In June 2008, I began working overseas in Iraq as a deputy program manager on a multi-million contract for bilingual-bicultural advisors to the DOD and the State Department. This commentary highlights some of the unique challenges facing contractors in theater, shortfalls of the contracting process and issues that arose on this program. It concludes with recommendations on how to streamline the advisory role and make it more efficient.
Organization and Background
This contract was managed out of Victory Base Complex, the largest military installation in Baghdad, and home of Multi-National Corps Iraq (MNC-I). Upon my arrival to Iraq, the XVIII ABN Corps out of Ft. Bragg, North Carolina was in charge of MNC-I, which was headquartered at Camp Victory. MNC-I was not to be confused with Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I), which was headquartered at a palace in the International Zone (IZ). MNC-I was responsible for the maneuver units, whereas MNF-I was the coalition headquarters. The staffs were very similar in how they were organized, MNC-I had a C-staff, or C-1, C-2 C-3, etc. On the MNF-I staff, it was (Combined and Joint) or CJ-1, CJ2, etc. MNC-I’s “C” staff did not imply that they were “combined” like the “CJ” staff, rather that it was a “Corps” staff.
MNC-I had several divisions under their control in Iraq. As a deputy program manager, I worked most closely with the 10th MTN Division, out of Ft. Drum, NY, who was in charge of MND-Center. Their headquarters was also at Camp Victory, and contained a Division-level or “G” staff. MND-Center had numerous Brigade Combat Teams in theater, one being the 3/101 BCT, which was from Ft. Campbell, KY. 3/101 headquarters was at Camp Stryker, which was on the Victory Base Complex, but geographically about 7 miles from the Division Main (D-Main). 3/101 had a Brigade-level staff, or an “S” staff. 3/101 BCT’s main points of operations were smaller Forward Operating Bases (FOB’s), Patrol Bases (PB’s) Combat Outposts (COP’s) within their area of responsibility. This is where the bulk of the reconstruction efforts were concentrated; the battalion and company levels. Many of the FOBs were co-located with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) from the State Department. The “e-PRTs” had a State Department Director, who was the civilian “equivalent” to a 1-star general.
In accordance with the stipulations outlined in our contract’s Statement of Work (SOW), all of our advisors were of Iraqi heritage, had at least 5-years working experience in a Western country, had a bachelor’s degree or higher and were fluent in both English and the Iraqi-dialect of Arabic. We hired our advisors into thirteen functional categories or performance work statements (PWS): economics, business development, civil engineering, agricultural and irrigation engineering, electrical engineering, oil and gas development, general cultural, election administration, rule of law, medical, detention operations and governance.
For my first year in theater, I worked most closely with the “9” staff, or civil military operations at all levels of command. My contract was initially administered by the C-9 plans office on Camp Victory. Most of my advisors were assigned to “G-9” or “S-9” staff officers. We also had a significant number of advisors at the State Department’s PRT’s. The contract was moved to the C-3 (Operations) in the summer of 2009. Our advisors were assigned to every level of command; we had them working for lieutenants in some cases and generals or State Department employees in others.
The contract was set up as an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. Our company billed the government on an invoice that showed how many advisors were on the ground each day of the month. A day in theater constituted a day of payment by the government. The contract first began in 2004, and only had 50 advisors. At the height of the surge in late 2007 and into 2008, the contract had grown to 400 advisors. The average time on ground for the advisors was 22 months. Because the contract was IDIQ, commanders could request an advisor by writing a “Statement of Need” that explained the nature of the person they wanted to bring on to the program. Throughout the duration of the surge and the reconstruction efforts, the contract was heavy with civil engineers, agricultural engineers and electrical engineers. The intent was that the advisors would provide a critical link between the US Forces and communicating with the Iraqis on highly technical and professional issues.
