WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is likely paying contractors millions of dollars for unnecessary work in Iraq because the military is not giving companies clear enough guidance about reducing their employees, officials on the Commission on Wartime Contracting said Monday.
There are roughly 102,000 contractors in Iraq, and each contracted worker can cost the government thousands of dollars a month, according to federal auditors. Commissioners said they were concerned that the U.S. military was not providing contractors with key information to help them synchronize their efforts with the drawdown of combat forces.
There are about 98,000 troops in Iraq, but that figure is expected to drop to 50,000 by August. At that time, the Pentagon estimates that the number of contract employees in the country will still exceed 70,000.
“Conducting the drawdown of forces … is not a simple task like turning down a thermostat,” said Michael Thibault, co-chairman of the commission. “Thousands of contractor employees must be reassigned or released. Hundreds of military bases have to be closed or handed over to the Iraqis. Millions of items of equipment, whether military or acquired by contractors and now government-owned, must be moved, donated or scrapped.”
Lt. Gen. James Pillsbury, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Material Command, which helps to oversee the military’s contracting work in Iraq, asserted that the drawdown of contractors in Iraq is on track. But he said that moving personnel and equipment out of Iraq is a massive, complex job, with “situations on the ground that are somewhat fluid.”
Pillsbury said the effort is “equivalent, in personnel terms alone, of relocating the entire population of Buffalo, N.Y.”
