What Is the Problem Here?
The Chim chims are intel weenies as regular readers of the FRI blog have probably deduced. They are all former members of our Armed Forces, they are all working in their field of expertise today with traditional Pentagon contractors and none of them is involved with this supposed “contractor spy ring.” Despite this they have been all over this story and pestering me to post more on it. I get too much attention when I do and remain concerned that blow-back from this story will eventually hit my friends and I who remain in the field working the reconstruction fight. But I’ve been hanging out in Dubai on R&R and it is going to take some time to catch up on the day job so I’m throwing up a Chim chim post on the topic to cover me while I catch up with all the stuff I was supposed to be paying attention to when I was away.
My son Logan spent the last three months in Jalalabad with me teaching a class on digital photography for the MIT Fab Folk at the Jalalabad Fab Lab. Here is the link to his blog (blogs are required on all Fab Folk missions) and I think it is hysterically funny which was not his intent. This is probably his last visit to Afghanistan - the security situation has degraded to the point where keeping him safe was a major operation. Many thanks to my Afghan colleagues JD and Zaki for devising and maintaining a safety box in which Logan could operate. I’m inserting pictures of Logan and I on the range because it’s my way of bragging on my boy. The remainder of the post is from Chim Chim.
With the recent spate of NYT blather about the U.S. Military’s use of contractors to conduct intelligence activities, the “official” kneejerk response from the Department of Defense (DoD) was to announce that the original contract was shut down, and that the Department was conducting investigations…
Logan did his first four-day handgun course at Frontsight (where I taught after retiring from the Marines) when he was 12. He is fast as a snake out of the holster - but he'll need ten more years of practice to be faster than the old man
“Officials say Mr. Furlong’s operation seems to have been shut down, and he is now is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Defense Department for a number of possible offenses, including contract fraud.”
(Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants)
“Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had ordered … officials to assess the department’s information operations…particularly whether information gathered and disseminated for defensive efforts was being used inappropriately to help stage offensive operations.”
(U.S. Official Defends Contractors’ Mission)
What is disturbing in this entire hubbub is the absence of any official commentary challenging mainstream media assertions. What ever happened to the old cliché “Don’t believe everything that you read?” We know from this same reporting source that the program was not shut down. In fact, a piece of the program, the piece involving Mr. Pelton, was shut down last year. However, the entire program was not shut down… because it was a legitimate, contracted information support service. So the media got it wrong from the beginning. Big surprise there.
In addition to the lack of critical thought by the Department of Defense in response to media-backed accusations about fraud, there was no – repeat, no – effort to directly counter the implications that these contractors were conducting intelligence activities. In fact, DoD let the media become an arm of the U.S. national policy process by allowing it to dictate reality in the absence of fact. The Defense spokesman Morrell failed. He failed the Department, and he failed the Executive Branch because he did not step back and look at the media inquiries clinically enough to develop a reply in a way that reflected fact and policy vice conjecture.
When presenting a pistol from the holster the goal is to hit center mass consistently inside an area about the size of your hand. Hitting a 1 inch black square repeatedly is little more than showing off - which is exactly what I was doing here.
At the center of this mess are three key issues that, had they been explored, would have taken the wind out of this non-controversy. First, if you haven’t been paying attention, the U.S. Government contracts services. It has done so forever, and it saves money, keeps government smaller, and is more efficient as a result. In fact, it contracts individuals to do intelligence related activities. Why not? With Congressionally mandated manpower limitations, employing experienced former or retired specialists at a fraction of the cost to the Government to supplement official capabilities-gaps is a no-brainer. One need only revisit the Department of Defense’s estimate that it costs the uniformed services roughly one million dollars a year per service member in combat. Comparatively, it costs less than half that figure to employ seasoned contract specialists in the same environment.
The second issue is the idea that these or any contractors would perform their respective tasks without a sufficient level of oversight. Since the beginning of this war, Defense Contracting has had to deal with a plethora of scandals and oversight failures. In response, the bureaucracy has imposed draconian checks and balances to prevent fraud, insure contract performance, and to meet critical mission requirements. The idea that the contractors or their contracted service somehow exceeded the scope of the contract just does not make sense. Right?
Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities.
(U.S. Is Still Using Spy Ring, Despite Doubts)
Though one could argue that some contractors work just as selflessly as their military counter-parts, it is inane to argue that any private corporation would risk its financial status or its business reputation to transition from providing information services to running something as complex or as risky as an intelligence network.
