reliability
concerns must be considered, especially in countries where
there are no reliable data bases for traditional vetting and
where personnel and company records are limited or
nonconsistent.
As required by statute and noted in this committee's
report, DOD's policies on armed PSCs apply to all employees at
any contract tier. With impetus from senior DOD leadership,
there has been a concerted effort now to improve the compliance
with these policies. A number of significant challenges impact
this effort, and DOD is working to address these challenges to
facilitate compliance. However, we do acknowledge there are
risks and we must address them.
In spite of these challenges DOD policy requires all
contract personnel regardless of nationality to comply with our
DOD regulations, as well as the applicable laws of the United
States and the host country. There is no immunity clause to
protect contractors from local law. U.S. Government PSCs,
again, at any tier are required to comply with host nation
registration and be properly licensed to carry arms in
accordance with host nation law. DOD employees are also
required, consistent with their terms of contract, to obey the
orders of the commander in the area which they are operating.
Finally, individual companies have their own standards of
conduct, and DOD contractors have generally demonstrated a
consistent pattern of terminating employment of individuals who
violate these standards. On a whole U.S. PSCs are operating in
accordance with host nation laws and support the overall COIN
objectives.
The intent of the Ministry of Interior in Afghan is to
transition in the future most of the security functions
presently performed by PSCs to the Afghan National Police as it
matures. We take any allegations of corruption seriously, and
to my knowledge we have several organizations charged with
investigation, and we will take action on those that can be
legally documented with the appropriate level of forensic
evidence.
Contractors employed to perform security functions for DOD
are only a fraction of the total private sector security,
public-private and international forces in the CENTCOM Area of
Responsibility. Many of the same contractors the United States
employs also perform for other countries, the host nation,
nongovernment organizations and private organizations. This is
one of the principal reasons that OSD is supporting the
initiative to move beyond the Montreux document and implement
an industry-led, government supported, international
accountability regime that will apply to all PSCs in all
operational environments. This will change the present paradigm
of primarily relying on the MOI, Ministry of Interior, license
with an independent third party to assess compliance with the
standards. I believe the committee's efforts have been
instrumental in getting into the House version of the 2011 NDAA
language that requires this third-party certification in the
future, and I welcome it and I thank you for that.
Whether or not the U.S. Government employs PSCs there will
always be PSCs in the contingency area. The draft standard that
I've just referred to has been developed and is being refined
by a working group drawn primarily from the United States, the
U.K. And the Swiss governments with participation from the
private security industry and nongovernmental organizations
active in human rights and the law of armed conflict. The aim
of this is to standardize the principles and to attain an
accountability mechanism later this year.
I thank you and would be happy to answer any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Motsek follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Motsek. And General Nicholson,
if you would please.
STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON
General Nicholson. Chairman Tierney, Ranking Member Flake,
and other members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss how we can
better link contracting and the flow of U.S. Government
contracting funds to a winning counterinsurgency strategy in
Afghanistan.
The focus of our COIN strategy in Afghanistan is the Afghan
people. This population-centric counterterrorism operation
rests on a couple of principles. One, enabling and expanding an
effective Afghan National Security Force, securing the
population in key areas, and then connecting the government of
Afghanistan to its people through improved governance and
economic development. So optimizing the effects of our
contracting dollars in support of this approach is crucial to
our success.
In order to do that, in order to more effectively link U.S.
contracting to desired operational effects in a winning COIN
strategy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed
the establishment of Task Force 2010. It has been chartered by
the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Task Force 2010
will improve visibility of U.S. contracting flows in
Afghanistan in order to ensure that U.S. dollars can complement
the COIN campaign more effectively. This improved visibility of
the contract funds will provide awareness on how money flows
from contractors to subcontractors to tribes, factions,
individuals.
This is no easy task, and it involves and integrated effort
at all levels to gain visibility of the money flow, understand
and shape perceptions of the Afghan people, correct the
behavior of some Afghan contractors, and gaining awareness and
a level of control over the second order effects of U.S.
contract spending on the environment.
Task Force 2010 is led by Rear Admiral Kathleen Dussault,
U.S. Navy, a former Commander of the Joint Contracting Command
Iraq and Afghanistan. She is in the country now. She is leading
an experienced forward deployed task force of about 25
planners, intelligence analysts, auditors, contracting experts,
law enforcement personnel, and strategic communication
specialists. They will integrate with other efforts in theater,
including the threat finance cell and the anticorruption task
force. We've established working groups in the Pentagon to
provide reach-back support for her task force in the areas of
financial intelligence, contracting policy, and in COIN
effects.
Contracting provides--and I speak now, sir, as a customer
of contracting as a former commander in Afghan. Contracting
provides much needed products and services to our soldiers,
sailors, airmen and marines. Contracting for products and
services such as Host Nation Trucking reduces the risk for our
service men and women. Given that 60 percent of our casualties
in Afghanistan are caused by IEDs, it is logical that the fewer
service members who are on the road, the fewer service members
are exposed to the threat of IEDs and then ideally the fewer
will become casualties.
Contracting in the ``Afghan first'' policy has the great
potential to produce very positive COIN effects: job creation,
capacity building, providing for business growth. All are
necessary to create a self-sustaining Afghan economy, an
economy that's been racked by 30 years of war. The key here
from our perspective is optimizing the positive effects of our
contracting investment while sustaining the positive effects
for our service members.
And, Sir, we look forward to working with the committee to
achieve this improved capability and optimizing effects of
those contracting dollars in country. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Nicholson follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Well, thank you. Thank all of you for your
testimony. I want to set a tone of respectfulness here, because
we do respect all the service that you gentlemen have given to
your country. And we do that very sincerely, and I want to make
sure that we do that today.
I listened to some of the testimony with a little bit of
incredulity, not because I doubt anybody's intention or the
hard work that went into a lot of the systems that were set up.
I do have an issue with how anybody could think that it is
actually being carried out on the ground that way, and I'm
going to talk about that a little bit.
General Nicholson, I think you get it. Listening to your
testimony, the idea here is you have two choices. One is either
we have the wrong strategy and we have to look at that. If
that's the case, how are we going to do this other than the way
we are doing it now. And the other is if you're going to
continue on with the strategy, the other option is how do you
get better management and better oversight involved, which
clearly from this report is not there. So I thought that your
comments most directly addressed the situation that we have.
But General Phillips, let me start with you if I can on a
question. And I'm going to try--I think on page 12 of the
report I recall a little chart to sort of see where you
gentlemen fit in on this because it gets to be a little
convoluted. But, General Phillips, you are the Army Acquisition
Executive. You are right now the principal military deputy to
the Army Acquisition Executive, right?
General Phillips. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. So you directly meet with the Secretary of the
Army's Office. You were the Joint Contracting Command for Iraq/
Afghanistan, which would be--now reports to you, I guess would
be the case on that.
General Phillips. Sir, not directly to me. I am not in the
chain of command for the Commanding General of JCCIA. It would
flow through CENTCOM. But the contracting authority actually
flows through Mr. Ed Herrington, who works for Dr. O'Neill, the
Army Acquisition Executive. I am not in that chain of command.
Mr. Tierney. So let me talk to you as the former JCCIA, as
you say. Under the terms of the Host Nation contract there are
eight prime contractors and they're required to provide
security for their trucks and the supplies that are carried in
those trucks. The security provisions in the contract specify
about 6 security vehicles and 24 guards as armed security for
every 20 trucks. The Host Nation Trucking companies run up to
about 8,000 truck missions per month that require the
procurement, management and oversight of a small army of
thousands of Afghan security guards.
So my question to you is, do you believe it is appropriate
to have trucking contractors, many of which only have two or
three at most of their employees in theater and they have never
been on the road, do you believe it is appropriate to have them
managing and overseeing thousands of armed security guards in a
war zone?
General Phillips. Sir, under the Host Nation contract that
we have with those eight vendors, part of that, as you just
described, is that they provide their own private security. And
then they go out and subcontract for that, which is allowable
under the terms and conditions of the contract that we put into
place.
Mr. Tierney. But I guess my question is how appropriate
is--once you do that, I know sort of the suave thing to say is
like, all right, that's done, you know, give it to them and it
is all on their shoulders now, but when we know that there's
only two or three people in their company that are in country
and that they have never been out on the road, do we think
that's the appropriate oversight and management here?
General Phillips. Sir, it is important that when we vetted
each of those contractors up front, before we actually signed
the Host Nation contract, it was important that we made sure
that they had the right management in place.
Mr. Tierney. So you thought that two or three was
sufficient or you didn't know that two or three were all that
they had?
General Phillips. Sir, to make the award we clearly
considered the management structure of each one of those eight
contractors sufficient in terms of being able to oversee the
contract.
Mr. Tierney. I want to pin you down a little bit here if I
can. So you thought the two or three were sufficient to oversee
those thousands of Afghan security guards, because that's all
they had? Did you not know that's all they had or did you think
that would be just fine, two or three is fine?
General Phillips. Sir, at that time I had no visibility
into how many people, at my level how many people actually were
involved in the day-to-day management of the contract.
Mr. Tierney. And I guess my other problem is nobody seems
to have visibility into that, because if you read the report,
you get down that even people between you and those contractors
could never tell you who was doing it?
General Phillips. Sir, I can assure you that the principal
assistant responsible for contracting in Afghanistan, that's
PARC-A, the colonel that ran it, as well as the contracting
officer, used a very rigorous source selection evaluation
criteria. When they looked at--there were 35 initial vendors
who submitted proposals for the Host Nation Trucking contract.
When we looked at it initially we narrowed that down to 10
vendors. And we looked at technical capability, managerial
experience, they looked at past performance as well as past
experience, security, how they planned to execute security, and
price, price was a key factor. But all those factors went into
the final decision to select them.
Mr. Tierney. So I guess I'm still unclear whether the
criteria of two or three people in that company to manage the
whole thing was OK with them or they didn't know that. Did they
not know that they were paying warlords to do some of it or did
they think that was OK, it is the cost of doing business? Those
are the things I think we need to ask.
General Phillips. Sir, I can't answer your question. I
would have to go back and look at the actual decision that was
made for the source selection and determine based upon the bids
of those contractors the exact management structure of each one
of them. I personally can't recall a discussion, whether there
were two, three or more within a management structure of the
eight prime vendors to manage Host Nation Trucking.
Mr. Tierney. Well, when you were the JCCIA, the Joint
Contracting Command for Iraq and Afghanistan, were you aware
that prime contractors were regularly complaining that they
were making protection payments for safe passage, or ``possibly
funding the insurgency?'' Did that ever get to your attention?
General Phillips. Sir, I was personally not aware of that.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you. General Phillips, can you tell me how
many times the Department of Defense has gone outside of the
gates to actually ride with some of these convoys or these
shipments going from base to base?
General Phillips. Sir, the contracting officer
representatives that work for the 419th Movement Control
Battalion, very rarely will they go outside the fence line in
terms of monitoring the operations. But what they do that
through is through the in transit and visibility that's on
board about 84 percent of the vehicles that operate in and out
of Afghanistan.
Now, beyond that, if they are transporting things like
MRAPs, we will have government military that will accompany
those convoys for items like MRAP or high visibility items.
Mr. Flake. How often is that?
General Phillips. Sir, I don't know. I would have to take
that for the record and get you an answer. Whenever they are
moving heavy equipment like MRAPs or MATVs in or out of theater
they will normally put a military convoy with that. I don't
know exactly how often, sir.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Flake. If you could get back to us on that, that would
be helpful.
General Phillips. Sir, will do.
Mr. Flake. In the times that you have been off base, any
Department of Defense officials, have you witnessed any of the
activities that have been detailed in the report?
General Phillips. No, sir, I do not have any personal
knowledge, nor has it been presented to me, of those
allegations occurring. I do know there's an ongoing
investigation that General Nicholson mentioned up front that
continues to try to determine what the facts are associated
with the allegations that were discussed earlier. So the
investigation is ongoing by CID, I've had discussions with
them, and I know they continue to pursue it very aggressively.
