Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 3 – November-December, 2011

Contractors testify before the CWC

In August 2011, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) issued its final report, Transforming Wartime Contracting: Controlling Costs; Reducing Risks. Established by Congress in 2008 in response to increasing indications of widespread waste, fraud, and abuse in government contracting, CWC was charged with assessing a number of facets of wartime contracting. CWC’s overarching conclusion is that federal agencies have become over reliant on contractors in conducting contingency operations. Its final report concludes that federal agencies have been forced to treat contractors as the default option because they lack the organic capacity to perform some mission-critical functions, and that the government lacks the acquisition personnel and structures needed to manage and oversee an unprecedentedly large contractor force that at times has outnumbered troops in the field.

Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 1 – July-August, 2011

Disaster relief efforts in Haiti

OVER the past decade there have been a number of natural disasters of catastrophic proportions, including Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, last year’s earthquake in Haiti, and this year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Disasters Emergency Committee, a United Kingdom-based consortium of international NGOs, has warned that the world should expect three to five big urban disasters in the next ten years.

First responders to these disasters have been local and national governments. These responders are on site and in a position to move quickly to save lives. Military forces indigenous to the affected area or from other nations providing assistance often play a key role as well. Following the immediate life-saving response, contractors can also play an important role. As an operation transitions from life saving to recovery and then to rebuilding, contractors can provide tools and abilities that host governments in both developed and less developed countries, as well as NGOs, are not likely to have, such as site clearance, utilities restoration, the repair of existing facilities and new construction.

While in developed countries host governments generally fund the humanitarian response, supplemented by private charitable giving, less developed countries largely depend on the international donor community, characterized by multiple funding streams for multiple purposes. There was an outpouring of charitable donations following the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haiti earthquake, funneled through a multitude of organizations. While some NGOs backed by this type of funding have at least a limited capability to perform, they must also hire others, whether local day laborers or companies, to provide the needed response.