Third in the list of key issues are the statutory duties and responsibilities dictated under U.S. Code, National Law if you will. Under the U.S. Code, Departments in the Executive Branch have their own sections or Titles that specify their unique roles and functions. Those areas reserved traditionally for the Department of Defense fall under Title 10 and reflect the roles of “organize, train, equip, and conduct” national defense activities. Separately, those functions set aside for intelligence fall under Title 50. Title 50 has similar “organize, train and equip” mandates. It also has special provisions that regulate national intelligence initiatives. Those Title 50 elements are very specific, and are delegated to our national intelligence community (IC). Though generally controlled by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), they have been extended to the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) as well…of course they have because he controls 80% of the national intelligence budget.
Though the SECDEF could have delegated Title 50 authority for these types of contract activities under some justification such as “intelligence support to Information Operations”, why would he? The scope, intent, and nature of the contract, from all descriptions, do not meet the threshold of intelligence. Free Dictionary.Com does as good a job as any in defining military intelligence:
Military Intelligence
n. Abbr. MI
1. Information relating to the armed forces of a foreign country that is significant to the planning and conduct of another country’s military doctrine, policy, and operations.
2. An agency of the armed forces that procures, analyzes, and uses information of tactical and strategic military value.
However, such a definition is reflective of official definitions across the board and is the reason why the current dialog is of interest. As broad as this description is, the controversy between official agencies and departments is serving to constrain rather than empower organizational capabilities. Think about it! Is information really intelligence? Intelligence is comprised of information, but there are a number of essential components to information that must occur for it to be intel-worthy. These components include sources, analysis, and relevance, to name a few.
Sources of information are a critical consideration. One can only imagine that any contractor operating in Afghanistan would be working with locals to provide feedback. How reliable that feedback is can only be characterized over time. In the absence of some formal, governmentally managed process to measure and validate these locals, any information is simply “word-on-the-street” or rumor. One can never judge the personal agenda of these local soruces…are they telling us something they think we want to here? Are they feeding us information that someone else wants us to here? In any event, any ongoing DoD effort, including support contracts, would violate the tenants of Title 50 (unless they were specifically capable of and hired to do perform intelligence functions with vetted sources). All information from whoever would have to be ignored because its “intelligence” and “not my job”, and our men and women in harms way would have to fight in a “discovery learning” environment – stealing their commanders’ initiative and any tactical advantage they need to understand and dominate in a complex operating environment.
Logan is really good with a 9mm Glock but has little experience shooting hard ball from a .45 cal 1911. It is easier to get a clean break of the trigger with a single action 1911 pistol but the muzzle flip and recoil are much more difficult to handle. The reason I use a .45 is because nobody makes a .46 caliber handgun. With pistol rounds, as with most things in life, size matters.
Analysis of this information is equally essential to its value as intelligence. In this case, one would have to assume that DoD embedded analysts in the contract production process or was directly exploiting the contractors’ reports for analysis. The information could not be “finished intelligence” and thus potentially used to conduct some action or form some policy without that level of scrutiny. Of course, if DoD was doing this all along, then any argument of “rogue officials” or “rogue contractors” is lost because it would take senior level decisions to authorize limited analytical resources to be committed to such an effort.
Relevance of information is another important consideration in its relation to intelligence. Something not mentioned in the definition above is the idea that any information collected is answering some requirement. In military parlance, priority information requirements (PIR) or intelligence requirements (IR). Unless this “rogue contract spy network” is responding to some kind of official task to answer important questions, any information is essentially wide-area optics or open source…a shotgun blast if you will. The information could answer any number of demographic, technical, and operational questions, and, yes, it may contribute to the body of information supporting intelligence. But, that last piece could only happen if some DoD intelligence official decided to use it. THAT MEANS that the contractor’s work may fill an intelligence information void. In and of itself, however, the information service was just that…a service. There are a number of contract outfits out there providing these same types of “atmospherics”, and at any time that information could be of intel value. They aren’t rogue? Are they? How the Government chooses to use contracted information products, as information deliverables, is the Government’s decision.
At the end of the day, the current Administration has not provided the needed manpower to meet the fundamental military exigencies in combat. Contracted logistics support, staff augmentation, local security, and even information support services are helping to fill those capabilities voids, arguably saving lives – US, coalition, and Afghan. These services contribute, in their own way, to meeting the needs of our service men and women…the most important resources we have. So what is the problem here?
Comments | 
“At the end of the day, the current Administration has not provided the needed manpower to meet the fundamental military exigencies in combat.”
It’s more than the previous chickenahwk administration ever did. But still not enough.