Mr. Flake. Mr. Motsek, you mentioned that people at all
levels of the contracting process have to abide by the
regulations of DOD, which includes no up-armored convoys,
nothing more than an AK-47, I believe, is supposed to be
carried along. Are you aware of or do you dispute the findings
in this report that indicate that virtually every convoy that
goes out is guarded by subcontractors who carry things far in
excess of what the Department of Defense allows?
Mr. Motsek. Sir, let me answer that part of the question
first. Generally speaking, PSCs by the fragmentation order,
fragmentary orders issued by the commander in field, are
restricted to what you and I would consider small arms;
however, it is not a unilateral stop. When I read the report, I
hadn't had a chance to research this, but when I read the
report there is a process to go to the Army office that the
commander has in the field, the four star commanders in the
field, to be authorized to carry weapons beyond a 762 or a 556
or a 9mm small arm. So that's one part of it.
So generally speaking, the vast majority of our PSCs in
Afghanistan and Iraq, quite frankly, carry small arms, as you
correctly mentioned.
Mr. Flake. So that picture there of that truck with the
armor, sir, that would be in violation?
Mr. Motsek. I can't tell you--I saw that picture this
morning. I cannot tell you specifically if that's a violation,
because there is a possibility that contractor had the
authority--requested and received authority--to carry
additional weapons.
Mr. Flake. Can you tell me how many people, if anybody, at
DOD has interviewed beyond the prime contractor level, under
the prime contractor level? As we know from the report, the
prime contractors rarely know who even provides the security of
the subcontractors below them. Has DOD interviewed anyone
beyond the prime contractors?
Mr. Motsek. At the DOD level, sir, I am not aware of anyone
that did that. And it also brings up the second question that
you brought up earlier. The challenge I think we have had is
that we have relied on the licensing process that the Minister
of the Interior had. Minister Atmar, the previous Minister of
Interior, was very aggressive in trying to make that the
standard to the extent we were restricted to the number of
companies we could operate with, the numbers of contractors
they could have. As I told you in my opening testimony,
however, I feel that is insufficient. We need this third party.
Mr. Flake. In my remaining seconds I just want to say, if
you haven't ridden along with the convoys, very, very rarely,
if ever, and if you haven't interviewed anybody beyond the
prime contractor, then it is tough to know what's really going
on. And beyond that it seems that we--I would feel a lot better
to hear somebody say, hey, this is the price of business in
Afghanistan, this is all we can do. We can't be like the
Soviets who devoted three-quarters of their force structure to
protecting supply routes. That is not the most efficient way.
We understand that. But just to say, it is not occurring, we
don't see it so it must not be occurring, that just seems a
little too much to hear.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Flake. Mr. Foster.
Mr. Foster. I would like to start, if I may, by yielding
back such time as the chairman may consume for followup.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. I appreciate that. I just wanted to
make one point if I could. Mr. Motsek, the fact of the matter
is that the record indicates that the request was sought for
authorization of heavy up-armor and denied. But that truck that
you see over there, the emblem on the front of it is Watan Risk
Management, and that in the back is a DSHK 50-caliber rifle,
which is certainly not authorized. And Commander Ruhullah, when
asked about whether or not he is in compliance with the
regulations, his response was what regulations.
And if I might, I yield back to Mr. Foster.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. First, do contractor truck convoys
receive any level of tactical support, air support, this sort
of thing? And could you contrast what a contractor truck convoy
looks like compared to a military one, you know, with U.S.
troops, in terms of the support it gets and the procedures?
Mr. Motsek. So with the exception of MediVac, medical
evacuation, generally speaking there is no additional support
provided to a private or commercial shipment as it transits.
They don't have the capability of calling close air support or
something of that nature. Depending upon where you are in the
country, if there is an issue you can request support, but it
is not normally part of the package.
Part of our challenge and part of our responsibilities as
the U.S. forces is to make a threat assessment each and every
time that you're going to authorize a convoy to go out. And the
commander on the ground has to weigh whether or not the risk
assessment, the force protection requirements, are such that he
will permit the movement or not permit the movement. And that's
generally the process that they use to maintain an overall
security package around the convoy.
A military convoy is clearly, clearly that. Its forces are
indigenous. They are military forces operating under rules of
engagement, not on the rules of use of force. The primary
difference is that if a military convoy is attacked--let me
step back. Generally speaking, if a civilian convoy is attacked
their mission is to leave, their mission is to protect
themselves and to egress the area as rapidly as possible. A
military convoy, because it is a military operation operating
under rules of engagement may elect to close with the enemy and
engage them in combat. So there is a profound difference in
what could happen after the attack.
But there are infrequent times, as General Phillips noted,
when we have mixed convoys out there where the military and a
civilian convoy are mixed. And in those instances, to my
knowledge, they are clearly under pure military control. The
military exerts the authority over the whole convoy, movements
and stoppages. Again, the PSCs are not to operate in an
offensive mode.
Mr. Foster. So what I am fishing for maybe more explicitly
is whether a higher level of support for the civilian
contractors might teach the bad guys a lesson, so to speak,
that it is not a good idea to go and attack the non-U.S.
military convoy. Has that been tried? Do you have any comments
on whether or not that's a useful strategy?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir. Generally we have not done
that with ISAF forces. However, the Afghan forces, Afghan
police and Afghan army, might be the first responders in the
case of a Host Nation truck or convoy that would encounter
problems. And as Mr. Motsek mentioned, in cases of medical
evacuation being required and then if we received a call from
an Afghan police unit or military unit that there were injured
civilians, then we might respond to that based on the specific
conditions of the incident.
Mr. Foster. For example, do we even monitor the roads for
unauthorized checkpoints, things like that, which I presume
could be done from the air?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir. The military for ISAF and
Afghan forces are doing partnered operations across Afghanistan
now. And part of that is the police and the army enforcing the
rules, laws of the state. As you're probably aware, the MOI has
been seeking to certify these private security companies. So
Afghan police or military would certainly question--if they see
weapons and they didn't know who they were, they would
typically try to ascertain if is this an authorized force with
these weapons, you know, do they have that kind of
authorization.
I would also mention President Karzai has indicated a
desire to reduce the number of private security contractors.
And given that the Congress has funded the growth of the Afghan
security forces, military and police to 300,000 by the end of
2011, he set that rough target date as a time to legitimize
these private security companies. So there has been an
expression of will on the part of the Afghan Government to
reduce the number of private security contractors on the
battlefield commensurate with the growth that we are enabling
in their own security forces so they can exercise their
sovereign responsibility as a nation to provide security within
their own borders.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. I see the red light is on.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Issa.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will ask
the best questions I can. I would note that if the majority
report had come out before 10:30 last night it would have been
easier for our committee to have all questions available.
Additionally, Mr. Chairman, there appears to continue to be
an absence of any written transcription of many of the
interviews. Are there written transcriptions that can be made
available to us or only the notes from oral testimony?
Mr. Tierney. Are you yielding for that?
Mr. Issa. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tierney. As you know, Mr. Flake and I discussed the
issue of transcriptions at the outset. And, Mr. Flake and I,
the ranking member, were in agreement that we would proceed and
take notes at those interviews. All of the interviews were
attended by both the majority and minority staff. Notes were
produced of each interview and sent to both majority and
minority staff. And in 6 months we have not heard back any
comments on the notes about whether they were not inclusive or
whether there was an error or whether there was an edit or
anything of that basis and we proceeded, of course, with the
assumption that everything was acceptable. And so the report
may not have come out until last night, although we gave
minority an opportunity to work with us on the report and
assumed that they were doing their own. That turns out not to
be the case.
Mr. Issa. I thank the chairman. Reclaiming my time, General
Phillips, if there were transcriptions and they showed any
level of criminal activity, would that aid in the Department of
Defense making such changes, including criminal prosecutions,
and if not, are you able to work with written notes from oral
testimonies equally well?
General Phillips. Sir, again, we take the allegations very,
very seriously. And I think if that information----
Mr. Issa. Would you take them as seriously when they're
notes as you would if they were verbatim transcription?
General Phillips. Yes, sir. If there were facts and
evidence that was made available to CID or to us that there was
criminal activity or bribery or those kinds of things that are
ongoing within the Host Nation Trucking contract, I would
assure you that under my command the contracting officers would
have taken quick action to address the situation.
And during my--if I could add real quickly, during my 1
year in Iraq we took numerous actions to do show cause notices,
cure notices and letters of concern to contractors when they
would step out of line and violate the rules and regulations,
terms and conditions of our contracts.
Mr. Issa. Thank you. General Nicholson, you're the lucky
man here today. It appears as though making sure that our two
allies, Pakistan and Afghanistan, do their job in the war on
terror falls to you, is that correct, the coordination of that?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir, it is my responsibility to
synchronize the activities of the Joint Staff and the services
in execution of this campaign strategy, yes, sir.
Mr. Issa. Now, in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, there
were civilian contracts for transport of military goods and
military support goods just as there are in Afghanistan,
correct?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir, I believe so.
Mr. Issa. Did we ever pay tribute to the enemy, like the
Vietcong in order to move our goods safely to our troops?
General Nicholson. If that occurred I'm not aware of it,
sir.
Mr. Issa. So would it be reasonable to say that you have
communicated to both our allies, Pakistan and Afghanistan, zero
tolerance for any moneys being skimmed off or paid in order to
provide safe transport?
General Nicholson. Sir, our intent to not provide any aid
or assistance to the enemies are very clear to our allies.
Mr. Issa. No, I was more specific. The Pakistan government
and military--the Afghan government and military, are they
aware of that expectation of zero tribute, whether directly to
aid the enemy or simply skimming off for purposes of funding
individuals of some rank in their governments?
General Nicholson. Sir, I would think so. I would have to
go back and check with the commanders on the ground who do that
coordination if you wanted specifics of that.
Mr. Issa. Do you have a written policy delivered to those
two governments making it clear that we consider it a breach of
our relationship as allies if any money is skimmed off by any
government person and not rigorously enforced?
General Nicholson. I have to defer back to the contracting
side with respect to financial arrangements.
General Phillips. Sir, we would take action if we had any--
again, if we had any evidence that----
Mr. Issa. General, that wasn't the question. The question
was as to our two allies, we are funding both Pakistan and
Afghanistan to a huge extent, and although they're slow
Afghanistan is expected to ramp up a huge amount of troops,
troops capable of riding alongside with guns to protect convoys
and to do so at no additional cost beyond the support we give
them of weapons, food, ammunition, radios, the works. Is there
a record, a documented written record, of our dealing both
militarily and at a government level to that expectation that
there will be no skimming, no payola, no payment, whether it
goes to the enemy or simply goes to connected people in their
governments?
General Phillips. Sir, under ``Afghan first'' policy within
Afghanistan, which was my authority during my tenure there, our
contracts and our clauses prohibited that kind of activity. And
if it is brought to our attention we would not tolerate it. We
would take action.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to belabor the point.
My time is expired. But I would like an answer as to whether
has that been communicated to the government, not the question
of is it in the contract with the various people contracted.
The answer is not responsive to the question. I apologize, but
I would like that answer.
Mr. Tierney. Well, if any of you gentlemen feel that you
want to change your answer or add to it, I will give you a
moment to do that. Otherwise we will move on and we can pursue
that afterwards?
Mr. Motsek. We are stuck as we are not policy folks.
Mr. Issa. ``I don't know'' is acceptable. We don't know if
the government has received that in writing would be OK.
Mr. Motsek. And we would have to take that for the record.
Mr. Issa. If you would, I would appreciate it.
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Issa.
Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I've
been here 14 months now and this is the kind of work that the
committee should be about, so I applaud your efforts and your
staff efforts.
Gentlemen, put yourself in our place. I understand your
lack of awareness of what was taking place, but what would
concern--you or us, but what is concerning is the fact that it
took the committee and staff to ask these questions. Now, sir,
you call them allegations, they are called findings here, but
either way at least they are asking the right questions.
Were you aware if any of these questions were asked at all
by anybody else within your command?
