Military Interactions with Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

I prefer to question why contractors have become necessary.

Part of the problem lies in Congress and part lies with both the military and civilian personnel systems.

Congress likes to set caps on military personnel, mostly to save money for nice expensive toys the manufacture of which employs constituents, rather than actually support the personnel needs and requirements of the services, particularly in time of war. Service members typically don’t factor in a Congressman or Senator’s reelection strategy.

The personnel systems are both out of touch with basic human resourcing. The military system takes a significant time to “grow” a military member. This is recognized by the services and there really isn’t a whole lot to do about it, particularly with Congressionally imposed personnel caps. The government personnel system is also too slow to hire and equally too slow to fire (in fact nearly impossible to fire).

Hence the contractor: Government needs expertise in A, writes a RFP, RFP is responded to by several companies, proposals are evaluated, contract let, contractors show up. All in about a month or two. Plus the contractors are usually working for their company “at will” and the government includes clauses that allow them to terminate the work at any time for any reason usually with no penalty.

It’s not so much that contractors are necessary, they are just much easier to hire and fire and typically are not employed for 20 years thus saving the government having the burden of a retirement payment.

A better question is: Why are government employees unionized?

[CloseDanger]

A better question is: Why are government employees unionized?