Through Veterans' Eyes

by Larry Minear

  In sum, most of the military personnel interviewed see hearts-and-minds activities as a positive contribution by the military in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Such activities provide soldiers with a rare opportunity to interact with local people and to offer needed supplies and services. They also affirm the humanity not only of local populations, but also of the troops themselves and their communities back home. Yet some raise questions about framing such activities as elements in a broader U.S. political-military and counterinsurgency strategy, about the appropriate balance between combat operations and assistance work, and about the competence of the troops to address humanitarian and reconstruction challenges of a nonmilitary nature.

  SEVEN

  Working with Private Contractors

  Many soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq are struck by the sheer number of civilians involved in day-to-day activities on and around military bases. U.S. troops no longer carry out such traditional wartime functions as preparing meals, transporting supplies, running communications switchboards, and escorting diplomats. These functions have been largely outsourced by the Defense and State departments to the private sector. Contract personnel drive convoys, provide security for senior political and military officials, operate rendition flights, and sometimes even engage in combat. While veterans appreciate the services provided, they also raise questions about issues of cost effectiveness, comparative advantage, security, legal status, and accountability of contracted activities.

  NEW ACTORS, NEW ROLES

  In an unfamiliar and dangerous part of the world, soldiers were grateful for the creature comforts and services that private contractors and their extensive network of employees provide. In communications from abroad and interviews upon returning, veterans often speak of the panoply of contract personnel and functions that give military bases the feel of small U.S. towns, complete with businesses thriving and the local economy humming.

  “I know there’s a lot of complaints about Kellogg, Brown, and Root,” noted Army Lt. Col. Rick Mayes, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. “But when you ain’t got nothing else and can go through and grab a hoagie sandwich or a piece of pizza and a piece of chicken, it makes you feel good.”1 Applebee’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken provided Army Sgt. Rex Hendrix and his colleagues in Iraq with “a taste of home.”2 The Pentagon also contracted out much of the food preparation, making “KP”—kitchen police—duty a relic of the past. Areas in Kuwait with fast-food and other vendors, patronized by U.S. troops moving into and out of Iraq, reminded Sergeant Mayfield of “huge truck stops” on interstate highways back in the States.3 Soldiers express particular appreciation for telecommunications hook-ups operated by private companies that kept them in touch with people back home.

  Private contractors are also entrusted with a multitude of brick-and-mortar tasks. Christopher Gamblin, a specialist in the Army Reserves who was in Iraq in the early days of 2003, witnessed the construction of military facilities from the ground up. “The place was like a landfill when we first got there,” he recalls. His own engineering unit “built new roads onto the base and cleaned up a lot of the trash.” But construction and maintenance of some of the military facilities themselves were then outsourced to the private sector. In addition, thanks to the efforts of “the KBR people, we got a new PX. We got two new dining facilities. We ended up having a Subway and Burger King and Pizza Hut by the time we left. That wasn’t bad at all, but when we first got there it was a little rough.”4 The changes over time were particularly apparent to Army Sgt. Brian Coles, whose photos (which appear on the following page) and associated commentary contrast his first deployment to Tikrit in 2003, which felt “more like war,” with a later posting in 2006, which seemed more like home.

  The creature comforts that private contractors provide are welcomed by most of the soldiers. In a joint interview, Marine corporals John C. Little and Lucas Bollinger comment on the array of “comfort foods” available in their PX during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Many soldiers mention returning from combat missions outside the wire to enjoy down time in clean and comfortable mess hall, dormitory, recreational, and communications facilities. There was only an occasional dissenting voice. Marine LCpl. Jeremy Krug, a veteran of the fierce fighting in the Ramadi-Fallujah area, felt that the availability of amenities might have undercut the sprit of sharing and sacrifice so important to troop morale.5

  First Deployment/Second Deployment

  Brian Coles (AFC2001/001/41574), Photographs (PH01), VHP, AFC, LOC.

  * * *

  Of the 1.8 million U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan and/or Iraq through November 2008, approximately 40 percent have been deployed more than once. One of the few who redeployed to his initial posting is Brian Coles.

  Coles enlisted in the National Guard in February 1991. His father said it was either the military or college, and Brian chose the military. After a decade of training one weekend a month and two weeks each summer with the Iowa National Guard, he shipped out to Kuwait in March 2003, as part of the Army’s 234 Signal Battalion. Stationed at the largest Iraqi airbase in Tikrit, he traveled widely in Iraq, receiving the Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal and an army commendation for his contributions.

  Returning to Tikrit in October 2006 with the 1461st Transportation Company of the Michigan National Guard, Coles noted that the differences were “like night and day.” At the onset of the war in March 2003, he had shared a tent with five others. “We had the feeling of being out in the desert. It was more like war.” The first photo, taken in July 2005 during his first deployment, shows a spray-painted Iraqi vehicle on the Tikrit runway. It is his favorite photo, he says, a reminder of how harsh the conditions were.