General Phillips. Sir, I will start and then let my
teammates join in. Under Host Nation Trucking, I was not
personally aware of the kind of allegations that are being
made. But I have to say that we take them seriously, just as
you and this committee have taken them seriously. When the
allegations are presented, we need to research them to
determine what the facts and the evidence are, and then to
take--have the evidence that we can take hard actions, whether
it is contractually or legally, in some kind of way, and then
eventually I would assume go back and work with the government
of Afghanistan.
So I guess my message to you understanding where the
committee is today and the report that was issued last night or
this morning, we do take those allegations seriously and we
will work them accordingly within the Department of Defense.
Mr. Motsek. Sir, I can't comment on the specific findings
of the report because I was not aware of them. However, for
example, I took the Commission of Wartime Contracting to
Afghanistan in December, and I participated in the briefing
with one of the anti-corruption task force briefings. So I was
aware that there was a broad spectrum of investigation ongoing
inside Afghanistan to root out corruption. I was aware that CID
was taking many allegations seriously. I was also aware that
many, many allegations they did not legally substantiate and
get on with that. And I was also aware, as we were told, that
they had transmitted to the Afghan Government their concern,
and that the anti-corruption court had just started, if I
recall correctly, and that since then they had two prosecutions
and convictions there.
General Phillips. And, sir, if I could add one real quick.
I was referring to a legal substantiation of evidence that we
could use within our contracts to take action. And I don't
think anyone would argue with that, that there is corruption
that exists inside Afghanistan, and I think that's pretty
clear, if you look at what some of the senior leaders have
said, both within the Department of State and the Department of
Defense. But in contractual actions against contractors we
always look for the hard evidence that we can stand behind to
take action to correct behavior or to terminate a contract.
Mr. Quigley. I guess the line ``gambling at Rick's, I'm
shocked'' comes to mind. But we are talking about Afghanistan,
arguably the most corrupt country on the face of the Earth.
Getting back to my original point, if you have that mindset
going in, you would assume that there would be overlaying,
overlapping areas of oversight to ask these questions all the
time. And I understand that there are folks who are concerned,
perhaps not a criminal investigation or investigations that
require change, but at some point you have a pretty good idea
that there's a problem and you want to act regardless of having
not meeting the burden perhaps in a criminal court or a civil
court, but recognizing where you are and what's taking place so
far. And again, back to why weren't questions like this asked
by the DOD earlier.
General Nicholson. Sir, I can offer another perspective on
that, having been in southern Afghanistan last year. We
introduced 20,000 U.S. troops into southern Afghanistan last
year requiring a significant increase in the amount of Host
Nation Trucking and contacting to support the internal forces.
So, as we did that, the commanders on the ground are
primarily concerned about did the product or service get
delivered on time; and they don't have the visibility on what
happened en route to that point. But as these intelligence
reports began to come in, as has been indicated in the study,
these were referred to U.S. Forces Afghanistan who then had
enough anecdotal information to warrant requesting assistance
from the Criminal Investigation Command to begin an
investigation to determine if there were violations. That
eventually escalated into the introduction of a CID Task Force
to really ramp up the investigation and which is still ongoing
to make that determination.
So in answer to your question, sir, these reports have
flown in and commanders have forwarded them to appropriate
authorities to begin this kind of investigation.
In Afghanistan, as you point out, there is a lot of
corruption. In southern Afghanistan, there are at least six
major drug trafficking organizations. So we have a nexus of
criminality and insurgency that occurs down there.
So there is a significant amount of criminality there, and
we are always looking at the linkages between criminality,
insurgency and the government. And, in fact, we have
established Special Intelligence Task Forces which look at
these linkages which then feed into our Anti-Corruption Task
Force and our Major Crimes Task Force. These task forces have
successfully arrested and are now prosecuting some Afghan
government officials. So it is not at the level we would like
to see it, but it has begun, and we are assisting the Afghans
in getting after this corruption.
Mr. Quigley. I will close, Mr. Chairman.
I do thank the gentleman. I can only begin to understand
how complex the chore is. But I do hope there are some lessons
learned. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Welch, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat your remarks. I'm
amazed at your capacity to get goods from here to there. I
don't think the American people have any appreciation for how
incredibly, incredibly complex and difficult it is, so thank
you very much for your work.
The big question I think is whether in the accomplishment
of that and in the doing of that, the approach that's been
chosen by others, not by you, essentially to pay $2 billion to
a half a dozen or so private contractors who will then
transport and provide security to equip our soldiers is the
right approach. Or would it be better to do what frequently has
been done in our history and that is to assign that
responsibility to ISAF and the Afghan security force where they
would be under the direct control and supervision of our
commander?
I would be interested in your opinions about the pros and
cons of each approach. And I guess I will start with you, Mr.
Motsek, because people are looking at you, but I want to give
deference here to our men in uniform as well.
Mr. Motsek. Sir, as General Nicholson said, we don't
believe that the Afghan security forces are clearly mature
enough to take over this mission. In a perfect world, in fact,
this would be their responsibility. This is the normal securing
of your interstates, if you will----
Mr. Welch. Let me just stop there. Because I think that is
an issue. I accept your judgment on that, that they are not in
a position to do it now. And this is something that we can't
mess around with because our soldiers need what you're
delivering. But, on the other hand, is there a collateral
consequence that, since we are giving this to a half a dozen
contractors who, in turn, hire 1,000 guys with guns, that there
is a down-the-road counterforce to what we hope will be the
force of Afghan security forces?
So can you comment on that?
Mr. Motsek. Sir, you raise the key issue, as the chairman
alluded to and your report alludes to it. We built the template
where the responsibility to secure your convoy was a
subcontracted responsibility. We made that decision in the Host
Nation Trucking contract.
Conversely, with LOGCAP in Iraq, we told KBR they were not
responsible for the security, that the U.S. Government would
contract separately for the private security contractors to
manage that. So we took a template, and we are living with that
template now.
I'm here to tell you that we have to relook at it both
ways. It may be appropriate----
Mr. Welch. I appreciate you saying that. And, again, that
is not your call. Because, again, I think the chairman made it
very clear we have to get that stuff to our soldiers. However
we get it there, it has to be done. There is no compromising on
that. But there are consequences to how we do it.
Obviously, you would have great confidence in the ability
of our soldiers if we had enough to deploy to provide the
security and transport the equipment. It would be at some risk
to them, and they're in risk obviously in theater right now.
But perhaps I will ask you, General, if you could comment
on that.
General Phillips. Sir, I can only address it really from
the perspective of the requirement and flowing in.
When we originally built the--we didn't build the
requirement but the warfighters in Afghanistan, we felt we
would have a need for about 100 trucks per day. And, as you
just described, the need for equipment, supplies, ammunition,
fuel, water, etc., that grew to well over 200 trucks per day
and 200 missions per day. So it grew exponentially over time.
And we first signed the contract in March 2009. There were
about 30,000 troops that were in Afghanistan, about; and it was
growing to about 60,000. Now we are growing to about 90,000. So
you can see the tremendous growth and the need to have this
capability.
Now the other piece of it is the Afghan National Army and
Police. President Karzai, made a declaration through the
government a while ago that said we wanted to migrate all
private security contractors to the Afghan National Police or
Afghan National Army or another government agency, and they
wanted that to occur within 2 years. I think we are 6 months
down the road toward that piece. Not my lane in terms of
operation, but it's going to take some while for us to buildup
the appropriate forces to be able to take over that private
security mission to include convoy escort.
Mr. Welch. General Nicholson, I will ask you--here is the
worry I have, and I will ask you to comment on that.
If while we are trying to make that transition--and I know
that's the policy and there's a great effort being put into it
by General McChrystal and others to have the Afghan National
Army take over more responsibility, but as we are doing it over
this 2-year timetable, there is a $2 billion contract that is
going to basically private individuals who now have under their
command a separate army dependent on them for millions of
dollars.
Are those two developments incompatible? That is, on the
one hand, wanting to buildup capacity in Afghanistan under the
control of the government while, at the same time, we are
providing an enormous financial incentive to a private army
which is not going to lightly give up the benefits of these
contracts? General.
General Nicholson. Sir, we view this as a temporary
necessity until we build our security forces to a level
necessary so they can take over the security. For example,
right now they are beginning to field these units. They are
beginning to field these units in a position along the highways
to provide additional security.
Sir, we all share this concern about additional armed
groups in Afghanistan. The international community went to
great lengths at the beginning of the war to disarm the various
armed groups, the DIAG process; and we don't want to take a
step back toward rearming people or creating regional power
brokers with guns. So we share this concern.
And this gets to the positive second order COIN effects to
which we are referring. Hence, President Karzai's guidance to a
reduction of an armed group or a reduction of private security
contractors, the growth of the ANSF, and the focus within the
command on what we call freedom of movement, which is providing
the ability for the Afghan economy to move freely along the
roads within the country.
So this is a priority of the commend, sir; and we share
your concern.
Mr. Welch. I thank the witnesses for your testimony and
yield back.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you on that.
Mr. Murphy, you're recognized for 5 minutes please.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me join Mr. Welch in appreciating the complexity of the
task of moving people and goods.
When Mr. Welch and I and Mr. Tierney were in Afghanistan
last year, we listened to agricultural ministers explain to us
that for a simple agricultural shipment the particular farmer
or the entity that they were contracting with were being
stopped 20 to 25 times along that route for varying forms of
illegal payments and tributes and bribes. I can't imagine the
added complexity when you're dealing with security concerns of
military shipments, military convoys.
My question I guess to you, Mr. Motsek, is on the issue of
reports that our investigators detail were made to the
Department from the different contracting entities. I
appreciate the fact that a lot of this information is new to
you. You have to figure out what to do with it. But we
certainly have a volume of reports that went from contracting
agencies to the Department of Defense that detailed a variety
of different levels of information regarding payoffs.
One memo from one particular contractor to a contract
manager detailed how he was approached by Taliban personnel to
talk about payments for the safe passage of convoys through the
area. We have talked to other carriers that are making missions
through those areas that are paying the Taliban for safe
passage. According to another contract manager, everyone is
aware of the issue of these protection payments.
Clearly, something was missed in terms of the reports
initially being made to contract managers and whether or not
that information got up the chain. Can you just tell me what
the obligation of contract managers are on the ground when they
receive reports of direct information of payoffs or potential
payoffs to varying levels of the insurgency or Taliban? Just
give me a sense of what the duty to report is and what we may
have missed here.
General Phillips. Sir, during my tenure as the CG for
JCCIA, on numerous occasions when information like that was
presented--and it often was in Iraq and Afghanistan--I would
call in the Procurement Fraud Task Force. And, normally, it
would be CID that I would task to go out and validate the
anecdotal evidence that you might be presented with when
someone says this might have occurred? Can you validate that
this actually did occur? Can you investigate and use all the
resources that they have at their hand?
And once they complete their analysis and present those
findings to you, we would take the appropriate contractual
remedies, and we did often to make sure that we corrected the
behavior and we held the client contractor accountable for
their performance. That's our fiduciary responsibility to the
American taxpayer and required by our contract clauses.
Mr. Murphy. I guess my question is, how does it get to you?
What level of obligation on the contract managers that are
potentially receiving this information is there to report what
they are hearing from the field?
General Phillips. Sir, it would often come through the
contractual chain of command, maybe through a COR, contracting
officer, represented to the contracting officer, to the
principal assistant responsible for contracting eventually in
Afghanistan. And they would--if they were significant enough,
they would report it to me; and then we would figure out a way
ahead to pursue the evidence and the allegation, teaming with,
potentially, the Procurement Fraud Task Force, or CID, whoever
might be appropriate to do the research.
In some cases, you might simply appoint a 15-6 officer to
go out and do a commander's inquiry or investigation and report
back. If it's serious enough, like the allegations that you are
talking about, it would be CID; and there is an ongoing
investigation by CID to look into the allegations.
Mr. Murphy. With respect to existing contract standards--
Mr. Motsek, you referred to a sort of universal standard of
conduct that is being developed for all PSCs. What is the level
of proof that you need in order to take action? What level of
evidence do you need that money has gone to a particular
contractor and ended up in the hands of the Taliban or in the
hands of the insurgents? At what level is just knowledge that a
particular contractor has relationships with Taliban or local
insurgents enough to be able to take action or pull a
particular contract? What is the level of proof here that we
need to take action?