Because liberating two nations and putting lunatic dictators all over the world on notice wasn’t enough? Ever been in an F-102? Me neither…
===
Tim – It’s not that they don’t make bigger, they’re just not in the logistics…yet. Is your hogleg as OEM stock as it appears to be?
===
The Chim’s – Think I’ll go back to sitting on my fingers.
BIGGER
IS
BETTER,
R
Very interesting post Tim & chim chim. Ad’s into the news item posted in Danger room “the dangers of turning spies into generals(and vice versa)And 100 million for building a special ops center HQ,at Mazar e sharif. Michael yon posted about this on his FB page “hint to thing to come” Me I think we will see the starting of a draw down. 1911A1 all the way.
stay safe.
The problem is that USMI as a community is dysfunctional. The more it relies on contractors using OPM to produce anything worth a shit, the more its own intrinsic dysfunctionality is reinforced and concealed. If one percent of an organization’s output is worth anything, and it uses contractors to achieve a 200% boost in productivity, is that a success story? When you consider the fact that the boost enables it to continue in its old ways ad infinitum, the answer is, no.
Also, who’s staffing the contracts supporting intel? 90% of the time, it’s guys who got their initial training, clearances and experience while they were in, then got out due to a dislike for bullshit or whatever. Now they’re making $150K a year doing the same job, minus the reflective belts and mandatory sexual harassment awareness training. This leaves the MI community with less studs, more puds, and no reason to change its reflective belt-oriented thinking. The whole arrangement is pretty corrupt; everyone wins at the expense of the nominal client-the taxpayer.
Also, the distinction between intel and information is a joke. Quit blowing smoke, dude. We all know what analysts actually do 95% of the time-”ctrl+c, ctrl+v.”
Tim and Chim chim, thanks for your views on the “spy ring” fiasco. You did a great job of breaking down the situation.
Maybe I’m strange, or perhaps its my rather limited experience with them, but I actually find the .45 1911 easier to control than a 9mm Glock. Plus the Glock has that weird trigger/safety setup that, as you say, makes a clean break more challenging. I love the 1911, and wish it were still the standard service sidearm. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the Beretta M-9. Then again, if the Marines can teach me to shoot as well as babatim, I won’t mind what sidearm they give me. (As long as it doesn’t jam…)
Tim,
You wrote:
“One need only revisit the Department of Defense’s estimate that it costs the uniformed services roughly one million dollars a year per service member in combat. Comparatively, it costs less than half that figure to employ seasoned contract specialists in the same environment.”
I too have seen references to the “$1M per soldier per year” figure but exactly where are you getting your numbers that it costs “less than half that figure to employ seasoned contract specialists”?
Most of the $1M cost per soldier per year come from support costs… food, fuel, etc…
Most contractors supporting these operations overseas live and work on US/Allied bases and consume food, fuel, etc from the same sources and supply lines while they are there in addition to the added cost from the often $100,000~$200,000 (or higher) salaries as well as the profit margin of the company (aka “management and administrative overhead”).
I’m not dissing defense contractors (I have been one for the last few years) but it is simply unsustainable to pay a private company $2-300K per head to do a job that a seasoned SSG or CPT can and should be doing.
Sure there are some low-density skills that we will always have to rely on contractors for like EOD, language skills, SF, etc…
However these should be kept to a minimum and should be mostly used as trainers/advisers/mentors used to get US soldiers up to speed and technically and tactically proficient.
I’m pretty skeptical when the number of contractors in war zones gets high enough to be nearly equal to the number of soldiers (as in OIF not long ago) and I’d be hard pressed to accept the idea that outsourcing military/defense work to private enterprise saves the taxpayer money; except in a small minority of cases such as hiring TCN’s to work the DFAC in Kuwait and such.
Just my two cents from time spent in both the Green Suit (ACU’s) side and Contractors side.
Keep up the good writing!
~D
Interesting that you would bring that up Dakota. What does a contractor cost versus a soldier or federal employee? I was reading the other day that McChrystal ‘thought’ contractors were not cost effective, but he didn’t cite any source for that statement. Until the figures are nailed down, and there is a consensus about actual cost, then all of it is opinion.
The problem is no one wants to do an accurate accounting of it. Probably because of the effort involved in doing such a thing would be very complex.
Although there are reports that support the concept that contractors are more cost effective. The GAO did one this year that I thought was relevant.
