Strengthen Civilian Forces, Too

[Jimbo]

SGMGrumpy,

Those figures do not include contract workers. AID has been successfully using contract workers over the years in standard developmental models. The problem that has creeped up in Iraq that is definately COIN centeric is the ability of the contracted folks to enable the IO themes and messages. When I was working at State, on of the DoS guys told me a war story about working in Karbala as a POLAD. At a meeting with local leaders the the USAID rep told the locals that he was not representative of the U.S. Government (the guy was a contartctor). This really caused a problem for the military and DoS guys tying to work with the locals. I hope this helps and wasn't too extraneous. I am goign to try and figure out how to warm up my house because it is cold here in Leavenworth.

[Jedburgh]

RAND, 18 Mar 08: Stabilization and Reconstruction Staffing: Developing U.S. Civilian Personnel Capabilities

....This monograph presents the results of research on the U.S. civilian personnel and staffing programs for SSTR missions undertaken in other countries under U.S. leadership or with the participation of the United States. The study uses the Office of Personnel Management’s Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework to assess the personnel requirements for such missions and presents recommendations that the U.S. government should undertake to deal with the types of problems that the United States has encountered in post-2003 Iraq. The research draws on the rapidly growing body of literature dealing with SSTR missions, interviews with U.S. and British civilian personnel deployed to Iraq, and the authors’ own experiences in Iraq as U.S. civilians involved with the Coalition Provisional Authority....

Complete 131 page report at the link.

[Icebreaker]

I regards to civilian support for military operations, stability operations and emergency responses I have some experience which has lead me to the conclusion that it just won’t work. In order to get any meaningful support from the civilian agencies (or even civilian employees of Depart of Defense and Department of Homeland Security) would require incurring expenses far out distancing the eventual benefits.

Let me provide examples from my own experience:

a. During the Haitian Boat Refugee crisis many years ago, I worked for the
Department of the Navy. A request went out for volunteers to go to Mississippi to help the CB’s set up a refugee camp for the Haitians. I volunteered but was not taken. This hurt my feelings until one of my office’s supervisors pointed out to me that the people all being sent were the least productive and least competent people in the office.

Lesson: Departments will not send their “A Team”, because they want then home working in their work. They will send the “Z Team” to get rid of them for a while.

b. During the First Gulf War I was the only person in my office to volunteer to go to either Saudi Arabia or Bahrain to assist the Navy’s efforts. Then I was told that the decision h ad been made that it was too dangerous. Eventually, they did send civilians over to do contracts with the locals. However, they only sent female civilians to deal with local businessmen in a Muslim country. A LCDR from my office had to be sent to Saudi Arabia to be the “face” of the office with the locals.

Lesson: Civilian agencies follow their procedure with little regard for local customs. Also, planning is not something that a great deal of effort is put into.

c. When the campaigns started in Afghanistan and Iraq, I considered going overseas to help out with the reconstruction efforts. I found a website run by the Army called “Support Our Friends in Iraq and Afghanistan”. I contacted the people through the website to see if I went overseas for a year to help out, what my rights would be. I was told that the only reinstatement rights I would have would be up to the individual agencies policy. In other words I could come home to unemployment.

Lesson: People who take place stability operations or reconstruction are on their own. They will not receive much support from either the agency that they come from, or the agency that they help.

c. When Katrina hit New Orleans I responded to a call for volunteers to help out. I am a Contracting Officer and September is the end of the Fiscal Year when certain funds have to be obligated or lost. I was told by my management that assisting New Orleans and that region was not a priority for my region in San Francisco. I was eventually allowed to go after the end of the Fiscal Year.

Lesson: Agencies are very parochial. What does not effect then directly they have very little concern about. One of the high priority procurements that they kept me at my home office for was – to get a clown to entertain at a kiddy party for “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day”. New Orleans and tens of thousands of Americans citizens took a back set to that.

d. Once I got to New Orleans there was no leadership, no support, and the Region that was affected by the Hurricane treated all of the volunteers like slaves. Hardly anyone did more then one assignment of two weeks (and many left before that on their own accord). The food was so bad that some people started going around to Red Cross Shelters and the Salvation Army to get food handouts. I never once saw or heard from the Incident Commander or anyone else above first line supervisor. Everyday they had a staff meeting for management that last 6 – 7 hours.

Lesson: Most civilian agencies (with some exceptions) do not know how to provide logistical support in the field. Most managers for the Federal Government have no idea what direct personal leadership or motivation (while we were starving in trailers they stayed at a hotel and ate at restaurants). Federal employees who are deployed are deployed for brief periods (two weeks in the case of Katrina). For a number of reasons Federal civilian agencies have almost no standards – appearance, conduct, education or enforcing the length of a deployment. Most Federal Agencies have a culture that discourages cooperating with other offices in the same agency, other agencies in the Federal Government, and other levels of government (State, City, and County).

As a final note, when I got back to my home office a women who I work with walked up to be and said – “You have to pay for talking a two week vacation”. About a year later my agency had a ceremony where people who had deployed for Hurricane Katrina were given a medallion. I threw mine away.

My experiences have led me to believe that to get adequate support for stability operations or for emergency response – you will need to create a new agency specifically for that. Something along the lines of a “National Police”. An organization that has standards and discipline similar to the military and has specific responsibility for these actions (so they can not decide that they have higher priorities). Thank you