General Phillips. Sir, you need a preponderance of the
evidence to show that, or have a level of confidence that
something did occur. And each case is different, so it would be
difficult to talk about one case versus the other. I would
simply rely upon the investigating official, whoever that might
be--it might be CID, it might be FBI--and they would present
you that level of evidence.
In my case, I have a legal staff that looked at everything
that we executed in terms of action we would take against a
contractor, and we would have a legal staff review it. And, in
some cases, we might reach back to the army staff or the DOD to
also leverage some of their experience and then take the
appropriate action. But each case would be different, sir.
Mr. Murphy. One last question, Mr. Chairman.
Do you need actual specific evidence of a direct and
immediate payment being made? Or is evidence of a link in
association between a contractor and the Taliban, for instance,
enough to be able to take action or to pull a particular
contract?
General Phillips. Sir, you would need facts. And facts
might be a sworn statement. It might be two or three different
individuals who might corroborate that something had occurred.
But you would have to have fact-based evidence that something
had occurred that you can take action against.
In our contracts, we uphold the Federal acquisition
regulations, which are derived by statute and law; and we also
charge our contractors to uphold, in the case of Afghanistan,
the government of Afghanistan's laws. So it would have to
withstand the scrutiny of our legal analysis.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Ms. Chu, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. I find it disturbing that our budget for private
security contractors is $2.16 billion; and that is such a large
percentage of the GDP of Afghanistan, which is $13 billion.
It's one-fifth of the GDP of the entire country of Afghanistan.
Therefore, this money is a lucrative source of revenue for the
people of Afghanistan. So my questions have to do with whether
a portion of our taxpayers' dollars are going to the Taliban?
And so, first, let me ask General Nicholson about one
summer, 2008, incident where Commander Ruhullah's agents
accompanying a Host Nation Trucking contractor along highway 1
allegedly tipped off insurgents about an approaching convoy and
were then allowed to pass unharmed before the insurgents
attacked the convoy. Doesn't that suggest that Ruhullah, who is
responsible for the lion's share of convoy security in southern
Afghanistan, has a working relationship with the Taliban?
General Nicholson. Ma'am, I would have to take that
incident and examine it. I don't have the details of that
incident at my fingertips. If that was in the report we
received this morning, we will gladly get together with our
investigative team in country and further develop that and see
if the investigative team can tell us what they found.
General Phillips. Ma'am, if I could make one clarification.
The Host Nation Trucking contract is $2.16 billion, but it's
not just for private security contractors. The majority of that
actually goes for the short and long haul for the aid
contractors that are serving every day. We increased it to
$2.16 billion. The expenditure today is about $700,000 per day
on average for trucking operations.
To date, since we awarded the contract in March 2009, we
have expended about $350 million against a ceiling of $2.16
billion. The contract will expire I believe around April or May
2011. So we are about 9 or 10 months from expiration.
It's very doubtful that we today will spend the total $2.16
billion, given the current burn rate of $700,000 per day. It
was simply a ceiling that we knew or were assured that we could
have the right number of trucks available to be able to deliver
the equipment and supplies to warfighters, but it is doubtful
today that we will reach the ceiling.
Ms. Chu. And your estimate of how much we will actually
spend is what?
General Phillips. Ma'am, I will have to get back with you
on that. But we could look at it and do the math and look at
the surge operations that are going to occur and then give you
an estimate of where we might be in a year from now. But, in my
personal opinion, I doubt if we will get to $1 billion or much
over $1 billion in terms of execution by the end of the actual
contract. But I will get back with you with a more firm answer
from JCCI.
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Ms. Chu. I would have to say, though, that even if it's $1
billion, $1 billion versus $13 billion for the entire GDP of
Afghanistan still is substantial.
General Nicholson, beyond the incident involving Ruhullah's
agents reportedly tipping off insurgents, several other Host
Nation Trucking contractors have stated that Ruhullah openly
coordinates with and pays off Taliban insurgents to help secure
safe passage when it's convenient for him to do so. And there
was an incident report that was filed by a contractor in 2007
explicitly stating that a Taliban commander had demanded money
for the safe passage of goods and the Host Nation Trucking
contract project managers requested greater armament authority
from the Department of Defense to protect themselves and avoid
paying an estimated $1.6 to $2 million per week to the
insurgency.
So even if a small percentage of this money is reaching the
Taliban, what are the consequences for counterinsurgency
strategy?
General Nicholson. Yes, ma'am.
First off, that would be unacceptable, U.S. taxpayer
dollars going to the enemy; and it's something that every
commander in Afghanistan certainly would be concerned about and
would want to stop immediately.
When we receive anecdotal intelligence reports or human
intelligence, then those don't constitute evidence as General
Phillips described. But we take those and look for the linkages
between criminal networks and the government, criminal networks
and contractors and pass that information to our investigative
agencies to examine that so we can then take the appropriate
action; and that may include referring it to the Afghan
government for arrests. For example, we have recently seen some
arrests of Afghan general officers and the border police who
have been engaged in corrupt practices. We have seen arrests of
district police chiefs in RC South, for example, for drug
running.
So there is a nascent and growing capacity within the
Afghanistan government to act against corrupt officials. But
under no circumstances will the funneling of U.S. dollars to
the enemy be acceptable to any of us. The key is getting that
information, developing it more fully, and then being able to
take the appropriate action.
Another thing I wanted to followup on, ma'am, that you
mentioned earlier. We have tremendous potential with this money
to have a positive effect on the Afghan economy, and so looking
for ways to build capacity at the local level and encourage the
growth of small businesses and reinvigorate local economies is
paramount to the success of our COIN campaign. And so as we
look at how we address the execution of our contracts, one of
the objectives of Task Force 2010 is how to optimize the effect
of dollars, not to just avoid or eliminate fraudulent
activities but how to optimize the effect of these dollars so
they in fact enhance the overall effects of what we are
achieving with our investment in Afghanistan.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Ms. Chu.
You know, it's amazing. Two days after this contract went
into effect there was a stream of complaints already filing in.
People were reporting problems with the people they were
paying, and that they were having to pay off people for
security. The 25,000 documents are replete with e-mails,
incident reports, and reports of situations where people
thought there might be payments to the insurgents. They were
concerned about paying warlords. They were concerned about the
collective effect.
So to say that now we have heard about it we are going to
find out if it's real or not, we are going to try to get enough
evidence to prosecute, brings to mind a couple of points. One
is, it has been 14 months, go out and talk to Commander
Ruhullah. He has noever met a single person in the U.S.
Government. He will admit openly, as he did to the committee
staff, ``yeah, I'm getting paid tens of millions of dollars to
take care of a certain road over here. Yes, I drive around with
equipment that has not been approved or authorized. I don't
even know about the rules that they have. Then I'm paying off
police, and I'm paying off members of the Afghan national
military as well.''
So I think there was a lot to go on to get people started
on this thing quite some time ago.
General Phillips, I look at your statement--actually, Mr.
Motsek's statement here--notwithstanding media coverage
regarding incidents regarding private security contractors, the
frequency of serious incidents by DOD private security
contractors is extraordinarily low. These numbers seem to
demonstrate that, on the whole, U.S. private security
contractors are operating in accordance with the host nation
laws in support for overall counterinsurgency objectives.
That leads me to believe that you think that, just because
there haven't been enough reports, that in and of itself is
proof that everything is going just fine, the host nation laws
are being complied with, our counterinsurgency strategy is
intact. When, in fact, Commander Ruhullah says he has lost 454
guys. He hasn't filed a single report.
Now your own rules and regulations require that every time
there is a discharge of a weapon there is supposed to be a
report, never mind anytime that somebody dies. So, obviously,
that isn't happening. This idea that there aren't any reports
filed isn't conclusive evidence that is the case.
Who is supposed to be responsible on the ground to actually
having eyes-on proof of whether or not there are checkpoints
set up from time to time, whether there are bribes extracted
for police or the national military in Afghanistan?
Just because you don't get a report that it's happening
doesn't mean that it may not be happening. In fact, you got
reports--I'm not saying you particularly--but all up and down
the chain there were reports that it was happening; and yet
nobody that I know of, not a contractor and not anybody in the
military that is supposed to be in charge of responsibility for
oversight, ever went out, except during one incident that
occurred on your list when they went out about 200 or 300 yards
from the gate. And he said, when I got out there, it seemed
that they changed their behavior and stopped doing what they
were doing, but I wasn't allowed to go out again or go any
further.
So unless somebody is going out and seeing whether or not
there are these checkpoints set up for bribes, unless someone
is going out and seeing a fellow like Ruhullah getting paid off
gobs of money and then whether or not he is paying anybody
else, whether or not you're going out----
And we have a list here of 44 different areas of the roads
said to be controlled by different people: Commander Matiullah,
Masud, Anga, Bamad, Masoud, Sharb, Habubulah, Koka, Trejah, and
Ruhullah. Unless somebody is out there seeing that these people
are getting paid who is responsible for doing that?
Because you may never hear about it further up the chain.
But if we're not letting anybody go out and do periodic
inspections, if we're not letting somebody go out and put eyes
on, then I don't see how you can say you're managing and
overseeing these contracts. And just the fact the contractors
didn't file incident reports, if that is how you reach a
conclusion that everything is fine, I think that should be
problematic for us.
So I just leave that as a rhetorical question. I think the
answer is pretty clear.
But, General Nicholson, I will say this to you. I
understand you think it is a terrible thing the Taliban is
being paid. We all should be horrified to think that might be
happening. But isn't it also a problem if you know somebody
like Ruhullah, who has hundreds of militia under his authority,
controls big segments of the country areas, isn't it also
problematic that they are getting tens of millions of dollars
by their own admission and they have armies that don't answer
to the Afghan government, never speak to our people, just do
whatever they want to do, and are known as ``the butcher'' as
they drive through towns? How does that affect our
counterinsurgency strategy?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir. The existence of any armed
force that is not a part of the Afghan government eventually,
as President Karzai stated, needs to go away. And the
international community supports that. We support that. And it
is counter to our counterinsurgency strategy in the sense that
they are a surrogate for a lack of capacity on the part of the
government. So, clearly, sir, we want to get to an end state
where we don't need private security contractors because----
Mr. Tierney. But there were reports of this since 2 days
after the contract started to be implemented. So where is the
action? You go through the documents over there. The contractor
says, ``I reported it up and I was told I can't deal with
that.'' The legal department said they have to rebid the
contract, so they are not going to deal with it. Another
contractor said, ``I reported it up, and there is nothing they
can do about it, and they just look the other way.'' They were
met with indifference, was what one contractor said.
So for 14 months, less 2 days after we got started on that
contract, there has been an indifferent response or looking the
other way or saying it's the cost of doing business. Where is
the response? If you think it's a cost of doing business, if
that is the legitimate argument that the Department of Defense
wants to put forward, then where is the oversight and
management aspect to make sure guys like Ruhullah aren't
getting enriched and having militias out there with competing
interests with the Afghanistan government and the United
States? Where is the enforcement, the management, the oversight
to make sure that the ANP and the ANA aren't getting paid off?
We just don't see that happening; and, 14 months later,
that is why I think the report is as disturbing as it is.
General Phillips. I can add a couple of data points, sir.
One of the issues we have had, in particular, many of these
reports you have in your writing were focused on the southern
region of Afghanistan, a new area for American forces. We began
last year with adding 20,000 troops there. We are adding
another 15,000 this year. These additional troops enable us to
partner with the Afghan security forces.
Additionally, we are roughly doubling the size of the
Afghan National Army and significantly increasing the size of
the police in the southern region.
Mr. Tierney. Can I just interrupt you there?
You wish. I don't mean to be a wise guy to say that, but we
have been out there and looked at the training programs for the
military and police, and you want to double them, but you don't
want to give us a projection of whether you think there is any
realistic prospect that they are going to be doubled with any
capacity to actually accomplish the missions that we assigned.