  Three years later, the encampment at Tallil was more permanent and the troops had more amenities, including better living and eating conditions and improved communications with home. His second photo shows people picking up food at Pizza Hut and Burger King. Beyond them is the PX, which had “a little bit of everything,” including small electronics items, clothing, food, and even motorcycles. While daily life was more enjoyable and secure, the war remained a harsh reality. IEDs were claiming more casualties—including one fatality in his unit—and even when picking up fast food, the soldiers carried weapons and ammunition with them.

  * * *

  And there was grousing about the mess hall offerings. “Everything was contracted out,” said Army Sgt. E-5 Terrell Spencer. “All the jobs were hired to KBR and they in turn hired Pakistani or Indian people to come cook for a fraction of what they themselves made. They were trying to ‘cook American’ and it just didn’t work out. I guess the food was all right, but half the time I just preferred to eat my Meals Ready to Eat. It was doubly hard for me, too,” Spencer added, “because I had apprenticed as a chef.”6

  In addition to the services for the troops, most of the reconstruction of Afghan and Iraqi energy, health, and transport infrastructure was spun off to the private sector. The Pentagon contracted out much of the transport of personnel and heavy equipment from the United States and Europe into the two theaters. From DOD’s vantage point, outsourcing to an “army” of private contactors had another attractive feature: keeping the numbers of uniformed U.S. troops to a minimum, a major priority given congressional wariness of additional troop call-ups or extensions of deployments.

  The scale of reconstruction efforts undertaken by DOD through civilian contractors is mind-boggling. At a press conference in early 2009 reviewing accomplishments in Iraq, military officials cited “more than forty-four hundred projects completed since January 2004, valued at nearly seven billion dollars.” Efforts were managed by the Pentagon’s Gulf Region Division, with a staff of some 600 federal civilian and military officials who worked in turn with thousands of U.S. contractors and Iraqi associates. Employing 25,000 to 30,000 Iraqis per day, the overall effort had built or renovated 1,100 schools, 132 private health clinics and 41 hospitals, and improved water supply and energy infras
tructure. The government of Iraq and other coalition partners joined the United States in providing funds.7

  UNRESOLVED ISSUES

  Fast food in military mess halls, activity rooms replete with exercise equipment and video games, and all manner of conveniences available for purchase at PXs did not still criticism of private sector contractors among the troops. The experience in the two theaters raises a number of questions concerning cost and comparative advantage, security, and accountability. The troops’ expressed misgivings about the contributions of contractors are borne out by various studies. One review of “the unprecedented use of private contractors” by the military in Iraq found that “the most basic questions” regarding contractors still cannot be answered.8 One leading analyst confirms “a growing tension between private contractors and American military units and how they coordinate their activities (or not).”9

  With respect to cost and cost-effectiveness, hefty remuneration of KBR employees and other private sector suppliers—exceeding some soldiers’ own levels of pay—particularly rankles. “One hundred and twenty grand to do the same job” that soldiers might do, muttered one member of the New Hampshire National Guard contingent, and at far lower cost.10 The fact that the military itself needed to provide security for many DOD contractors added possible injury to perceived insult.

  The impression was widespread not only that the profits received by commercial firms were unreasonable, but also that such firms were operating under contracts that had not been subjected to normal competitive bidding procedures. The role of Richard Cheney as head of Halliburton, KBR’s parent, between stints as secretary of defense under President George H. W. Bush and vice president under President George W. Bush, contributed to such suspicions, despite his resignation from the firm in order to serve as vice president. The belief that KBR, the largest private-sector operator in Afghanistan and Iraq, is “owned by Halliburton and run by Vice President Cheney” led one soldier to conclude, “everybody at KBR stands to make money the longer we’re there.”11

  A second set of concerns involved the risks to the military of using contract personnel. The view that protection of commercial contractors jeopardizes the troops’ own safety was particularly prevalent among units assigned to provide security for commercial convoys. As one member of the New Hampshire National Guard put it, the military was tasked with escorting “trucks filled with things like big screen televisions, plastic plants and pet goods, which were trucked onto military bases and sold to soldiers at the post-exchange or PX. ‘I’m risking my life for kitty litter,’” said SSgt. Patrick Clarke with exasperation. “I could see the need for food, water, and fuel. I realize the PX was for our comfort. It’s just kind of out of hand.”12

  “Almost all of the trucks that we guarded were operated by the private contractor, Kellogg, Brown, and Root,” explains Sergeant Flanders. “Some of what we protected, including food and laundry, was essential, but a lot of what was in the trucks was not. When you were the one escorting the damn stuff, it was crazy. We were risking our lives for that. We guarded ice, which is frozen water. You just didn’t know what you were escorting. We got ambushed. We had amputees. Some of the civilian drivers got shot in the head and died transporting Lord knows what.”13 The fact that KBR vehicles were often poorly maintained and driven by Third Country Nationals (TCNs) who did not speak English was perceived as creating added security risks beyond those that already existed when convoys contained only military vehicles. “I feel like the priority of KBR making money outweighs the priority of safety,” said New Hampshire’s Moriarty in a sentiment shared by others.14

