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i 

50–056 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–32] 

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING: 

HAS THE CALL FOR URGENT 

REFORM BEEN ANSWERED? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 25, 2009 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

STEVE DETERESA, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

TREY HOWARD, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009, Contingency Contracting: Has the Call for Urgent Reform Been Answered? ............................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 ................................................................................... 29 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009 

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING: HAS THE CALL FOR URGENT 

REFORM BEEN ANSWERED? 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 3 

WITNESSES 

Assad, Shay D., Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Office 

of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology), U.S. Department of Defense ............................................................................................. 4 

Harrington, Brig. Gen. Edward M., USA (Ret.), Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of the Army (Procurement), U.S. Department of the Army .............................. 6 

Parsons, Jeffrey P., Executive Director, U.S. Army Contracting Command, 

U.S. Army Materiel Command ............................................................................ 8 

Scott, Maj. Gen. Darryl A., USAF, Deputy Commander, Task Force to Support 

Business Operations in Iraq, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Business Transformation), U.S. Department of Defense ....................... 9 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Assad, Shay D. .................................................................................................. 40 

Harrington, Brig. Gen. Edward M., joint with Jeffrey P. Parsons ............... 68 

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 33 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 37 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 83 

(1) 

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING: HAS THE CALL FOR 

URGENT REFORM BEEN ANSWERED? 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 25, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:04 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. Welcome to the first 

in a series of three hearings to follow up on specific legislation related to contingency contracting and the Department of Defense’s 

(DOD) acquisition workforce. Today’s hearing will focus on the Department’s and the Army’s progress in implementing the recommendations made by the Gansler Commission on Army acquisition and program management for expeditionary operations. 

Our next hearing will focus on the congressionally mandated 

Memorandum of Understanding that outlines DOD’s, State Department’s, and United States Agency for International Development’s 

(USAID) role and responsibilities for managing contracts and contractors on the battlefield. 

Our third and final hearing in this series this spring will look at 

progress made in implementing legislative provisions on improving 

the Department’s acquisition workforce from the last two defense 

authorizations. 

These three hearings examine specific topics that are part of the 

larger defense acquisition system, and as I am sure most people 

here know, Chairman Skelton has decided to bring about a HASC 

Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform, which is to be led by Congressman Rob Andrews, who is going to take a look at more general questions of how to provide the warfighters what they need, 

when they need it, and how to provide the best value to the taxpayer in buying goods and services for the Department. And we are 

working with Congressman Andrews. And the staffs have been 

working together. 

We are very excited about the work that is going to be done this 

year. To support our nation’s missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

thousands of contracts worth billions of dollars have been awarded, 

and the Department of Defense has hired an army of contractors. 

There is currently one contractor for every service member in Iraq, 

and roughly two contractors for each service member in Afghani-
2 

stan. The Army in its role as DOD’s Executive Agent for contingency contracting was unprepared to manage all of them when 

these contracts began. The result has been a disappointing amount 

of fraud, waste and abuse. Who ultimately pays? We all do, the 

American taxpayer. And ultimately our men and women in uniform 

suffer if they don’t get what they think the American taxpayers 

paid for. 

In response to these problems, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren 

appointed the Gansler Commission to review lessons learned from 

recent operations and to provide recommendations to improve the 

Army’s capabilities for contingency contracting. The Commission’s 

recommendations call for a major change in the Army’s cultural attitude toward contracting and for institutional changes to the 

Army’s contracting capability. 

Since the Gansler Commission reported its findings and recommendations, both the Army and DOD have issued progress reports that were required by the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization. Today we look forward to hearing about the progress that 

has been made in implementing the Commission’s recommendations. We want to know if Army contracting career paths and leadership positions have been established and what progress has been 

made in rebuilding the Army’s contracting workforce. We would 

like our witnesses to discuss how the Commission’s recommendations apply to the other services and to highlight any other Department initiatives taken to improve contracting capability. We are especially interested in the training of those outside the contracting 

workforce, those in the operational forces who have to deal with 

contracts and contractors in the battle space. 

We are very pleased that all four of you are with us today. And 

we know that all four of you have worked very, very hard on these 

issues, and it is clear that progress has been made, and we appreciate you being with us. 

From the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Director 

of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy and Strategic 

Sourcing, Mr. Shay Assad. Mr. Assad is also the Executive Director 

of the Panel on Contracting Integrity, which was established by 

statute in the Fiscal Year 2007 Defense Bill. 

We also have two acquisition officials from the Army, the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement, Retired Brigadier 

General Edward Harrington, and the Executive Director for the 

new Army Contracting Command, Mr. Jeff Parsons. 

We are fortunate to have with us Major General Darryl Scott, 

U.S. Air Force, who is just six days away from his retirement. General Scott was on the front line of contingency contracting as the 

Commander of the Joint Contingency Contracting Command for 

Iraq and Afghanistan (JCCIA) from January 2006 until January 

2008. And let me say, General Scott, thank you for your service 

and for the service you are rendering today. 

Thank you all for being here. I am going to yield to Mr. Wittman 

for any comments that he may want to make at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 
3 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome our witnesses today. Thank you so much for joining us and 

thank you so much for your service to our nation. We deeply appreciate that. 