General Phillips. Yes, sir. They have needed to be doubled
for a long time.
One of the points I wanted to add, sir, was that by
partnering with the Afghan police in particular our goal is to
curb and limit and, to the extent we can, to eventually
eliminate these corrupt practices you were referring to, these
illegal checkpoints, by partnering with Afghan units, by having
sufficient ISAF forces and a sufficient number of Afghan forces
that are properly trained.
And, of course the Afghan police in the timeframe we are
discussing last year, 70 percent of them were not even trained.
They had uniforms, they had guns, but they are not on the road,
they have low pay, they are not properly trained, and they are
engaged in these corrupt practices.
Through the funding provided by the U.S. Congress and the
efforts of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan, we have
now increased the amount of training, we are eventually going
to eliminate that deficit of untrained police, and we are going
to be able to partner with the police units to increase their
accountability and professional standards. And this is one of
the approaches toward eliminating these illegal checkpoints
which will be shaking down the drivers which will result in
these things you report rightly----
Mr. Tierney. I hope what you say about training them and
getting them up to capacity is going to happen. We have looked
at this in the past, we have done reports on that, and I
suspect we will have to go out again and take a look at it.
Because the concern is that retention rates are difficult and
the success rates are difficult.
But I don't want to take up all Mr. Flake's time.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I might borrow this, this is in the report. This is the
list that the chairman read from--it lists who controls which
miles of the road. Are you aware of how many miles or any in
particular that are controlled by the Afghan security forces?
Mr. Motsek.
Mr. Motsek. That was the first time I saw that chart.
Mr. Flake. Aside from the chart, are you aware of certain
areas?
Mr. Motsek. We are aware, and it goes back to what is in
the report. I think it's safe to say that virtually everything
in the report was, in fact, reported to many authorities. I'm
assured that most of it was investigated by the appropriate
task forces or is being investigated by the appropriate task
forces. But the reality is we may not have gotten to a level of
evidence that permits us to do something in every case that
would meet the requirement.
Clearly, the information, in general, has come forward. The
Secretary of State made the comment that is in the preface of
your report. The Secretary of Defense has said we are concerned
about corruption. The U.N. does a survey inside the urban areas
of Afghanistan. The No. 1 issue is corruption. Fifty-nine
percent of the Nation cares about it. We've got it. Admiral
Dussault was over there with another additional task force,
with forensic accountants--not just accountants but forensic
accountants--to try to track the dollars.
I would caution you that one of the frustrations I have, I
used to be a part-time policeman in New Jersey, and I know from
talking to my old detective buddies how difficult it was to get
a case against organized crime. It took years. And that was an
environment with a baseline banking system, a baseline pay
system, a baseline telecommunication system.
We are doing this in another environment where it is not
going to happen, in my estimation, overnight. But I assure you
we are taking it all seriously. I would be as frustrated as you
are that you have seen the issues being reported and you don't
see an effect being incurred very, very quickly, but----
Mr. Flake. That is the frustration.
Mr. Motsek. If I was a cop on the other side, I would say,
damn it, I'm doing what I can with what I got.
Mr. Flake. This investigation has been going on for 6
months, the committee's investigation. Yet there seems to be
very little awareness--in fact, we only got last week any
indication that the Department of Defense was doing really
anything on the subject, and that was just in the form of a
PowerPoint presentation.
But, as the chairman mentioned, there is very little
evidence that people are moving outside of the security gates
or that you are taking reports of casualties or fire that have
to be, under our law, reported. We either have to say we are
taking those reports and ignoring them or assuming that there
are no bad actors out there and none of this is happening. It
can't be both.
Let me just ask General Nicholson, you mentioned that if
this activity is occurring, these payoffs to warlords, a
parallel authority structure outside of the Afghan government,
that is counter to our COIN strategy in Afghanistan. At what
point do we say, if these allegations are true, if half of
these allegations are true, if a 10th of these allegations are
true in this report that we have to adjust our strategy because
this runs so counter to the COIN strategy? Where is the tipping
point?
And at what point will we, as a committee that has
oversight here, hear the Department of Defense simply say, hey,
this is just the cost of doing business, and it's more
important to move goods and services, or we simply can't
tolerate this kind of parallel authority structure outside of
the Afghan government operating in the countryside?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir.
Our activities to counter corruption are central to the
campaign. We are engaging at all levels of our government. As
you know, President Obama met with President Karzai. U.S. units
are partnered with police inside Kandahar City trying to
improve performance and accountability with their Afghan
partner. So this is a high priority for us.
Mr. Flake. Let me just say we hear that on the top. We
heard the statement from Secretary Clinton that is in the
report. We have heard the statements in the report that
President Obama has said. We see this report, all of these
findings, this overwhelming evidence from this investigation
that this is occurring. Yet in the middle from those who have
authority to address the situation actually on the ground by
amending the contract or stripping somebody of the contract or
making sure that this is not occurring, we don't see any
activity there. And that is where the frustration lies.
I'm out of time.
Mr. Motsek. Sir, if I may, a particular contractor which
you have raised by name a couple of times, a large private
security contractor in Afghanistan, in part the reason that the
next TWSS contract, which was going to be the large private
security contract, a bundled contract, if you will, which would
have made it easier for the contracting agency to manage that
contract, that process was killed; and they are going back to
individual awards for that contract in part because that
particular individual was perceived to have a nationwide
advantage if we awarded a contract nationally. And so we are
going back to local awards of private security contracts, as
opposed to a nationwide award. So there is knowledge and there
is a cause and effect in some areas because of this.
General Phillips. Sir, would it be possible for me to cover
a couple of things where we have taken some action real quick?
Sir, contracting officer representatives, we talked a
little bit about that and alluded to them from time to time.
Less than a month after I arrived into theater we had an issue
or a problem with contracting officer representatives. And I
met with the commanding general of Army Materiel Command and
the Army acquisition executive who, before I went to Iraq, was
my boss. And we knew that we had issues and problems, and we
took that on as an Army, and we have made I think great strides
in contracting officer representatives. And that also includes
the pieces where people are monitoring what is happening with
Host Nation Trucking.
The Army has executed--or issued an execution order for
CORs in December 2009 that requires a brigade to have up to 80
CORs trained and receiving a certificate and being able to
perform COR functions on various contracts. That is a great
advancement or improvement from where we were 18 months ago,
and we continue to make improvements with CORs.
I have had personal discussions with division commanders
before they get deployed into Iraq.
And, sir, the other point I want to make sure that you
understand is that we are taking great strides in subcontractor
management. The committee has talked a lot about that piece. I
spoke to the JCCIA commander just this week and have an ongoing
dialog with her. They are now putting forth a new clause that
will go into our contracts in Afghanistan and potentially in
Iraq, I believe, that will give us greater visibility into
subcontractors to include the private security contractors that
would work on a Host Nation Trucking contract. It would give us
greater visibility into banking and financial efforts. So we
might be able to see if there is some kind of activity
occurring. I think that is still in review, but I suspect that
we will have something in place that we will begin to put in
our contracts very soon.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you for that.
But I made two points. Now one is, none of your CORs, as
you call them, ever get outside the gate; and the JCCIA now is
going to fix up the legal paperwork. And that is good. That is
a step in the right direction. But unless somebody actually
gets out and checks to see whether or not that is being
complied with leads us back into the same boat.
I just want to take quick issue. A couple of times there
has been a tendency where we think, gee, if we just had the
hard facts, we would be able to do something. It took one e-
mail to Watan Risk Management to set up an interview with both
the principals of that company--both of whom have done jail
time in the United States, incidentally, before they got their
present position--and to have them bring along Commander
Ruhullah to an interview with the committee staff where he then
readily admitted that he was making huge piles of money and had
an extraordinarily large militia; that he was driving around
with weaponry that wasn't allowable without paper
authorization; that he basically controlled areas of the road
and other people controlled other parts of different roads and
what their conduct had been; and that he had paid off certain
members of the ANA and ANP and named names for everybody. It
wasn't like he wasn't out there for somebody to get.
I just want to make that point.
Mr. Welch, you have 5 minutes. I welcome you to it.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
General Nicholson, as a former commander in the south, my
question to you is, do you believe it is sufficient for us to
wait until there is a criminal indictment and completion of a
criminal investigation or is there a core strategic decision
that needs to be made more promptly?
General Nicholson. Sir, it's clear as we learn these
lessons we need to integrate them so we can improve our
performance. And this is one of the reasons why the chairman
chartered Task Force 2010, to bring in another set of eyes--
Admiral Kathleen Dussault, who had been a former commander of
the contracting command--with a group of subject matter experts
to enable the command to really focus on this issue and very
quickly generate, No. 1, effects in the south. So her initial
focus is Kandahar and how we can then begin to achieve this
effect I mentioned earlier of optimizing contracting in support
of the COIN company at Kandahar. So that will be their initial
focus, and that was designated as such in order to more
directly link these lessons learned and best practices and get
them into the ongoing campaign. So, clearly, we want to move as
quickly as possible.
Having said that, sir, it's also important to achieve these
prosecutions, to enable the Afghans to develop the kind of
capacity they need to arrest and prosecute these folks; and, to
date, they have arrested and are prosecuting a handful of
senior officers in the border police and the Afghan police.
Mr. Welch. Thank you.
But, you know, again, I go back to what I think is a
fundamental question as to whether or not the long-term goals
of the United States are best served when our military, who are
being asked to carry out and execute on those long-term goals,
are better served by putting the security of these convoys
under the direct supervision of our commander and the direct
protection of our soldiers, who we know are accountable, versus
$2 billion that is getting spread out and then we try to rely
on lawyering up and criminal prosecutions.
But that is my statement, and I know that is not the
decision that you have made.
But, Mr. Motsek, let me read you something. According to
Lieutenant Colonel David Elrod, the Commander of the 484th
Joint Movement Control Battalion that was in charge of
overseeing and managing the Host Nation Trucking contract in
Afghanistan, the battalion didn't have the vehicles, the
weaponry, or the manpower to carry out oversight. It just
didn't have what it needed, and they are stretched thin. I
understand that. But they couldn't travel along the Afghan
roads because it would have been, according to him, a combat
mission.
And also the Department of Defense instruction issued in
April stated that ``security is inherently governmental if it
is to be performed in environments where there is such a high
likelihood of hostile fire by groups using sophisticated
weapons and devices that in the judgment of the military
commander the situation could evolve into combat.''
And according to the Congressional Research Service,
private security contractors working for the Department of
Defense in Afghanistan are more than 4\1/2\ times more likely
to be killed in action than even U.S. military personnel. That
number is even higher for private security companies providing
convoy service.
So, the question I had, Mr. Motsek, is that, in light of
these statistics, can you explain what you meant in your
statement when you said that the roles of the private security
contractors providing convoy security are ``analogous to
civilian security guard forces, not combat forces.''
Mr. Motsek. Sir, I can't comment on the numbers by CRS, but
four times more likely, just on the raw numbers based upon what
I know of casualties, it doesn't track. But that
notwithstanding, first off, it goes back to my initial comment
where the force protection mission, the force protection
requirement is that of the commander. The commander makes the
assessment and is responsible for the risk assessment.
The guards that guard both movement and static positions in
Afghanistan are just that, they are guards. They have no
authority to execute any sort of combat role.
A great many of the incidents that we are talking about
today in a normal sense are considered criminal elements, not a
military enemy in the traditional sense. We are talking about
warlords attacking. These are criminal elements that are
engaged. They are not----
Mr. Welch. Again, I don't have your experience, and I don't
have your knowledge, but I do appreciate that if we don't get
those supplies to our troops, our troops are going to be in
peril. And I would think it's a standard tactic of the enemies
of our troops, the ones who want to do them harm, that they
would frequently use as a tactic of trying to cutoff their
supply. And that leads to combat, correct?
Mr. Motsek. It's an action, yes, sir. It's an action.
Mr. Welch. Well, does this whole policy depend on whether
the folks who are killing and attacking, killing the security
folks and attacking the convoys that are destined to serve our
troops, whether they are doing it for a criminal purpose or for
the Taliban?