  “KBR kept scheduling us on the same routes, same days, same times,” explains Navy Sgt. Cristina Frisby, a tow-truck driver and repair mechanic who dealt with the contractor on an everyday basis. “That is completely backwards to what the Army teaches you because the insurgents or whoever was blowing us up would know when and where we would be. The 40-mile highway to Kirkuk was completely demolished because of so many IEDs. We probably got hit fifteen times on that route.” But the passionate critique doesn’t end there. Frisby continued: “KBR also told us we could be personally ‘responsible’ if we broke a civilian truck trying to recover it. I thought that was ridiculous. We hated KBR.”15 Frisby’s comment evidences some doubt as to who was working for whom. There’s no way to fire contractors that don’t perform or care, adds Sgt. Spencer. “They’re not bound by any rules.”16

  Navy Petty Officer Samuel J. Main, member of a combat security element that provided convoy protection in Iraq, was himself familiar with day-to-day interactions with third country nationals (TCNs). During his months in Iraq, he traveled more than 12,000 miles on 109 missions and escorted more than 2,400 TCN vehicles. “Convoy security teams move everything in the country. We had to search every one of them,” he recalls, a process that took about two hours per vehicle. “You have to make sure their passports are valid and that there are no guns or bombs or anything, even cell phones.” The conditions of the trucks themselves left a great deal to be desired. “They’re driving stuff that you wouldn’t pick up from a junk yard and so breakdowns were common, especially in areas where you didn’t want to break down. If their tires weren’t aired up or roadworthy, we left them behind, because a breakdown puts everybody in jeopardy. We were pretty thorough.”17

  Several soldiers voiced the opinion that responsibility for accompanying and protecting private commercial vehicles had compromised the military’s own security and mission. It was not simply that KBR trucks would occasionally stray from the convoy and, being unarmored, draw enemy fire and require military rescue. Private vehicles would also proceed unbeknownst to the troops or would press the military to provide protection against its better judgment. Confirming the problem, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was reported to have said in October 2007, “30 percent of the calls for help from security contracts had come from convoys that the military did not know were on the road.”18

  While the troops were not averse to providing protection for private sector convoys, soldiers express the view that the military should keep contractors on a shorter leash, both in terms of items transported and go/no-go decisions. They believe that whatever functions are outsourced—and more examination of issues of comparative advantage is needed—the military’s authority to monitor contractor performance should be strengthened. A group of sixteen Indiana National Guard personnel who had guarded KBR personnel at an Iraqi power plant are pressing to sue the contractor for having “knowingly exposing them to a cancer-causing chemical.”19 Evidence apparently implicating mid-level U.S. military officials in receiving kickbacks from local contractors underscores the accountability problem.20

  There are also wider and more intensely political risks to the United States from reliance on contractors. In addition to firms on DOD contract for whom the military provides protection, the State Department hires armed security guards to protect U.S. diplomats, in earlier wars undoubtedly an exclusively military function. In one high-profile incident in September 2007, security guards employed by Blackwater USA killed seventeen Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square. The Iraqi government ordered the contractor to leave the country, describing the incident as “the murder of its citizens in cold blood [and] a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operation.”21 The incident drew attention to the extent of privatization of the American presence in Iraq. At the time of the Blackwater incident, with U.S. troop strength at 160,000, there were an estimated 180,000 U.S.-funded contractors in Iraq (about 21,000 of them Americans).22

  Early in the occupation, the United States granted immunity to “American military and civilian personnel from prosecution for crimes in Iraqi courts.”23 Over time, Congress tightened accountability to U.S. authorities and U.S. law. The 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments included a provision, effective January 1, 2009, making private contractors, as well as U.S. troops, subject to Iraqi law.24

  T
he concerns voiced by veterans are borne out by independent and government analysts. “Four years into the occupation,” wrote analyst Jeremy Scahill with reference to Iraq, “there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations.”25 A 2007 report by the Congressional Research Service noted “a substantial shift in the types of contracts for troop support services, the size of the contracts and the lack of effective management control over the administration of the contracts and the oversight of the contractors.”26

  A 2008 CRS report noted that with fully 20 percent of expenditures for the war in Iraq paid to contractors, “the Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to over billing, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops. The role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the twenty-first century battlefield.”27

  In sum, the experience of U.S. troops with private sector actors in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters has both positive and negative elements. Contractors ease the hardships of life under duress and reduce the numbers of U.S. troops needed. At the same time, their presence and activities raise still-unanswered questions of cost, cost effectiveness, comparative advantage, and accountability. Based on the experience of the troops themselves, whose very lives are at stake, the balance sheet to many seems more negative than positive.