Defense acquisition and contracting are matters that have gotten 

a great deal of attention in recent months from the public and the 

President and from the Congress. Most of the current dissatisfaction is directed at weapons system acquisition, and there is plenty 

of room for improvement in that area. The Department of Defense 

has also received some significant criticism regarding the cost and 

less than exacting oversight of general support contracts in the contingency operations, which is the subject of today’s hearing. But to 

be fair this is an evolving, expanding area of military operations. 

While even George Washington relied on contractors for battlefield support, contractors today are an essential part of our deployed force structure. Our way of waging war is such that our deployed forces now rely more and more on contractors to provide 

basic and increasingly more operational services in contingency operations. 

As important as contractor-provided services are to the battlefield commander, little conceptual thought has been applied regarding how best to structure the support system so the commander 

knows precisely what services to expect and how to manage contractors. Additionally, the military services have largely reduced 

their pool of acquisition specialists in recent years. The combination of greater demand for contractor services, fewer professional 

contract administrators, and no overarching infrastructures led to 

some undesirable outcomes. 

Our purpose today is not to go over those mistakes, but to see 

how the Department and military services have embraced the recommendations of the Gansler Commission to improve our expeditionary contracting. I think the Department is headed in the right 

direction in the increased pace of operations, and base expansions 

in Afghanistan will provide ample opportunity to demonstrate 

greater competency. 

Proper oversight of contingency contracts is important, and we 

spend as much or more on these contractors as we do on weapons 

acquisition, which makes it even more important in the years to 

come. These contracts often do not get the same attention because 

the work is performed overseas by more than 50,000 U.S. citizen 

contractors and over 200,000 foreign nationals in the central command area of operations alone. 

Mr. Chairman, the magnitude of contingency contracting operations clearly deserves this committee’s continuing attention, and 

I thank you for your leadership in scheduling this hearing today, 

and our witnesses who are experts in DOD’s efforts in this area, 

and I look forward to their testimony. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 
4 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you Mr. Wittman. You all may recall that in 

April of 2008, just about a year ago, Mr. Skelton in the full committee held a similar kind of hearing on how we were doing with 

the Gansler Commission. This issue of how monies have been 

spent, which you all have been dedicating your life to for some time 

now, we appreciate it, is one that the Congress and the American 

people are very interested in. In fact, this morning Mr. Skelton had 

a hearing, which I thought was an interesting hearing, on the title 

‘‘Effective Counterinsurgency: How the Use and Misuse of Reconstruction Funding Affects the War Effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.’’ 

I think that is ultimately what this is about; how we spend 

money affects the results and affects our men and women in uniform and their families. And so that is why we want to do this 

hearing. And we will continue probably to, maybe not this subcommittee, but the Congress is going to continue to look at this for 

some time. 

Your written statements will be made a part of the record. And 

then we will hear from Mr. Assad. And then I understand General 

Harrington and Mr. Parsons, you have a joint written statement. 

And then we will go to General Scott, who didn’t give us a written 

statement, but is going to make some introductory comments. 

We will use the clock. When you see the light go to red that just 

tells you that five minutes have gone by. You should feel free to 

go beyond that if there are some things you need to say, but just 

to give you an idea of time. So Mr. Assad, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF SHAY D. ASSAD, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE PROCUREMENT AND ACQUISITION POLICY, OFFICE OF THE 

UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (ACQUISITION AND TECHNOLOGY), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. ASSAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. My name is Shay Assad. I am Director of the Defense 

Procurement and Acquisition Policy. I am also presently serving as 

Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and 

Technology. In that capacity, among other things, I am responsible 

for all contracting policy with regard to contracting in the combat 

environment. And I am also the functional leader for all of those 

who do contracting within the Department of Defense. 

I want to thank you today for the opportunity to appear before 

you and to participate in today’s hearing. At your request I will address the Department-wide applicability of the Gansler Commission recommendations, actions taken since our report was written, 

and other ongoing initiatives. The Army will be reporting to Congress directly on its own activities. 

The Gansler Commission developed a broad-based strategy for 

addressing shortcomings identified during its assessment. On October 31, 2007, the Commission published its recommendations in an 

independent report. The committee provided four overarching areas 

of recommendation: increase the stature, quantity, and career development of military and civilian contracting professionals; restructure the organization and restore responsibility to facilitate 

contracting and contract management in an expeditionary environment; provide training and tools for overall contracting activities in 

expeditionary operations; and to obtain legislative regulatory and 
5 

policy assistance to enable contracting effectiveness in expeditionary operations. 

The committee provided 40 specific recommendations in support 

of their four overarching areas. Twenty-two of those recommendations were specific to the Army, and we believe that the Army is 

making significant progress towards meeting those recommendations. But there is much work left to be done. The remaining 18 

recommendations were found to affect the entire Department and 

are applicable to all services. All require legislative, regulatory or 

policy enablers and are the focus of my testimony. 

In order to implement the requirements of Section 849, the 

Under Secretary established the Task Force for Contracting and 

Contract Management for Expeditionary Operations. The purpose 

of that task force was to evaluate the applicability of the recommendations to the entire Department. It was staffed by eight 

cross-cutting teams, members from all three services, the Joint 

Staff, Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), Defense Acquisition University, and the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq 

and Afghanistan participated. I acted as the Executive Director. 