Mr. Motsek. No, sir. But the preponderance are more
criminal than they are Taliban. Again, we cannot guarantee no
attack.
Mr. Welch. We understand that. I just want to again
reiterate I think there is a fundamental strategic question
here about whether we want to give $2 billion to folks who have
no particular motivation other than to make money versus have
that be under control of our troops, particularly when that
alternative force is ultimately going to be in the opinion of
some a threat to capacity building of the Afghan Army and the
Afghan government.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Welch. Thank you very much.
Let me ask if you gentlemen would be willing to answer
further questions that might be asked in writing at some point
in time if we give you time to do that?
I appreciate that. Thank you.
Also, I just want to run through a couple of things
following up with Mr. Welch.
If, in fact, the United States decides to continue using
small armies of private security contractors to defend the
supply chain in the war zone, has there been any discussion or
can we expect any discussion about getting direct authority and
accountability over the private security companies, as opposed
to going to them as subcontractors? Does anybody know if that
is being considered?
General Phillips. Sir, I can share this. Part of my answer
before on the subcontractor clause would give us visibility
into the subcontractor----
Mr. Tierney. Separating them out from the trucking
companies so you get trucking companies going one way and
contractors who really don't have expertise in this area and
are also directly in charge of these security people.
General Phillips. You mean go directly to a private
security contractor----
Mr. Tierney. Make security contractors directly responsible
to our military as security people, not through a trucking
contract, not passing it off to the trucking contractors who
seem perfectly incapable of doing it.
Mr. Motsek. Sir, in my capacity, I'm going to force that
consideration to be made.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
And I know you already talked about--at least General
Nicholson has talked about the potential future role of the
Afghan national forces.
You have already talked, also, about contract transparency,
the subcontractors. We appreciate that.
We still, I think, need to work on the oversight and the
management, getting people outside the gate and getting eyes on
the road. And I think I heard everybody say--and I'll ask
General Nicholson again, one more time, is there a conversation
going on now at the Department of Defense about the effects of
coalition contracting on Afghan corruption? Is that larger
strategic conversation going on?
General Nicholson. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Tierney.I want to thank all of you for taking your time
and bringing your expertise and information to the committee.
We appreciate it a great deal, as well as your agreement that
you will answer further questions in writing.
With that, we will take about a 5-minute recess; and,
again, thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Tierney. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security and Foreign affairs hearing entitled
Investigation of Protection Payments for Safe Passage Along the
Afghan Supply Chain will return to order.
We are now going to receive testimony from our second panel
of witnesses, and thank you for your patience in waiting while
we had the first panel testify and answer questions.
I'm going to do the same thing. I will introduce our
panelists all at once, and then we will start again with Mr.
Schwartz at the beginning for testimony.
Moshe Schwartz is a Specialist in Defense Acquisition at
the Congressional Research Service. Before joining the
Congressional Research Service, he served as a Senior Analyst
at the Government Accountability Office and as an Assistant
District Attorney in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BA
from Yeshiva University as well as a JD from Yeshiva
University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, an MBA from
Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business and a masters in
public policy management from Carnegie Mellon's John Heinz III
School of Public Policy and Management.
Carl Forsberg is a Research Analyst at the Institute for
the Study of War, where he focuses on the security dynamics and
politics of Southern Afghanistan. Previously, he worked at the
Marine Corps Intelligence Headquarters and for Uganda's State
Minister for Disaster Relief and Refugees in Kampala, Uganda.
He holds a B.A. in history from Yale University.
Colonel T.X. Hammes is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel
and an expert in U.S. military strategy. He is currently a
Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic
Studies at the National Defense University. He has also served
at all levels of the operating forces, to include command of
the Rifle Company and Intelligence Company in the Chemical
Biological Incidence Response Force. He is author of The Sling
and The Stone: On War in the 21st Century and numerous articles
and opinion pieces. Colonel Hammes is currently pursuing a
Ph.D. in modern history at Oxford University.
Dr. S. Frederick Starr is the founding chairman of Johns
Hopkins University Central Asia Caucasus Institute. He is an
expert in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, Russia
and the former Soviet Union. Over the course of his career, Dr.
Starr has authored or edited 20 books and more than 200
articles on Russian and Eurasian affairs. He received his
doctorate from Princeton University in history.
So thank you all for making time available for us and
sharing your substantial expertise.
Again, it is the policy of this subcommittee to swear you
in before you testify. So I ask you to please stand and raise
your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tierney. Let the record please reflect that all of the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
We will put your written testimony as well into the record,
so you needn't read it in its entirety. If you can summarize it
in about 5 minutes for us, remembering that the light goes
amber when you have about a minute left, it goes red when
you're out of time, and then we will hope you will wind it up.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Schwartz, you are recognized.
STATEMENTS OF MOSHE SCHWARTZ, SPECIALIST IN DEFENSE
ACQUISITION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE; CARL FORSBERG,
RESEARCH ANALYST, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR; COLONEL T.X.
HAMMES, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL
STRATEGIC STUDIES, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY; AND S.
FREDERICK STARR, PH.D., THE PAUL H. NITZE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
STATEMENT OF MOSHE SCHWARTZ
Mr. Schwartz. Chairman Tierney, Ranking Member Flake,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
Department of Defense's use of private security contractors in
Afghanistan.
According to the Department of Defense, as of March 2010,
there were over 110,000 contractors and almost 80,000 troops
working for DOD in Afghanistan. Contractors made up 51 percent
of the total DOD work force. Over 60,000 of these contractors
in Afghanistan were armed private security contractor
personnel. Over the last three quarters, the number of armed
security contractor personnel increased four times faster than
that of troops in Afghanistan. Since December 2009, there have
been more armed security contractor personnel working for DOD
in Afghanistan than in Iraq.
Contractor personnel risk death and injury at the hands of
insurgents in Afghanistan. According to DOD, from June 2009, to
April 2010, 260 security contractor personnel working for DOD
have been killed in Afghanistan compared to 324 U.S. troops.
Adjusting for the difference in the number of PSC personnel
compared to troops, PSC employees working for DOD are 4\1/2\
times more likely to be killed than uniformed personnel. More
contractor personnel, 188 people, were killed providing convoy
security than any other type of security.
Regardless of how one analyzes the number of armed
contractors working for DOD, PSCs play a critical role in U.S.
efforts in Afghanistan. Many observers have pointed out that
the extensive DOD reliance on PSCs and other contractors was
not planned and was executed without a clear strategy,
exacerbating the risks inherent in using armed contractors on
the battlefield.
This unprecedented reliance on PSCs raises some fundamental
questions. First, what are the benefits and risks of using PSCs
in military operations? Two, to what extent should contractors
be used in contingency operations? And, three, what can be done
to ensure that DOD improves its planning for the use of
contractors in future operations?
PSCs can provide significant operational benefits to the
U.S. Government. They can be hired and released quickly,
allowing agencies to adapt to changing environments.
Contractors can possess skills that the government work force
lacks, such as knowledge of the terrain, culture, and language
of the region.
According to many analysts, both DOD and the Department of
State would be unable to execute their missions in Iraq and
Afghanistan without PSCs. According to these analysts, the risk
of not using PSCs is nothing short of depriving DOD of the
resources it needs to succeed in its mission.
There have been reports of local nationals being abused and
mistreated by PSCs working for the U.S. Government. Such
incidents continue to be reported in Afghanistan; and unlike
Iraq, where many of these incidents involve contractors who are
U.S. citizens, in Afghanistan many of the guards causing the
problems are reportedly Afghans.
The question can be asked, is the problem that DOD is using
contractors to perform the critical function of armed security,
or is the problem that DOD is not sufficiently managing
contractors and holding them accountable?
For analysts who believe that armed security should not be
contracted out, options include increasing the size of the
military, rethinking current force structure, or choosing not
to engage in certain contingency operations.
For those who believe that the problem is insufficient
planning and poor management, the solution may be to develop an
effective strategy for using PSCs, improving operational
planning, and enhancing oversight.
The Department of Defense has taken steps to improve its
management of PSCs. According to many analysts, these efforts
have improved the management, oversight, and coordination of
PSCs. At the same time, many analysts maintain that more needs
to be done.
The extent to which DOD plans the use of contractors in the
future can help ensure that DOD puts a similar effective
management system in place. Such planning could ensure that
contractors are used to improve overall operational
effectiveness and not because DOD unexpectedly had insufficient
military personnel to perform critical functions.
This opinion was expressed in 2008 by a colonel who was
responsible for overseeing PSCs in Iraq. While discussing
efforts to improve contract management, he stated that the
question is not whether DOD is going to fix the problem now.
Rather, he stated the real question is why DOD was not thinking
about this issue 10 years ago when steps could have been taken
to avoid the situation we are in today.
This raises another question, namely, is DOD assessing when
and to what extent security contractors and even contractors in
general should be used in future military operations?
Some analysts argue that DOD missed an opportunity to
address the issue in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.
Despite not being included in the QDR, DOD has begun to examine
the issue. DOD has set up a task force to examine the extent to
which it relies on contractors and to use the analysis to plan
for future operations and help plan DOD's future force
structure. The task force has already briefed the most senior
levels of the Department. A number of analysts believe that
this effort is a step in the right direction.
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee,
this concludes my testimony. Thank you again for the
opportunity to appear before you to discuss these issues. I
will be pleased to respond to any questions that you might
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schwartz follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Schwartz. We will
have some questions, so I appreciate you being here for that.
Mr. Forsberg, if you would please, 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CARL FORSBERG
Mr. Forsberg. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Flake, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify this afternoon on the issue of Host Nation Trucking
contracts. I'm honored to testify on this subject of great
significance for our country and Afghanistan, and I appreciate
the committee's leadership on this pressing question.
I want to address today the strategic context of contracts
like the Host Nation Trucking contract to highlight their
implications for the U.S. campaign to degrade and defeat the
Taliban and to leave behind an enduring Afghan government.
The chief strategic concern with current contracting
practices is that private security companies in Afghanistan
tend to subcontract to or pay predatory Afghan militias that
further the ends of the poor brokers who own them often at the
expense of enduring stability.
To understand why this is such a concern, it is helpful to
remember that when you are engaged in a counter insurgency
fight, it is largely a question of establishing the legitimacy
of a government. Lack of government legitimacy is, after all,
the root cause of an insurgency. And if the Afghan government
were widely viewed as legitimate, we would not be fighting the
current campaign.
The Afghan government has lost considerable standing by
forming alliances since 2001 with factional actors, including
predatory warlords and now militias. Afghan leaders at many
levels have taken sides in local disputes and alienated
significant elements of the Afghan population.
It is noted that the Taliban rose to power in southern
Afghanistan in 1994 because the population there deeply
resented the behavior of militia commanders. Some of the very
same commanders the Taliban expelled with popular support back
then are now directly or indirectly operating on ISAF contacts.
Kandahar province, the focus of ISAF's insurgency efforts
this summer, offers a prime example of how ISAF contracting
practices have inadvertently supported small groups of
government-affiliated commanders. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half
brother of President Hamid Karzai and the chairman of the
Kandahar Provincial Council, has close links with a number of
Kandahar's key private security and militia commanders. Several
of these commanders control key logistics routes and are
heavily relied upon by almost all the Host Nation Trucking
companies operating in southern Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali Karzai
has used his connections to the Afghan government and to ISAF
to build this network and, in some cases, to influence the
awarding of contracts to his own allies.
It is notable that one of the major private security
companies in Kandahar, Watan Risk Management, is owned by
cousins of the Karzai brothers, as well as, until recently,
another group, Asia Security Group. These militias
significantly outnumber the Afghan police force in Kandahar
City. The army and police force thus find themselves competing
with private security companies, especially when it comes to
recruitment.
