Afghanistan Surge to Include Thousands More Private Contractors

2 years ago

0 Comments Say Something »

Text Size

Correspondent

As many as 56,000 private contractors could accompany the 30,000 additional U.S. troops being sent to Afghanistan, according to a congressional study.

The Congressional Research Service report says that would bring the number of contractors in the country to about 160,000.

Last December, contractors made up 69 percent of the Pentagon's personnel in Afghanistan, "the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States," according to the study, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo.

The dramatic increase in contract work is changing the way military leaders wage war. "Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, contracting was done on an ad-hoc basis and was not adequately incorporated into the doctrine -- or culture -- of the military," the CRS report said. Now "doctrine and strategy are being updated to incorporate the role of contractors in contingency operations."

Filed Under: Afghanistan

Tagged: afghanistan war, AfghanistanWar, contractors, Daily Guidance, DailyGuidance

Our New Approach to Comments

In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.