{"id":1478,"date":"2010-10-15T16:11:04","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T20:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harvardnsj.com\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2013-04-03T22:38:39","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T02:38:39","slug":"senate-report-criticizes-corruption-in-afghan-contracting-confirms-need-for-new-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2010\/10\/senate-report-criticizes-corruption-in-afghan-contracting-confirms-need-for-new-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Report Criticizes Corruption in Afghan Contracting, Confirms Need for New Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Bodnar —<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a September 28, 2010, report<\/a>, the Senate Armed Services Committee documented serious deficiencies in U.S. security contracting rules that have resulted in money being funneled to the Taliban in Afghanistan. \u00a0The Committee found that lack of oversight, along with incompetent and corrupt guards, created waste and allowed funds to be used for insurgent operations. \u00a0The report recommended additional oversight and stricter contracting rules to help root out the problems.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military relies heavily on private security contractors in Afghanistan for everything from trucking to protection of diplomats. \u00a0Approximately 26,000 private security contractors work in Afghanistan, representing a significant part of the overall U.S. presence. \u00a0The problem, according to the September report, is that many of these contractors hire inexperienced and corrupt local guards. \u00a0Without oversight from the U.S. military, these guards use the funds and weapons provided to purchase opium; extort businesses and communities; and at times assist the Taliban, thereby thwarting the U.S. mission. \u00a0While employing local Afghans cannot be entirely avoided for basic efficiency reasons, U.S. military commanders have grown increasingly concerned over the difficulty of relying on local contractors to advance U.S. and Afghan interests over their personal interests or those of the insurgency.<\/p>\n

A Senate report released in June<\/a> also highlighted significant corruption within the security contractor ranks.\u00a0 (Additionally, see this article in the Christian Science Monitor<\/a> for reference to a Senate report released in February.) \u00a0Companies engaged in private contracting are supposed to have their hires vetted by the U.S. military, but this process has clearly broken down in multiple instances, including in operations run by EOD Technology and ArmorGroup, two companies highlighted in the recent Senate report<\/a>. \u00a0Improvements in the vetting process have been suggested<\/a>, as has reducing or even removing the role of contractors.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in anticipation of this latest report, and in response to previous findings regarding contractor corruption, General David Petraeus issued new guidelines for NATO contracting in September<\/a>. \u00a0General Petraeus\u2019s guidelines call for awarding contracts to a diversity of Afghan firms and barring contractors who have channeled money to the Taliban in the past. \u00a0While not specific to security firms, the new guidelines represent a revitalized attempt to use contracts as a means of assisting the anti-insurgency mission<\/a> while keeping U.S. funds out of the hands of the Taliban.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Wired
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By Richard Bodnar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","category-student-articles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZtUX-nQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}