For the population, meanwhile, the government is in essence
seen as an exclusive and predatory oligarchy. It must be kept
in mind, ultimately, that ISAF has not created the militias
that exist throughout Afghanistan. These militias were largely
the product of the anti-Soviet resistance and the civil war of
the 1990's. That said, ISAF contracts have made these militias
far more lucrative. And cutting these militias off from the
indirect benefits of U.S. contracts will be a necessary step in
dismantling their influence and replacing them with the Afghan
army and police. This step cannot be taken completely and
immediately, however. What is needed is a careful strategy to
unwind the contracts, find gainful employment for the foot
soldiers, and ensure that ISAF or the Afghan army and police
are available to fill the security demands that contractors are
now fulfilling.
The issue of illegal militias in Afghanistan is
challenging, but it is one that ISAF can solve. The U.S. troop
surge has given the United States and its ISAF allies resources
to reform and investigate contracting practices. ISAF has
already begun standing up structures for reviewing and
reforming contracting, including Joint Task Force 2010. Having
additional boots in the ground is providing ISAF with insurgent
intelligence on how contracting networks in Afghanistan operate
and gives ISAF more options in providing oversight for these
problems.
The United States does have leverage at this point over the
militias and local commanders who subcontract from the
coalition. Once ISAF organizations like Joint Task Force 2010
have understood the complex networks by which contracts support
militias, these contracts can be restructured in ways that
account for the dynamics of local Afghan politics. ISAF has
announced its intention to do this, although the details of its
plans are naturally still vague. But because the problem of
illegitimate militias is more than a problem with ISAF's own
contracting practices, reforming contracting should be part of
a broader campaign to identify Afghan militias, and to
eventually disarm and disband these groups; and once their
command and control structures are severed, to integrate them
into the Afghan National Army.
In conclusion, current contracting practices are
problematic and play into large trends that undermine the
legitimacy of the Afghan government, but the situation can be
addressed. The recent increase in U.S. force levels has given
our commanders the resources to reform the oversight and
management of its contract in practices, and this will be
crucial for the U.S. counterinsurgency mission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Flake and members of
the subcommittee, for the opportunity to address you this
afternoon.
I look forward to taking your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forsberg follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much, Mr. Forsberg.
Colonel, if you would.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL T.X. HAMMES
Colonel Hammes. Chairman Tierney, Ranking Member Flake,
thank you for the opportunity to appear today.
Mr. Schwartz has provided a comprehensive view of the
current status, so I will not attempt to duplicate his work.
Instead I would like to briefly discuss the good, the bad,
and the key question about using contractors in combat zones.
The good: The primary value of private contractors is that
they replace troops. Further, they can mobilize and deploy
large numbers of personnel very quickly. And as soon as a
crisis is resolved, they can be demobilized. Another critical
advantage is that contractors may be able to do jobs that U.S.
forces simply can't.
In Afghanistan we lack the forces to provide security for
our primary secure line to Pakistan. And if history is any
guide, even a heavy presence of U.S. troops would not guarantee
the delivery of supplies. Fortunately, Afghan contractors have
the mix of force, personal connections, and negotiating skills
to do so.
The bad: When serving in a counterinsurgency, contractors
create problems from the tactical to the strategic level. Three
are particularly important. The first, quality control, is a
well publicized issue that DOD has worked to resolve. Yet even
if DOD enacts all planned reforms, how exactly does one
determine the military qualifications of an individual, much
less a group such as personnel security detail, before hiring
them? We need to acknowledge we have no truly effective control
over the quality of the personnel hired as armed contractors.
The second issue compounds the problem of the first. The
government does not control the contractor's daily contact with
the population. Nothing short of having qualified U.S.
Government personnel accompanying and in command of every
contractor detail will provide that control. We do not
accompany the Afghan security companies that escort the supply
convoys throughout Afghanistan, and thus, we have no idea what
they are doing with the population.
The lack of quality and tactical control greatly increases
the impact of the third major problem. The United States is
held responsible for everything the contractors do or fail to
do. Despite the fact that we have no effective quality or
operational control, we pass the authority to use deadly force
in the name of the United States to each armed contractor.
Since insurgency is essentially a competition for legitimacy
between the government and the insurgents, this factor elevates
the issue of quality and tactical control to the strategic
level.
There are also a number of indirect consequences of
employing armed contractors. First, it opens the door for local
organizations to build militias under the cover of being a
security contractor. Major General Nick Carter, Commander of
NATO Region Command-South, has noted that warlords in Kandahar
have been allowed to build militias that they claim were
private security companies.
In addition, private security companies compete directly
with host nation's attempts to retain military and police
personnel. In 2010, Major General Michael Ward stated that
Afghan police were deserting in large numbers for the better
pay and working conditions associated with private companies.
And that leads us to the key question: Contractors clearly
have a number of direct strategic level impacts on
counterinsurgency operations. But most important are the
reduction of political capital necessary to commit U.S. forces
to war, the impacts on the legitimacy of the counterinsurgency
effort, and the perceived morality of that effort. Both
proponents and opponents admit the United States would have
required much greater mobilization to support Iraq or
Afghanistan without contractors, thus we are able to conduct
both wars with much less domestic political discourse.
But is this a good idea? Should it be easier to take this
nation to war? Along the same lines, we should ask, is it a
good idea to pass authority to use deadly force in the name of
the United States to people we don't know? Should we hire poor
Third World nationals to sustain casualties for us? Any
examination of the U.S. use of contractors must conclude they
undercut the legitimacy and morality of our efforts in
counterinsurgency.
Given the central role that legitimacy and morality play in
counterinsurgency, it is essential we ask the real question: Is
it strategically a good idea to use contractors in combat
zones?
While it is too late to debate this question for our
current conflicts, it is essential we make it a critical part
of our post-Afghanistan force structure discussions. The size
and type of force we build for the future depends upon the
issue.
Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members, that concludes my
testimony. I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Hammes follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Colonel.
Dr. Starr.
STATEMENT OF S. FREDERICK STARR, Ph.D.
Mr. Starr. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Flake, I have nothing to add
to the various interventions regarding the tactics of
contracting.
Mr. Tierney. Well, then it is a rap, and we will start
again. No.
Mr. Starr. However, I would like to suggest that none of
these will affect the bigger picture of the fate of the mission
in Afghanistan.
And let me get to this point by a couple of simple
questions.
Why do we need so much protection along the roads? Well,
the answer is obvious; because there are Taliban forces and
other criminal groups floating about.
Second, why do they move about so freely? Again, the answer
is obvious; because the population at large is totally passive.
It is indifferent to this.
Then, why are they not engaged in the protection of their
roads? Well, because they don't see any benefit from the roads
being open. These are being opened for transport of U.S.
military equipment, not for the transport of their local crops,
their local products, let alone for regional transport, let
alone for continental transport from which they could richly
benefit. So they are spectators.
And beyond that, of course, you might note that the defeat
of the Taliban and the crippling of al Qaeda are perceived as
our objectives. They don't see where our objectives mesh with
their personal objectives, which is economic betterment.
So let me raise the question, what kind of strategy would
work? What is needed? Well, obviously, an economic strategy,
and both Presidents Bush and Obama have spoken about that. We
have a lot of economic projects; we don't have a strategy.
What would meet that criteria for us--what are the criteria
that must be met for such a strategy? Well, I would say there
are three or four. First of all, it has to benefit locals. If
they don't see a benefit from it, they are going to be neutral
or opposed to anything we do, including transport. Second, it
must support our military effort, and it has to go
simultaneously with it. Third, it has to be able to provide an
income stream for the government. We are paying all Afghan
civil service salaries today. That isn't a sustainable
arrangement. And finally, it has to work fast.
Now, the only strategy that meets such criteria, the only
one that I am aware of is exactly the subject that we are
discussing today, transport and trade. I would submit this is a
much more important hearing, even than has been suggested by
our very competent previous speakers.
What do we mean? We are talking about opening up local
channels of trade for local trade. We are talking about
regional channels of trade, Afghanistan and its immediate
neighbors. And we are also talking about the great continental
trade routes that literally go from Hamburg to Hanoi, connect
Europe and the Indian subcontinent. This potentially is a money
machine. Once it starts to flow at the most local level,
everyone will take advantage of it. You don't have to advertise
it. Everyone will know, and they will become the defenders of
the open road rather than the passive observers or worse.
Now, you could say, well, aren't we doing this anyway with
the Northern Distribution Network and so on. Yes, we are doing
fantastic stuff in transportation, whatever the problems are,
and they are serious. Nonetheless, it is a major achievement.
Yet we have no plan for engaging the local economies in this,
we have no plan for opening this to local shippers, local
producers, farmers and so on, we have no exit plan, no
transition plan on this to privatize, if you will, civilianize
these transport groups. And therefore, everyone is skeptical or
opposed.
Now, what is needed? Very simply, the United States needs
to adopt this as a fundamental strategy on par with its
military strategy, because without this, the military strategy
will not succeed. And one might say, well, isn't this very
expensive? Aren't you talking about building masses of roads?
But we have heard from several of the Congressmen today that,
in fact, the biggest impediments are actually bureaucratic and
people imposing long delays at borders and these sorts. It is a
managerial problem; it is not an infrastructure problem
fundamentally.
And beyond that, let me say that this bigger development I
am talking about is being actively promoted by, well, all the
major international banks, especially Asia Development Bank,
ECO, World Bank and so on; also by China, India, Pakistan,
Iran, all the central Asian countries, Saudi Arabia, Japan and
so forth.
In other words, this is happening. What I am speaking about
is going to break through. The question is whether the United
States is savvy enough to put itself at the head of this to be
the coordinator and convenor for the effort that opens the cork
which Afghanistan now presents to the system as a whole. If we
do, I think we are on the road to success in Afghanistan. If we
don't, all the efforts, the commendable suggestions that have
been made here with regard to transport, will be for naught.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Starr follows:]
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Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
And thank all of you.
It is great food for thought.
Let me start, if I might, with Mr. Schwartz. When you count
the contractors, the armed contractors in theater, is there any
way you can actually count the people that might be part of one
of the commanders' militia if they are not registered, or do we
just assume that it is whatever number you count plus a whole
lot more people who are unregistered working as militia forces?
Mr. Schwartz. There have been questions raised as to the
ability to accurately count those people. The Department of
Defense has acknowledged that difficulty. The easiest segments
to count are, of course, the U.S. nationals and third-country
nationals, particularly those that need permission to come in
and get arming authority from the PSCs that are properly
regulated.
But it is a question that many people have raised,
including DOD, as I said: the issue of the ability to
accurately count private security contractor personnel that are
working for local militias, beyond Kabul for sure.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Has CRS or anybody that you know done an analysis comparing
the risk of using, or I should say the risk of not using
private security contractors in a counterinsurgency sort of
situation against the risk of using them but not managing and
overseeing them properly?
Mr. Schwartz. I am not familiar with a particular study
that analyzes specifically Afghanistan beyond what some of the
other people here on the panel have discussed. But there have
been concerns expressed by people in uniform over there in
Afghanistan that some of the events that are occurring are in
fact making their mission much more difficult.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Forsberg, Ahmed Wali Karzai, in your
research and your work, have you heard recent contemplations
that he might be behind or somehow connected with a desire to
have a Kandahar security operation where they consolidate a
number of the different people that have been adding security
to the southern area so far?
Mr. Forsberg. There have been several media reports to that
effect. Dexter Filkins has done several of these pieces. If you
look at Ahmed Wali Karzai's connections, there are linkages
between him and some of the figures involved in the Kandahar
security force, including Commander Ruhullah, and reporting
that Minister Atmar had asked Ahmed Wali Karzai to take a role
in achieving the formation of the Kandahar security force.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Dr. Starr, I have to ask you this. If I am hearing you
right, are you saying that the U.S.' strategy would be better
served if we took our military forces and used them to protect
the transportation lines and that could open up a whole host of
other possibilities over there, as opposed to paying off
warlords or others, but to use our forces and concentrate them
on keeping those transportation lines free and then using them
for the regional, local and continental trade?
Mr. Starr. Yes, sir. Keeping open--the opening and
maintenance of the transportation corridors should be a high
strategic objective.
Mr. Tierney. Colonel, do you have an opinion on that?