While the Department agrees with the intended outcomes of all 

of the Gansler recommended actions, we did not agree with specific 

recommendations as they were written in one specific area, and 

that is as it related to DCMA, and I will be happy to discuss that 

with you. At this point, I would like to provide you a brief overview 

of several actions since the report to Congress, as well as other ongoing DOD efforts that continue to go beyond the recommendations 

in the four areas. 

With regard to contract management and oversight, the military 

departments and defense agencies must plan and program to have 

the force structure capable of supporting the current effort of contingency operations consistent with their core capabilities. To do 

this we created a Joint Contracting Command services executive 

steering group. 

On February 19th, the Deputy Secretary of Defense required 

each military department and agency to conduct a total force assessment of their required contingency contracting officers and the 

contracting officer representatives to meet their mission. With regard to civilian personnel policy, the Department must be able to 

fully access the range of talent within the DOD civilian community 

in order to quickly and efficiently support complex mission operations. To accomplish this mission the Department is staffing a 

program office to oversee its civilian expeditionary workforce initiative. 

Regarding Section 852 of the National Defense Authorization Act 

of Fiscal Year 2008, the Department has taken important steps to 

have the Department of Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund targeted for increased training associated with contingency contracting officers. 

I want to thank Congress for their support of the acquisition 

workforce and the flexibilities provided for using this fund. 

In the area of tools and training for overall contracting activities 

and contract operations, we have made significant progress. The 

Department has made improvements in training available in sup-
6 

port of expeditionary contracting for both the workforce as well as 

the noncontracting workforce. 

The instructor pilot session for advanced contingency contracting 

will get under way this spring. It will provide just-in-time training 

to journeymen contracting professionals deploying into management positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The Commission recommended that we train as we fight. Operators outside the acquisition community must be trained on the role, 

importance and rules of operating with contractors and expeditionary operations. All senior leaders need to have a fundamental 

understanding of what operational contracting support is, the ability to plan and integrate the contract support with other military 

and interagency capabilities, and the ability to account for and 

manage contractors as an integrated part of the total force. We are 

working with the Joint Forces Command to make this training a 

reality. 

In summary, the Department has implemented or adjudicated all 

of the Commission’s recommendations, but there is more work to 

be done. Our warfighters deserve our very best effort, and the taxpayers rightfully should expect our best effort in providing our 

warfighters the goods and services they need to meet their mission. 

Finally, the Department is grateful for the support that Congress 

has provided in enabling us to achieve the necessary improvements, and I am prepared to answer your questions. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Assad can be found in the Appendix on page 40.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Assad. General Harrington, you and 

Mr. Parsons will do your statements. 

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. EDWARD M. HARRINGTON, USA 

(RET.), DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY (PROCUREMENT), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 

General HARRINGTON. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, 

distinguished Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 

thank you for this opportunity to discuss the Army’s progress and 

completed actions to enable an agile expeditionary and responsive 

contracting mission for our warfighters while ensuring proper fiscal 

stewardship of our taxpayer dollars. It is my honor to represent the 

Army as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Procurement, having 

assumed this position last December. 

As an introduction, while on active duty I served as Director for 

Contracting for the Army, and in my last assignment as a general 

officer led the Defense Contract Management Agency as its Director. 

As you noted, sir, with me today is Mr. Jeff Parsons, Executive 

Director of the Army Contracting Command. We have a joint written statement that I respectfully request be made a part of the 

record for today’s hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, in August 2007, the Secretary of the Army chartered the Special Commission on Contracting led by Dr. Jacques 

Gansler to look at the long-term strategic view of the Army’s acquisition and contracting system in support of expeditionary operations. At the same time, the Secretary established the Army Con-
7 

tracting Task Force internally to review current contracting operations and take immediate actions where necessary. 

With that work complete, the Army established the Army Contracting Campaign Plan Task Force in February of 2008 to review 

the Commission recommendations and other contracting recommendations, and determine the requirements and resources 

needed to address them. The mandate of this task force has been 

met, and the workload has been transferred to my organization, 

Mr. Parson’s organization, and other enduring organizations responsible for sustaining long-term Army contracting success. 

Mr. Chairman, the Army’s progress has been steady and significant, and the senior leadership remains fully committed to executing and sustaining this positive trend. We have been guided by 

the Gansler Commission’s overarching recommendations: Implement the Commission’s recommendations rapidly and measure success. 

In addition, the Commission outlined four supporting recommendations for the success of future expeditionary operation. 

These four supporting recommendations included 40 actions to correct discrepancies identified. Twenty-two of these are Army specific, while the remaining 18 are within the purview of the Office 

of the Secretary of Defense, or are legislative actions being addressed jointly among the services with OSD as the lead agent. 

The Army has taken action on or is implementing 21 of the 22 

Army-specific recommendations. The remaining one, to increase the 

contracting workforce by 400 military and 1,000 civilians, will require more time to ensure we both have the quality and the quantity necessary to execute our contracting mission. Our plan for fiscal year 2009 is to increase our military contracting workforce by 

131 members and our civilian workforce by more than 500 members. The increase in workforce size will continue over the next 

three years. We thank the Congress for the five additional general 

officer billets designated for acquisition. As of September 2008 the 

Army selected one additional general officer, a brigadier general, as 

Commander of the recently established Expeditionary Contracting 

Command, and we will select more general officers this year. 