Training Process/Requirements
The way that our SOW was written, and due to the initial urgency in 2004 of having professional-level advisors in theater, the training process was abbreviated. Each of our advisors was required to attend a one-week CONUS Replacement Center (CRC) course in Fayetteville, NC. This was a break from the norm - the central CRC is Ft. Benning, GA, however our company was allowed to run its CRC out of Fayetteville. The course included the CRC required material before going into theater. I compare this to your average solider in Iraq. No soldier is sent to Iraq with simply one week of training. Each solider goes through at least 6 weeks of basic training, followed by technical schools and additional certification courses to gain job proficiency. Many of our advisors were embedded with some more combat heavy units, yet only had one week of training prior to deployment.
Before becoming a government contractor, it was difficult to understand the limitations imposed by the SOW. The SOW clearly indicates what can and cannot be done in the contract. It simply was not feasible to give the advisors more than one-week of training, it was not required by the government because it was not in the contract. Another issue that falls in line with this is the physical requirement of being with a combat unit. Unfortunately, due to labor laws, height, weight, gender and religious preferences were prohibited. We could not discriminate based on these factors. During my time as program manager, we did not have any issues, but there were clearly stories about overweight contractors assigned to combat units that could not keep up with the pace of work.
Confusion Between Types of Contractors
During my time as Program Manager, I witnessed a gross misunderstanding on the nature of what services our advisors provided. There were several other contractors in theater that provided similar services. For the most part, these included linguist services, atmospherics and interpretation services. What several DOD and State Department customers failed to understand was the distinction between a linguist, interpreter, atmospherics provider, and an advisor. In several cases, a new unit came in and “inherited” our advisors, along with linguists and interpreters from other contracts. There were times when the distinction between the four was never made, or due to the perceived “redundancy” in services, work was never differentiated between the four. Because our advisors were required by the contract to have native fluency in the Iraqi dialect of Arabic, they often found themselves in the interpretation role, where a Moroccan or Egyptian linguist or interpreter would fall short.
Post-Surge Drawdown
After the surge of 2007 and 2008, MNC-I dictated a massive drawdown in the amount of contractors in theater. This was coupled with the consolidation of CP’s and PB’s to the larger FOB’s and bases. During the massive drawdown, we rapidly released over 150 advisors. The drawdown also meant reassessing the need for advisors across theater. The difficultly here was getting concrete needs from the DOD and the State Department on their future requirements. The drawdown meant we had to release advisors quickly, and reallocate resources. Instead of a comprehensive draw-down strategy, the advisors were simply released, some at the balking of their immediate supervisor, and others were reassigned to bases that displayed a greater need. Many of the advisors hadn’t served in Iraq for very long, and were being asked to go home. Unfortunately for some, this meant that they had quit their job at home, gone though the training and deployed, only to be asked to leave during the drawdown. After the massive drawdown, there was an ad-hoc approach to reassigning the advisors. Unfortunately, due to the haste, we were asked to bring some advisors back to theater only a few months later. This incurred a massive cost to the government. Later, MNC-I mandated that there would be a cap on the contract and no more advisors could be hired beyond that cap.
Security Clearances
In order to fill the contract, our company recruited from not only the United States, but Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and several European countries. One of the major issues we had to deal with on the contract was the issue of Security Clearances. US Citizens on the contract automatically began the process for obtaining a Secret Security Clearance. Due to the fact that only 40 – 50% of the individuals on the contract were US citizens, only that number was eligible to apply. The remaining advisors were ineligible. During the duration of my time as the Program Manager anywhere from 25 – 35% of the individuals on the contract had been approved for an Interim or a Final Secret Clearance. At the initiation of a new position, this was not a problem, because commanders had to write in their Statement of Need whether or not they desired a cleared individual. Over time, though, this proved to be a problem. With the transition of units and with individuals leaving positions, there were gaps in the service we could provide. There were instances where new units would come in, and desire that their advisors could go to meetings that required Secret Clearances.