—————–
Warfighter Support: A Cost Comparison of Using State Department Employees versus Contractors for Security Services in Iraq
GAO-10-266R March 4, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/at-long-last-ipoa-is-righ_b_486015.html
Matt,
That IPOA report reminds me of the govt corruption feature on Reddit where the guy discussed how the govt, if it wants to buy Mercedes’, simply needs to write objective specs requiring vehicles to have an emblem on the hood consisting of a circle with three lines joined in the center. Yes, certainly it’s cheaper to have Colombian gate guards at the embassy than it is to hire and train State employees in the US; the Colombians are even cheaper than US Army privates, in theory. So what? How is this relevant to intel (other than atmospherics)?
Also, outsorcing external security for economic reasons has been done before, by the Roman Empire in the fourth century. In retrospect, was that a good idea?
[...] The enemy is surging on almost all fronts and gaining new allies everyday, our Commander-in-Chief is still AWOL, and our SecDef is busy dismantling our military (is nobody else carrying this article?) and wrecking our intel agencies. [...]
There are many weapons more powerful than a 1911A. The IMA Desert Eagle 50 caliber springs to mind. The 44 magnum is a much more powerful round than any 45 and there is the legendary IMA Desert Eagle mod done to make it fire the 9×39mm Russian Special forces round. A necked up 7.62×39mm that the AK 47 fires.
I dunno ’bout pistols. Get him a nice G36 like the one the UN minder in Kabul was killed for.
He’s awful skinny. You both could be hitting the weights a bit more methinks.
B,
The report was constructed by the General Accounting Office and not the IPOA. David Isenberg was just talking about how the IPOA can now say that ‘contractors are cost effective’ based on the results of the GAO report.
Also, might I suggest you read the latest CNAS report on contractors if you would like to get a pretty good run down on the current status of contractors, and what the future holds. The only hint I will give, is that the paper directly challenges Max Weber’s definition of the state and all the misconceptions about contractors in the history of US war fighting. Nothing in the paper indicated to me that the practice of contracting was going to end.
http://www.cnas.org/node/4560
As to why contractors matter in this discussion about intelligence? Tim brought it up in the post, and I am only adding to the discussion. Besides, if anyone cared to see the defense budgets over the years and notice how much money goes towards private intelligence companies, you would be floored. SAIC, CACI, Booz Allen, etc. all are deeply involved with intelligence in one way or another. Booz Allen looks like they plan on dominating the cyber warfare market, which really gets them deep into the intel side of things. So yeah, intelligence operations and contractors is a discussion worth having in my view.
http://www.wildeyguns.com/wildey.html
.475 Wildey Magnum for bottom feeders.
http://www.pfeifer-waffen.at/cms/html/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=32
Zeliska .600 Nitro Magnum in the jam proof revolver.
“Due to the weight of the gun, shooting the Zeliska is no problem for a skilled marksman. There won’t be any permanent damage inflicted to your wrist.”
THAT’S
GOOD,
R
Matt,
what I meant by my question is that gate guards and other non-cleared security personnel being cheaper than organic security doesn’t translate to intel guys with a TS and 5-20 years on active duty on a contract being cheaper than their military counterparts. The article pretty much says that. Even in the security field, there are many ways to skin a cat; every teamhouse I’ve been to has had a directly contracted local national force, trained and supervised by the guys whose security they were providing. Even when you compare them with using enlisted guys to do the job, there are hidden benefits to the latter approach: an E3 from a certain Task Force pulling gate guard at a compound can go out on a mission if necessary; a Ugandan from TC doing that job can’t. Of course, at a certain point, like when you’re using linguists to pull tower guard and escort LN cement trucks, it’s more beneficial to the military to just use a contractor. It’s even more beneficial to go grab some of the legion of fobbits whose skills are not called for, and use them. Go to any megaFOB’s beauty shop and you’ll see a line of guys waiting to get their nails done in the middle of the day, no shit.
I’m well aware of CACIs role in providing intel support, and have taken advantage of their services before. Great guys, by and large, and very dedicated to supporting their customer. However, many of them had been on active duty and got out to make the big bucks doing their same exact job in a more flexible organization for a lot more money. This, from the point of view of military effectiveness, is like doing a tonsillectomy through the rectum. Why not just reform the military to give those guys more latitude and leverage to do their job while they’re in? I mean, aside from the fact that it would mean listening to enlisted SMEs, not micromanaging them, and actually providing them with a supply chain worth a shit.
Y’know…
Re-reading this I noticed something…
Logan has the coolest Dad in the universe.
DUDE,
THAT
RULES,
R
lol Spy Swap like some thing in the movie.
Hot, young, sexy girl with a tight body is waiting for you right here.——–www.mywebcamgirl.net