As an experienced member of the Senior Executive Service, Mr. 

Parsons heads the Army Contracting Command, a two-star position, that is part of the Army Materiel Command. Another billet 

presently filled by a member of the Senior Executive Service is in 

the one-star Mission and Installation Contracting Command. The 

remaining two billets are the Military Deputy for Contracting in 

the Army Corps of Engineers and an Acquisition Contracting General within my office. 

A critically important issue for us is the size, structure and training of the military and civilian acquisition workforce. From 1998 to 

2006 the contracting workforce declined by 20 percent, while the 

workload and the number of dollars associated with that workload 

experienced a five-fold increase. 

The Army, with the help of Congress and the Secretary of Defense, is making steady forward progress in addressing these workforce workload issues. Over the years we have added more than 

850 contract professionals. This holistic focus on Army contracting 

will ensure that we attract and maintain additional military and 
8 

civilian contracting professionals who are trained to meet the increasingly complex demands placed on them. 

Sir, this concludes my opening remarks. Mr. Parsons also has remarks, after which I look forward to your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of General Harrington and Mr. 

Parsons can be found in the Appendix on page 68.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Parsons. 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY P. PARSONS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

U.S. ARMY CONTRACTING COMMAND, U.S. ARMY MATERIEL 

COMMAND 

Mr. PARSONS. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, I appreciate the opportunity to be here before you to discuss 

our progress in implementing the recommendations contained in 

the Gansler Commission report. While the U.S. Army’s Smart Contracting Report to Congress dated December 14, 2008, provides a 

broad overview of how the Army has responded to the 22 Army actions specifically identified in the Gansler report, I am here today 

to report on the progress we have made in standing up the U.S. 

Army Contracting Command and its two subordinate commands, 

the Expeditionary Contracting Command and the Mission and Installation Contracting Command. 

The standup of these organizations was one of the first actions 

directed by the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Pete Geren, 

in response to the Gansler Commission report, and continues to be 

a focus of our Army senior leadership. In fact, this past Saturday 

I briefed the Chief of Staff of the Army and General Ann 

Dunwoody, our Commander of the Army Materiel Command, on 

our progress in standing up this new command. 

One year ago we provisionally established the U.S. Army Contracting Command at a ceremony held at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. By 

combining the contracting resources of the former Army Contracting Agency and the U.S. Army Materiel Command, we designed a new two-star subordinate command to the Army Materiel 

Command that is responsible for global contracting support to our 

Army and its soldiers. Our concept for the new command was approved by the Army in mid-July and provided increases to both our 

civilian and military resources. These additional resources will add 

over 900 civilians and nearly 400 military to the new command. 

The majority of these resources will be contracting specialists, contracting officers, and contingency contracting personnel. 

We are now in the process of hiring civilians and increasing accessions for our military personnel. Between the Active, Guard and 

Reserve components we will eventually have 905 soldiers in our expeditionary contracting structure. 

To date, our Army Contracting Command and Expeditionary 

Contracting Command headquarters are nearing a 50 percent fill 

rate. We have appointed a one-star general, Brigadier General 

Camille Nichols, as leader of the Expeditionary Contracting Command, and we have activated four contracting support brigades led 

by seasoned colonels. These brigades provide contracting support 

and contract planning support to our Army service component commanders. These brigades currently support U.S. Army Central 
9 

Command, U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Army Korea, U.S. Army North, 

and U.S. Army South. Later this year we will activate two more 

contracting support brigades and the remaining 7th Brigade will be 

activated in 2011. 

Underneath these brigades we have eight contingency contracting battalions. To date we have activated five of these battalions. The battalions provide contracting support and contract support planning at the Army Corps level and provide oversight of our 

senior contingency contracting teams and contingency contracting 

teams. These four-person teams provide contracting support at the 

division and brigade level. By the end of fiscal year 2009, we will 

have activated 42 teams. 

The teams, battalions, and brigades, are modular in nature and 

can be deployed worldwide in support of military operations. The 

teams and battalions get their day-to-day contracting training and 

work experience at our installation and contracting centers located 

across the Army Contracting Command. 

While we have a ways to go in staffing and training our contingency contracting soldiers, we are providing forces to the Joint 

Contracting Command—Iraq/Afghanistan in support of Army joint 

manning requirements. Our soldiers also support numerous exercises in smaller military operations on a day-to-day basis across the 

globe. 

We have tested our deployable capability and doctrine in two significant joint exercises in Panama and Europe. Lessons learned 

from these exercises are used to refine our doctrine and training. 

There is still much to be accomplished, but I am confident that we 

are making good progress in building our expeditionary contracting 

capability to support our Army and future joint operations. 

I appreciate the congressional support of the Army’s efforts in 

providing our nation’s warfighters and allies with quality products 

and services. We continue to pursue improvements in our contracting processes and workforce as demonstrated by our Secretary’s commitment to implement the recommendations in the 

Gansler Commission report. I look forward to your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Parsons and General Harrington can be found in the Appendix on page 68.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Parsons. 

