December 12, 2007:
Following the example of the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army is establishing a
"Contracting Command" and staffing it with contracting professionals, to handle
the larger volumes of contract personnel and organizations hired for the war on terror. Iraq, in particular, has
been a struggle. There are over 160,000 contractor personnel in Iraq (including
Kuwait) and Afghanistan.
Iraq was what broke the
army's existing contracting capability. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the
army had one base in Kuwait (through which most army troops pass, on their way
to Iraq), and contracting officers there handled $150 million worth of business
a year. Now there are eight bases in Kuwait, and a billion dollars a year in
contracts to deal with. Since 2003, over 550,000 U.S. Army troops have passed
through Kuwait, on their way to Iraq, where tens of billions in contracts have
been issued, and often not administered well.
The army got help from
the air force, which sent many of its contracting officers to help out. In the
air force, contracting is a career path, and the air force people really knew
their stuff. The army could see that after a few years, when they measured rate of problems with contracts handled by air
force personnel, and found it was much lower than that for army contracting
officers.
The new Contracting
Command will have a strength of over 4,000 personnel, including 400 military
and 1,100 civilian personnel specializing in contracting. The rest will be
existing acquisition people, who will benefit from having their own command and
career path. The command will be led by a Major (two stars) General, and will
take 5-10 years to come near the level of effectiveness the air force already
enjoys in this area.