In 2009, MND-Center moved from Baghdad to Basra and was reorganized as MND-South. We had several advisors assigned to MND-C that were from the UK, New Zealand and Canada. When the Division moved south, they decided that their new headquarters would be a controlled-access building, where only individuals with Secret or higher clearances could have access. This left several of our advisors sitting in tents for weeks, without access to the D-Main, and unable to contribute to the mission. Because of MNC-I’s mandate that no more advisors could be hired, this left us in the predicament of trying to reallocate cleared individuals to those positions (many of which were already in cleared positions and could not swap with an uncleared individual).
Fate of Contractors
The soldiers had a mandatory reintegration briefing that they had to attend before their return home. The feeling of being in a war zone for an extended period of time often led to an interesting psychological phenomenon. Many people became workaholics, to combat the boredom and the stress. Others developed feelings of detachment to the outside world. These were issues that were difficult to address with contract employees spread across the entire country.
Many of the advisors worked directly with combat units and PRT members that took frequent trips into the Red Zone for meetings and to work on projects. Missions into the Red Zone are known hazard, and can prove to be fateful. We had several advisors assigned to the PRT in Diyala. In April 2009, several military, DOS employees were arriving at a regularly-scheduled governance meeting when a suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi policeman attacked the group. One of our advisors was in the group that was attacked. There are a couple of issues unique to contractors in this situation. One of the problems that it isn’t obvious to first responders is that our advisors were with coalition forces. Our advisors had Iraqi heritage, so at first glance, they could be confused for a local Iraqi. In this case, our advisor was given prompt medical attention and within 72-hrs he was in Lundstuhl Medical Center in Germany receiving emergency care. A second issue is more a matter of principal. This particular contractor had been working with coalition forces for several years. After the attack, our contracting officer’s representative (COR) in the C-9 began to start the paperwork for a civilian Defense of Freedom Medal. If he had not had the ambition to begin the paperwork, there is no other advocate that could have initiated the process.
Joint Contracting Command
JCC-I had the unique role of being both a customer and the contracting authority on the contract. JCC-I provided the Contracting Officer (KO), whose role is was to oversee the contract. While I was the program manager, we had 12 advisors assigned to JCC-I working as business development consultants. Their role was to explain the contracting process to Iraqi companies and vet those companies for legitimacy. A few issues arose from this situation. JCC-I would typically assign a company-grade officer as the KO for this contract. If that individual came from the Air Force, they were generally on a 6-month rotation. This didn’t leave much time to learn and understand the SOW and some of the complex issues facing the advisors in theater. While I was in Iraq, we had 4 KO’s. Our contract was not the only contract overseen by the KO – they typically had a multitude of contracts where they had decision-making authority. From the standpoint of the PM, it was my experience that the KO’s tended to use that authority to give time and attention to relatively minor decisions regarding the 12 JCC-I advisors, vice looking at the theater-wide issues affecting the contract. In one instance, a JCC-I field grade officer had developed an internal Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the advisors that was in direct violation of our SOW. This presented several problems. One issue was that the officer outranked our KO. This presented an authority issue on the contract. This lead the KO to table issues for her incumbent, and several meetings to discuss how to reinterpret the SOW so the SOP could be incorporated. A second issue was that there tended to be a conflict of interest in how to handle the advisors. JCC-I wanted primacy on deciding which advisors would be assigned to their organization, a role typically reserved for the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) who represented the viewpoint of MNC-I.
CAC Cards
In the spring of 2009, our contract was on its final option year. Every year from 2004, the contract had been extended for a one-year period. The government initially intended to rebid the contract in the spring of 2009, but decided instead to extend the contract until September 2009. In September 2009, the government extended the contract until January 2010, and in January 2010 they extended the contract until March 2010. Each time that the government extended the contract, each of the advisors had to renew their government issued controlled access card “CAC.”