General Scott. 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. DARRYL A. SCOTT, USAF, DEPUTY 

COMMANDER, TASK FORCE TO SUPPORT BUSINESS OPERATIONS IN IRAQ, OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION), U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

General SCOTT. Thank you Congressman Snyder, Congressman 

Wittman. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today’s 

panel. 

I am Major General Darryl Scott, and with my retirement this 

month I conclude 34 years of service with the United States Air 

Force. For more than 28 of those years I served as a military contracting officer. During that time I was guided through a variety 

of acquisition and logistics assignments and development opportunities that taught me not only how to make a sound business deal, 
10 

but also how to establish and maintain the standards of stewardship that the American people expect, as well as how to develop, 

employ and support the elements of military power. 

I have held line and staff jobs. I graduated from the Air Command and Staff College and Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces. I have commanded three times, and I have served as the 

Director of the Defense Contract Management Agency from December 2003 to January 2006. The senior officers who nurtured me as 

my mentors, leaders and commanders had similar backgrounds to 

mine; a balance of operations, leadership and contracting and acquisition education training and experience. Their experiences 

taught them that the essence of good stewardship is a careful balance between effective oversight and operational mission accomplishment. Too little attention paid to either results in waste and 

mission failure. And they made sure that I understood that also. 

For me, all that experience and preparation culminated in the 

most challenging and rewarding assignment in my career as Commanding General of the Joint Contracting Command—Iraq/Afghanistan from February 5, 2006, to January 19, 2008. During my tour 

nearly 900 of the finest airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines and DOD 

civilians I have ever met rotated through the command. Almost 

without exception they were as honorable, mission focused, hard 

working and selfless a group as you could ever wish for, and I am 

extremely proud of them. 

Sometimes hard work and self-sacrifice by themselves aren’t 

enough. Too frequently we found that the individuals the services 

sent us weren’t adequately prepared to work in an environment as 

complex as Iraq. Some had been trained only for small purchases 

of commercial supplies, yet in my first year there 50 percent of our 

workload were large infrastructure reconstruction projects. Some 

were well versed in the processes for awarding new contracts, but 

lacked experience in managing and overseeing a contractor’s performance. Many were unfamiliar with the exceptional authorities 

Congress has provided for streamlining contingency contracting operations. Most had no experience synchronizing contracting activity 

with the strategic objectives of the Iraq and Afghan campaign 

plans and no experience managing scarce human resources in ways 

that properly balance operational and business risks. Some, particularly among my Army personnel and Marine Corps commissioned officers, were on their first assignment in contracting. Almost literally a baptism by fire. 

It is clear to me that these shortcomings were not their fault, but 

rather the fault of a system that over a period of more than 10 

years had eliminated the path that produced the superb senior officers who mentored me. 

The Gansler report notes that at the time I took command the 

Army had no general officers in contracting, and indeed I was the 

only career contracting active duty flag officer in any of the services. I was privileged to be allowed to testify at length to the 

Gansler Commission about the challenges my command faced in 

trying to provide effective stewardship over contracting and the 

reasons behind those challenges. I was pleased with the comprehensiveness of the Commission’s findings and the seriousness 

with which the Army leadership responded. 
11 

Still I remain somewhat apprehensive. The circumstances that 

permitted the cadre of senior officers skilled in both contracting 

and operational art to wither away will require years of persistent 

effort to fix. I applaud the foresight of the Congress, OSD, and the 

Army in establishing 10 new contracting flag billets, five for the 

Army and five in the joint community. But the true test of this policy will be whether the bright young contracting lieutenant colonels 

of today will receive the care and attention from knowing mentors 

like I did, that care and attention that will enable them to advance 

into these positions. And will the brightest young captains and majors of tomorrow look at contracting experience as career enhancing 

or as a career detriment? 

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to your questions. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you all. I appreciate your all’s statements 

today. What we will do is Mr. Wittman and I will put ourselves on 

the five-minute clock and go back and forth here until we run out 

of things to ask about. 

I thought Mr. Assad, I thought it was your—no, I guess it was 

Mr. Harrington, your statement, you referred to it I think briefly 

on page eight in which you discussed what seemed to be the underlying problem. You say that we found that more than 600,000 contracts may be complete, but have not been officially closed out in 

the contract management system. We have taken immediate steps 

to obtain greater fidelity in this figure, explore the root causes, and 

implement a comprehensive plan to clear the backlog of contracts 

requiring closeout. A primary cause has been a 25 percent reduction in the contracting workforce during a period of 500-plus percent in contract—500 percent increase in contract transaction 

workload. 

I think that really describes the challenge that you all are dealing with, and that is not at all necessarily an Army created problem. That is as much a congressionally created problem as anything. But that really brings home—and as you just pointed out— 

brings home the problem. You just pointed out, General Scott, it 

can take a long time to put those pieces back together. It is a lot 

easier to reduce your cadre of trained people than it is to build it 

back up again when you have let them go. 

I think the first question I wanted to ask is to you, Mr. Assad. 

In your statement you refer to senior leadership. You say, quote, 

on page 23, ‘‘all senior leaders need to have a fundamental understanding of what operational contract support is, the ability to plan 

and integrate contract support with other military interagency capabilities, and the ability to account for and manage contractors as 

an integrated part of the total force.’’ 

