Contractor Clashes

by Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium: Mon., Jan 28, 2008
Filed under: War Making and Oversight

The GAO examined the whether military officials and private contractors in Iraq function cohesively when they work together. Shockingly, they do not.

DOD does not routinely incorporate information about contractor support for deployed forces in its pre-deployment training of military personnel. During the course of our
work, we found examples where limited or no pre-deployment training caused a variety of problems for military commanders in a deployed location, such as not being able to adequately plan for the use of contractors upon deployment, not knowing what services would be provided through contractors, or not being prepared to provide force protection. We have found several instances where poor oversight and management of contractors has led to negative monetary and operational impacts.