There was a limited window of time between when data was input into the Contractor Verification System “CVS” software and we were given authorization to send the advisors to personnel offices to renew the CACs. Inputting the data into CVS required the coordination not only the contractors, but also the COR and the KO, who validated all personnel information. Many of our contractors were located at remote bases and outposts all over the country, and participated in missions that lasted for weeks at a time. Personnel offices had a short schedule of times during the day that they would issue CAC’s, and those offices were only located at the larger FOB’s and bases. This created a logistical hurdle for the advisors; they had a small window of time where they had to go to a major base and renew their CAC’s. In addition, because they were contractors, they were not given priority on military airlift. In some cases, especially in the event of a sandstorm or theater RIPTOA, it could take a week for an advisor to get from point A to point B. Once they were at a location it could take up to a week to get an appointment to be seen for a new CAC. In a less than one-year period, the government mandated that out advisors do this 4 times. If only one day of work was lost on average for each advisor going through this process, than no less than 1000 days worth of work were lost because of this issue. Because our SOW mandated that we bill the government for a day in theater, regardless of the circumstance, this not only created logistical hurdles but also time and money lost.
In March 2010, four days before the national elections, the contract was extended for a three month period and allowed a 48-hr window to renew CAC cards. This was the fault of JCCI’s inability to prioritize the request to renew the contract and the fact that lower level administrative contracting officials were given the authority on such labor intensive contract. The inability of JCCI to prioritize requirements or meet deadlines without thrust from the O6-level was pervasive. In this instance, it took the commanding officer of the USF-I J3/ JFEC to push the request to JCCI’s Theater Wide Requirements officer, and after much politicking, they were able to get the 48-hr window. This left over 300 individuals in Iraq with just hours to get a renewed CAC card. Many of these individuals were actively involved in the National Elections process and positioned at remote locations all over Iraq. Their blatant disregard for the importance of these elections and the security issues that faced the advisors was omnipresent. It took an undue amount of time and effort to even have a simple conversation with the contracting administrators about strategic vision and priorities; in the end JCCI still failed.
Security
In July 2009, we were notified that one of our advisors had been detained the previous evening by security forces at FOB Blackhawk, in the IZ. He had a General Order #1 violation; the MP’s found a firearm in his vehicle during a random security check. This was a violation of our company protocol. Furthermore, he lied to his supervisor regarding his whereabouts. We immediately dispatched an individual to FOB Blackhawk to find him, only to be told by the MP that they had already released him.
Our immediate reaction was to terminate the individual from the contract. Cases like these proved difficult to follow through on. This individual didn’t answer his phone when we called. He was AWOL from his duty location, and we had no understanding of his whereabouts. We could go ahead and terminate him via email, but we had no guarantee that he would respond. Furthermore, he had a government issued CAC, which meant he had access to the IZ and other military installations. This was dangerous. His story was incredibly suspicious, and it wasn’t improbable that his alliances were with Jaysh Al Mahdi or linked to another insurgent organization. Our only collateral was his last paycheck, and the cost he would incur for not returning his individual body armor (IBA) and issued equipment.
Recommendations
The advisory programs in theater could be streamlined to better serve the DOD and the State Department. First, there should be a defined requirement at the theater-level for the types of advisory services that will be needed for successful reconstruction efforts. This requirement should be reviewed on a regular basis at the theater-level for oversight and mission changes. The ad-hoc approach of adding advisors led to confusion over resources when units left theater, and at times, a misappropriation of resources. CAC-cards could be issued for the duration of the advisor’s time in theater, regardless of the date of the contract extension. This would save the time and money lost due to the reissuing process.
A final recommendation would be to formalize the program as government program, much like the Human Terrain System (HTS) has been formalized into government program. The HTS concept was developed largely in response to gaps in the military’s understanding of the local population and culture, the socio-cultural impact on operational decisions, and the transfer of knowledge to follow-on units. This mission falls directly in line with the advisory service. Putting the advisors on “HTS-like” teams would allow a formal training model prior to deployment and results-based expectations could be placed on advisors. The government could also use more discretion on where they place advisors before they arrive to theater. Formalizing the program would also provide the military and State Department a distinct service, not to be confused with interpreters, atmospherics and linguist providers. Furthermore it would eliminate the conflict of interest issues with JCC-I.