And it seems like I suspect if we went out and talked to most 

Americans, are you aware that half the force that we have sent to 

Iraq are civilian contractors, only that they weren’t all sent there, 

significant numbers are brought from other countries who are 

there? But are you aware that over half of the support, or half of 

our force are civilian contractors? And I think over half of the contractors are for base support. It is not like they are doing something that is not significantly important to the force. I suspect most 

Americans would not think in those numbers. We always talk 
12 

about how many troops are in Iraq, pretty much a one-to-one ratio 

in Iraq since this thing has started. 

How do you think the military is doing and the Army is doing 

with regard to the concept of how significant the contracting force 

is, so significant that they need to prioritize in their mind the ability to manage contracting and manage contracts? 

Mr. ASSAD. Mr. Chairman, I don’t think there is any doubt that 

the leaders of today fully understand the fact that they are managing an integrated force, and that 148,000 contractors in Iraq and 

some 71,000 in Afghanistan, the commanders on the ground clearly 

have a much better understanding today than they did five years 

ago of the power of that force and the importance of that force. 

I can give you one personal example. I actually came on board 

into civilian service in 2004 with the Marine Corps, and I was a 

senior civilian contracting official with the Marines at that time. 

General Mike Hagee was the Commandant of the Marine Corps at 

that time. When I took over this position at OSD I went to see the 

Commandant to thank him for everything the Marine Corps had 

done for me. And he said to me, you know, Shay, six or seven years 

ago I might not have said this, but the reality is if, and he said 

I was a battlefield commander, if I was going to the battlefield one 

of the first three people I would bring with me is a contracting officer. And so there is no doubt that the leadership now understands 

the importance of being able to contract for certain nonorganic capability and then to integrate that capability into the force. 

This has been a learning experience for a number—for the entire 

community in terms of the large number of contractors that we 

have in our force. But there is no doubt that I think as we go forward contractors will remain part of the support force for the 

warfighting Army and Marine Corps especially. The reality is that 

I think as we go forward we are working with the Joint Forces 

Command now, so that we get training courses into all of our staff 

colleges and into all of our junior courses and our noncontracting 

military officers so they understand what it is like to have contractors supporting them and to have members of their operational 

force who will be responsible for overseeing that contract performance. And I think the Army is going through a transition right now 

in that regard in the sense that it is the operating force that really 

will provide most of the oversight for our post camp and station 

type activities, where we will always have folks from the Defense 

Contract Management Agency and professionals overseeing certain 

unique technical oversight of certain technical contracts in all of 

our engineering support contracts for our major weapons systems. 

But for post camp and station we will rely on our operating force 

to do that, and I think our operational commanders are up to it 

now. 

Dr. SNYDER. General Harrington, before I go to Mr. Wittman, do 

you want to comment on that issue of the senior leadership? 

General HARRINGTON. Certainly, sir. I will give you two examples. About a month and a half ago I was called in to brief the Vice 

Chief of Staff of the Army, much as we are discussing this today. 

And I got to my second slide on an update of Gansler and what we 

were doing with it, and he stopped me and he had all of the major 

Army commanders on video teleconference (VTC) hookups into the 
13 

Pentagon and all of the Army staff, to include some of the secretariat. And the reason he stopped me, he expressed very clearly to 

the chain of command throughout the Army that contracted support is a part of the Army, and he essentially said it is a part of 

our force structure, we have got to accept that we have got to get 

our arms around contracting officer representative (COR) support, 

the commanders in the field at each level have to emphasize the 

proper training, the selection of those CORs, that they are a vital 

component of ensuring the contractors deliver what they are on 

contract to deliver, and that they are the eyes and the ears for the 

contracting officer. 

As recently as a week and a half ago I provided, and Mr. Parsons 

did also, an update to the Secretary of the Army, and we are due 

back in another week to continue to follow up with him on the actions we are taking. 

So I think the senior Army leadership is tuned in. They know it 

is a matter of emphasis. They understand the value of what contracted support provides the Army and understand the necessity of 

overseeing it properly to make sure we get what we pay for. 

Mr. Parsons had just mentioned the Chief of Staff of the Army 

is General Dunwoody, last Saturday, and that is a component. We 

just left the VTC with our two bosses, General Dunwoody and Mr. 

Popps to come here. They discussed specifically the contracting 

support in Iraq and what we are going to do in Afghanistan. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And that is a great 

segue to my question. If you look in the long run it looks like in 

Iraq we are certainly going to see a reduction in demand for contracting and contractor support. But it seems like in the near term 

as we move personnel and equipment out of Iraq there is going to 

be an increase in demand. We are also going to see that in Afghanistan as we move more personnel and equipment into Afghanistan. 

With that being the case, can you talk a little bit about what 

steps need to be taken to prepare for this surge in contractor support and for the demands that it is going to place on the contingency contracting system? 

Mr. ASSAD. Sir, we are working with the Army with regard to 

what are the increases to the Joint Contracting Command that are 

going to be necessary to meet this requirement, and whether or not 

there is a civilian workforce component of certain types of contracting that we can do in the rear to support what will be done 

on the ground. So we are actively looking right now at increasing 

the number of contracting officers on the ground in the Joint Contracting Command, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the very reasons you mentioned. 