Colonel Hammes. Sir, if you take--the figures on the GDP of
Afghanistan are disputed. But if you take the $13 billion here,
Afghanistan has a GDP of $500 per person. If we were wildly
successful and in 10 years doubled that, they would still be
poorer than today's Chad. Chad is not a functioning state. I
don't see in 10 years making Afghanistan a functioning state
based on a doubling of the economy of the country.
Mr. Tierney. And that is even with say Dr. Starr's program
being successful, it would still be a problem you think?
Colonel Hammes. Sir, I think the ability to double the
economy of a country is a pretty significant accomplishment.
You have to go to 17 percent. With the reduction in drug trade,
you have to go to about 10 percent to sustain it for 10 years
to get to poorer than today's Chad, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Dr. Starr.
Mr. Starr. If I may say, Korea at a certain point was
almost at the level of Afghanistan today. We persisted. We
pursued prudent market-based economic policies, and look what
happened, not only in the economy but in the governmental
structures.
I think the possibilities are well beyond anything
suggested here. Those aren't my conclusions. They are the
conclusions of the Asian Development Bank. They are the
conclusions of a half-dozen serious studies that have been done
by national governments before they have invested in these
critical infrastructure issues.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Schwartz, given the current structure that we have for
these contracts, is it possible for the Department of Defense
to manage or supervise these contracts the way that the law
requires them to do?
Mr. Schwartz. Thank you for that question. A lot of people
have actually done a lot of good in-depth analysis into that,
including the Government Accountability Office, the Special
Inspector General, as well as the Commission on Wartime
Contracting. And while they have all expressed that DOD has
made progress, they have also generally expressed that there is
a lot to be done. A number of them have come up with specific
options and recommendations that they believe can definitely
have an impact, and a lot of them are out there.
I will just mention a couple that have been thrown out by
various people. One is as a result of Nisous Square, that event
with Blackwater about 3 years ago in Iraq, the Kennedy
Commission, which was published by the State Department,
required, based on the recommendation from the Kennedy report,
to have U.S. Government personnel go along with every convoy of
the State Department. Some analysts have recommended that would
be useful for the Department of Defense, to make sure that
every time there is a large convoy, to go out. That is one
option that has been mentioned there.
Another option that has been mentioned is to do an in-depth
analysis of who is being hired. So the general view of many of
the people who have looked in depth at this is that progress
can be made.
Mr. Flake. Mr. Forsberg, I tried to get from the last
panel, and I understand I wasn't going to get much of a policy
response from them, but at what point does it become
counterproductive to a COIN strategy to have the kind of
activity that has been found in this report? And what level is
acceptable to still have an effective counterinsurgency
strategy, to have a parallel structure of authority outside of
the Afghan government?
Mr. Forsberg. Thank you, Congressman.
As I said, this is a very serious problem. And I think the
goal needs to be to reduce it as much as possible. The issue,
of course, is that while we avoid the costs of the system, we
also have to weigh the benefits and say, that would require
looking at how hard it would be to move the logistics without
the current system, but it is clear the current system is
counterproductive. And even though in the short term we may
have to continue to tolerate the reliance on these militia
commanders, I think it is imperative, because this is such a
fundamental driver of the insurgency, that we have a long-term
strategy to shift away from the current model because the
current model is a key factor undermining the Afghan
government's legitimacy.
Mr. Flake. Colonel Hammes, how likely is it that we can
move away from this model? These warlords and the militias that
they control are likely making as much money as they would as
part of the Afghan security forces, either the police or the
military. How likely is it, in your view, that we can make this
shift?
Colonel Hammes. Sir, I think it would be very unlikely. The
people who gain power from this are not going to voluntarily
give it up, so it would have to be integrated into some kind of
a negotiated deal.
In the mid-1980's when insurgents were good guys, I was
segunded to the agency and was helping with the Afghan task
force. The Soviets needed to push a 4,000 truck convoy to
Kandahar or they were going to lose Kandahar. They attempted to
fight their way through with multiple regiments of armored
troops and could not. They struck a deal with the tribes and
rented an opening of the road for a certain period of time.
Money was paid, convoy through, then the road was closed behind
them. So it is still a matter of Afghan negotiation plus
contacts plus the willingness to fight. It is not a military
solvable problem without a very large force structure.
Mr. Flake. Well, some on this panel have suggested that we
have leverage to make this happen. Do we have that leverage, in
your view, sufficient leverage to--I mean, we control the
contracts?
Colonel Hammes. I am not an expert on relationships with
the various groups, but there is a huge problem here in terms
of the internal dynamics that we would have to understand at
the Afghan level to make the negotiations appropriate on the
various road sections and then we would have to dismantle the
current military organizations that have been built to do this,
unless we can co-opt them by bringing them onsite. And of
course, to break them up and put them in the armed forces, they
don't view that as co-option but rather as loss.
Mr. Flake. Dr. Starr, you talk about the importance of
trade routes and having the necessary infrastructure to enable
that. If we play a greater role in creating that
infrastructure, don't we still have the same problem protecting
it?
Mr. Starr. No. Because what we have now is, first, U.S.
Government state trade, basically our moving our goods around.
You don't have the kind of serious private trade that I am
speaking of. And when you do have the beginnings of it, it is
highly localized, which feeds exactly the situation we have
been talking about, local bosses.
Once you have longer strings of trade connecting remote
people to secondary markets, and secondary to primary markets,
you have people way down this line exerting pressure to keep
this particular problematic section open. You don't have that
today.
We have a conflictual model. It is basically the United
States versus all kinds of good and bad, some very bad, private
interest there.
This is an alternative model in which we actually are
opening up channels for trade in which you actually create an
entirely different incentive structure, not just for the
traders, as I have emphasized, but also for the public, which
becomes actively engaged in keeping the roads open as, indeed,
in a few cases they have been actively engaged in keeping
schools open.
Now, this isn't utopian. Let me just say, this is the
policy of the Afghan government right now. They would love to
see us engage in this. This has been presented to General
Petraeus's staff and the people at CENTCOM in the last 2 weeks.
They were very, very positive about the ideas, as indicated in
the published report. I think this is fast gaining traction as
essential.
And, by the way, it is very relevant, just as we get
involved with this project in Kandahar, if you look on the map
over here, what isn't shown is the new Pakistani port at
Gwardar. Now, Gwardar is a clear shot from Kandahar. But never
in our 8, 9 years in Afghanistan have we made a priority of
linking that immediate port with the ring road via Kandahar.
Now, this does two things. Were we, in arriving in
Kandahar, to say, within the next 3 weeks, you are going to be
able to get a truck from here to Karachi port--I am sorry,
Gwardar port, with no more than 6 or 8 hours at the border
crossing, if we were to do that, we would so juggle the
incentives, not just in Kandahar, but in the Taliban stronghold
of Quetta. We would transform the economic situation. The
incentives would be different. You would have new actors. You
would have old actors taking up new roles and so on. Now, this
is ours for the taking. I mean, we are there. We are in the
catbird seat right now. We can make this happen. If we choose
not to, it will eventually happen without us. But,
unfortunately, not to the benefit of our mission.
Mr. Flake. Thank you.
Mr. Tierney. That is interesting.
Colonel Hammes, let me ask you again. You were a former
military commander, you have done just about everything there
is to do from the ground on up, so I put this question to you.
If you were still a military commander in this theater, how
would you feel about knowing that a convoy of pick-up trucks
and SUVs with mounted DShK anti-aircraft machine guns mounted
on them were rolling through your battle space accompanied by a
guide force of 400 men with AK-47s and RPGs firing at villages
in an attempt to intimidate potential attackers?
Colonel Hammes. Sir, obviously, this is a contradiction of
the COIN approach, but I think currently it is rooted in
necessity. If you don't let them, you have no supplies. And I
think that is the problem we built for ourselves.
Most of these figures indicate about 15,000 armed
contractors doing this job. That would require more than a
division of additional U.S. troops, which of course means you
need more convoys. So you would consume your entire plus-up for
Afghanistan in providing supplies to get through.
When you choose to fight a battle where your lines of
communication run through territories that have been challenged
since Alexander fought his way out of Afghanistan, it is hard
to envision a way to resupply other than making deals with the
locals.
Mr. Tierney. Well, Mr. Forsberg talks about transitioning
out of that model to a different and better model. Can you
foresee an example of that?
Colonel Hammes. It would be very difficult and take a long
time, sir.
Mr. Tierney. And how do you envision, Mr. Forsberg, to what
do we transition, or how do we get there, do you think?
Mr. Forsberg. I think, Congressman, the first step is to
gain oversight of what is happening. There are some things we
can do simply by reforming contracting practices to ensure that
we are not creating monopolies in the hands of certain
commanders, to ensure that we are restraining their behaviors.
And that is the sort of preliminarily step.
But in terms of transitioning, there is also the capacity
to rely on Afghan force structures eventually. I think once you
start--if you take action to break down these militias, that I
think will at some point help recruitment in the ANA and ANP.
Right now there is a competition between some of these private
security companies and ANA for recruitment.
Mr. Tierney. But other than taking them on militarily, how
are you going to do it?
Mr. Forsberg. Eventually we want the Afghan army and the
Afghan police to be strong enough to provide security on these
routes. And this, of course, will take some time. The U.S.'
commitment to generating the Afghan army is a long-term one,
and I think we have only seen the industrial strength mentoring
and partnership efforts start in the last 6 months. And I think
we can hope that the pace at which we develop the Afghan army
will accelerate past what we have seen in the past.
Mr. Tierney. I mean, this is sort of perplexing, you know,
which comes first?
Go ahead, Dr. Starr.
Mr. Starr. I think there is some naivety here about, well,
can the Afghan army take over this function or not, or should
it be put in the hands of the U.S. forces and so on? The fact
is that if it is put in the hands of the U.S. forces, you have
made every one of the people now doing it active opponents. You
have doubled the opposition, and they are effective because
they know it from the inside.
If you try to turn it over to the Afghan army, this is a
very slow and long-term project. It will have much the same
effect.
It seems to me you have to look fundamentally at the
incentive structures. We have announced that we are leaving. It
is not, in my judgment, even if we are, it is not a prudent
thing to publicize the way we have, because every one in the
region, not just Afghanistan, set its watch. And you have a lot
of people now who are involved in the security and transport
businesses in Afghanistan making hay while the sun shines in
any way they can. They don't see a future. We leave, this
system collapses. They better have plenty of money in Dubai by
then or they have lost their chance.
What I am suggesting is that we become the sponsors, well-
wishers of normal trade and transport. And some of these guys
will transition into it.
How do you do that? It is partly rhetorical. It is
announcing it, saying publicly that is our goal.
But beyond that, it is saying, yes, we are going to extend
security to private trade where the same----
Mr. Tierney. When you say extend security, Doctor, extend
U.S. force security or contractor security?
Mr. Starr. That I will leave to the conclusion of the
discussion. I think, however, that is something that the Afghan
National Army could undertake tomorrow.
Mr. Tierney. The protection of the road system? You think
that they are prepared to----
Mr. Starr. For private local trade, yes. Because that would
not involve foreign forces or even foreign money directly.
My point is simply that if we are unable to offer anything
in the way of a serious economic incentive to the local
population to keep roads open, we will fail. And the only kind
of solution that I can conceive that will meet that criterion
is that we become the sponsor of the open road.
Mr. Tierney. We are going to wind this up because we really
appreciate the time that you have spent with us here this
afternoon.
And I do want to give any of you or all of you an
opportunity for one last word if you feel compelled.
Mr. Schwartz.
Pass.
Mr. Forsberg.
Pass.
Colonel.
Pass.
Dr. Starr.
Mr. Starr. I would like to return to what Mr. Flake said
three times, and which I think, Mr. Chairman, you said several
times. This is a problem fundamentally not of tactics but of
strategy. If we try to solve today's question on a mere
tactical level, it won't work. It must be addressed on a
strategic level. If you can come up with a better alternative
economic strategy than I proposed here, I think you should rush
to embrace it. But we need one. We don't have one.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much. It
is great food for thought, and we appreciate the time and
thoughtfulness that you put into your testimony. The hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:14 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]