Our view: Warfare, outsourced: ADN Editorial | adn.com

Our view: Warfare, outsourced: ADN Editorial | adn.com: "Congress begins to rein in role of private contractors

Published: January 3rd, 2010 05:26 PM

Congress has finally begun to reconsider the nation's heavy reliance on private contractors to fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Measured by personnel numbers, the country has outsourced almost half of our war-fighting effort. As of September, 242,000 contractors supported 280,000 military in the two war zones, according to the Congressional Research Service. In Afghanistan, contractors actually outnumber troops by 40,000.

That outsourcing was supposed to help save money and liberate soldiers from doing routine, safe tasks behind the battle lines, so they could concentrate on fighting.

Congress is realizing it hasn't always worked out that way. In fighting an insurgency, there are no battle lines, and no secure rear areas for contractors to work in.

In that dangerous environment, it takes a lot of money to compensate for the risk of death on the job. U.S. civilians driving supply trucks through hostile territory, for example, could earn triple or more the pay of the GI grunts riding in the seat beside them.

Last year, Congress concluded that each military contract worker cost $250,000 a year. As the Washington Post noted this month, Congress expects to save $44,000 per worker in the defense budget by 'in-sourcing' about $5 billion worth of work now handled by contractors.

In Iraq, more than 12,000 of the contractors are handling security-related jobs - the kind of work a uniformed soldier should be doing. The infamous 2007 Blackwater massacre, where jittery 'security' contractors hosed a crowd with gunfire, killing 17 Iraqis, shows the hazards of letting hired guns use firepower without proper supervision and accountability.

The same dangers arise when the country lets 'contractors' interrogate enemy suspects, as happened in the Abu Ghraib scandal. This year Congress insisted that interrogations be conducted by military personnel, not contractors. An earlier 'sense of the Congress' resolution said contractors should not perform inherently governmental functions, such as providing security in high-risk conflict zones.

There will always be a role for private contractors in helping supply the country's military on the field of battle. As the Congressional Research Service noted, contractors have carried part of the nation's war effort dating as far back as the Revolutionary War.

But contracting out doesn't automatically guarantee the military will save money. When there are savings, they may come from cutting quality, rather than improving efficiency, so proper oversight is critical. Some jobs - like interrogating enemy suspects or pulling the trigger to kill people -- are just too important to outsource.

It's good to see Congress realize that when the nation is fighting to protect itself; only carefully limited functions are properly handed over to private business.

BOTTOM LINE: Hiring contractors to handle some military logistics can help, but hiring them to wield weapons is asking for trouble."