General HARRINGTON. At the conclusion of our VTC today we 

confirmed Brigadier General Bill Phillips is a contracting—has a 

contracting background. He commands the JCCIA that Darryl 

Scott commanded. He has done a deliberate workload assessment 

both in Iraq and Afghanistan and looks at weighting the effort in 

Iraq, for instance, with more civilians because of the relatively 

more secure environment there and weighting the Afghanistan requirements with more military. 

I would ask Mr. Parsons, if it is okay, to talk further on that. 
14 

Mr. WITTMAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. PARSONS. Sir, one of the other things that we have done that 

we learned out of Kuwait is that we could establish some reachback capabilities, is what we call it, where we do some of the contracting back here in the States for the theater. You can’t do this 

in all cases, and certainly you still need presence in that country. 

But we have established a 10 to 12-person cell dedicated to the 

Joint Contracting Command in Iraq and Afghanistan now at Rock 

Island. We are going to increase that. And as General Phillips identifies requirements that he believes we can execute back here in 

the United States in support of him, we will do that. That allows 

some reduction on the demand for having people right there on the 

ground. It also gives us the ability to reach into a lot more expertise when it comes to the more complex contracts. So that is the 

other aspect we are doing. 

We are also putting a Logistics Civil Augmentation Program 

(LOGCAP) presence with LOGCAP IV into Afghanistan to help 

with the surge requirements. In fact, task orders have already been 

issued under LOGCAP IV in support of the buildup there. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Scott, your thoughts. 

General SCOTT. Congressman, I will remind everybody I have returned from Iraq 14 months ago, so I don’t feel that I would ever 

second guess Brigadier General Phillips and his assessment of 

what is necessary. But I will say that one of the things that came 

out of the Gansler report was a realization on all of our parts that, 

first of all, we needed more people in theater. And you heard from 

Mr. Assad that that plan is under way. But as Mr. Parsons said, 

if we plan the work properly you don’t have to do all of the work 

in theater. 

I would say that one of the maturation steps of the theater of the 

contingency environment has been recognizing that we need to do 

a better job of planning and organizing. Frankly, my predecessors 

were faced with a pick-up game—they show up in the driveway 

and the next game you play is in the Sweet 16—where now we are 

doing a far better job on that and we are learning an awful lot and 

taking advantage of that. 

Mr. WITTMAN. We only talked a little bit about integrating this 

whole thought process on contractor support. Have combatant commanders recognized the importance of contractor support, and how 

many have included operational contractor support requirements in 

either their op plans or their con plan? 

Mr. ASSAD. Sir, we are working with—we now have an organization called the Joint Contracting Acquisition Support Office. The 

purpose of that office is to accomplish that very mission. That is 

to work with each of the combatant commanders and ensure that 

they in fact have contracting planning support done in their op borders. Three or four years ago frankly those op borders would have 

been pretty bare in terms of the direction and the scope of contracting. 

In today’s environment we just conducted, for example, our first 

Joint Contracting Command training over in European Command 

(EUCOM). We have got two more training sessions going on this 

year, one in Pacific Command (PACOM) and one in Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), I think. But the idea here is to get the plans 
15 

in place so that our operational commanders not only understand 

what is the scope of the contracting support that needs to be 

brought to bear, but what are the contracting tools that are going 

to be used to get that contracting there on time and, more importantly or just as importantly, who is going to oversee this so that 

the taxpayers get what they are supposed to get and our 

warfighters get the goods and services they wanted. 

Mr. PARSONS. If I could add to that. We just recently this past 

August participated in a joint exercise called PANAMEX, which focused on Panama down in the Southern Hemisphere. And it was 

the first time that, not really the first time, but the second time 

that we tested this joint task force and joint contracting by deploying one of our contracting support brigades. And they started very 

early on with the joint task force commander and the other services 

in the planning for that operation. 

So we are proving that the up-front planning pays off. One of the 

things that they did was they included the Air Force contracting 

folks, they included the Navy folks, and by that early planning 

were able to actually identify contract vehicles that were already 

in place that could be used for things like opening a port. And so 

we are seeing this paying off in spades now. 

And what my observation is, I think there is a lot more jointness 

that is now taking place between the services as we work with 

these combatant commanders in doing their operational plans. 

General SCOTT. Sir, if I may add, one of the things that I think 

the Army has done extremely well is the Army is out in front in 

developing organizational concepts that facilitate the planning 

part. The problem prior to the establishment of the contract support brigade was you had military organizations that were designed to award contracts, but they weren’t designed to plan the ingress phase, the transition phases, to do the kinds of market research that you need to do to see what is available in theaters. 

When I first saw the structure of the contracting support brigades 

I said, gee whiz, I wish I had this when I was walking into Iraq. 

It would have made life a whole lot simpler, because you have folks 

already who understand what the tasks are and how to sequence 

things in order to make them work a whole lot smoother, and we 

sort of learned all that on the fly. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. I guess using the jargon that you all use more than 

we do, General Scott, you talk about these skills being a core competency and not something that you kind of pick up as you need 

to when you go to a new theater or something. And it sounds like 

you are going back to the discussion about what are the senior 

leaders doing that we are moving in that direction. Is that what 

you are saying? 

General SCOTT. Yes, sir. I would say that the real challenge is 

getting them to understand that it is not just knowledge of the 

Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), it is understanding how do 

you—what the concept of operation is for supporting a force, given 

the particular mission that that force had. This is one of the reasons why you really need military senior folks in there, because 

core competencies for military force employment are in the uniform 

side of the Department of Defense. And it is that knowledge and 
16 

skill, combined with FAR-based knowledge, combined with sound 

business judgment that results in a good contracting support plan. 

If any of those pieces are missing, the job becomes orders of magnitude more difficult. And frankly, those are the kinds of things 

that we have seen where fraud, waste and abuse can occur. It 

starts with if you don’t have a really good plan, if you don’t know 

how you are going to do oversight, if you don’t have the people 

identified and trained to task, the opportunities for mischief grow. 

Dr. SNYDER. This is your all’s book here I think. This appeared 

in my office today. I didn’t request it. But your book brings home 

another issue to everything you just said there, General Scott. But 

this does not look like a nice pristine real estate office. Those are 

pieces of paper on what is a hood of a jeep, I think, or a hood of 

some vehicle. You have got that whole environment too that you 

are in strange settings and dealing with different languages and 

trying to do things very, very rapidly. That seems to be the theme 

to this book of how to do these things when you are in difficult environments. Is that a fair statement? 

General SCOTT. Yes, sir. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask, maybe I will ask you, Mr. Assad. 

With regard to the CERP funds, I guess that is the Commander’s 

Emergency Response Program, isn’t that the acronym? Where do 

you see the management and contracting and oversight of the 

CERP funds, which we have had this discussion on the congressional side, are these development funds? I don’t think they are development funds, I think they are counterinsurgency funds. And in 

an area that has just been cleared out and I see 300 men standing 

around and I can pay them five dollars a day to clean trash and 

that gets them occupied, I would rather, who cares about the paperwork, is a bit of an attitude at that time. But I would like to 

hear your review of how you see the CERP funds in this whole picture. 

Mr. ASSAD. Dr. Snyder, that is an interesting point. When I got 

to OSD, one of the concerns that was expressed by some of the 

operational leadership was that we were invoking too many FARbased principles, Federal Acquisition Regulation principles, on the 

CERP fund, and we were preventing it from being used in the 

manner that it should be used. So we did a pretty exhaustive examination of that. And as you all know, there are no regulations 

that necessarily have to apply to that. And in fact there were no 

FAR regulations that had applied. But it was the operational commanders themselves and their concern that the money be properly 

accounted for that led to very stringent rulemaking amongst noncontracting folks, if you will, in an effort to try to account for those 

funds properly. 

And I would like, maybe General Scott can talk a little bit about 

that in terms of the ordering officers who were actually using those 

funds. 

General SCOTT. I would like to talk about that in terms of two 

brief war stories. The first one was when the now current Vice 

Chief of Staff of the Army, who was the core commander at the 

time, invited me for lunch at his headquarters and forgot to inform 

me I was the main course. But actually what General Corelli had 

in mind was a campaign, and this was Operation Together For-
17 

ward, the second battle of Baghdad. His strategy was clear: Hold 

and build. So we did a security operation to clear the area, we established a cordon around it to hold it, and then we want to build 

within that area, whether it is restoring public services, whether 

it is hiring the 300 guys that are around the corner to pick up the 

trash, but we want to do something to show the folks that the quality of their lives was going to improve. 

The problem that he was faced with was the FAR-based bureaucracy. Even in the best of circumstances if you are going to spend 

a half million dollars under the FAR, it is going to take you about 

45 days to do that. And what they had in mind was about a 48- 

hour response time that we were clearing the area, 48 hours later 

we would have people in there picking up the trash, restoring the 

water and sewer and electricity and improving the lives of the 

folks. 

So what we did is we went and examined it and said, well, why 

is this, that we have this lag time between flash to bang, as the 

Army calls it, between the desire for it and the actual effect showing up. And it turned out that when we did that examination most 

of the rules that had been imposed were not required by the Federal Acquisition Regulations, not required by the Department of 

Defense. Congress had been very, very clear that their intent for 

CERP money was you need a process that is fair, transparent and 

accountable, but we give commanders broad discretion in how they 

establish that. It turned out that most of the rules we had put on 

ourselves. So the fairly quick solution was loosen up. We established some local procedures for accountability, we told the folks 

they are ordering officers, that this is the standard for competition, 

free independent sources, bidding on a project. And we said, everything you do, write it down, because eventually we are going have 

to come back and account for it. And we did that. First of all, we 

achieved the 48-hour turnaround where we could achieve the effects that the commanders wanted within that time frame. And 

second of all, through that whole period of time there was not one 

case where CERP money went unaccounted for. 

So folks took it very, very seriously. The commanders understood 

that they were personally liable and accountable. This was not 

something that some contracting officer was going to go to jail for, 

it was something that they were going to be held accountable, and 

they responded. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, you 

had mentioned a little bit earlier the hearing we had earlier today 

that talked about the use and misuse of resources there in the reconstruction of Iraq. It brings me back to the Gansler Commission 

report that talked about there being more auditors in the field than 

government contractors there. 

The question is this. Do we have the right balance now between 

auditors and contractors, and are the folks in charge of auditing 

doing the proper job in staffing and training those folks that are 

charged with that audit function? 

Mr. ASSAD. I think we have done a lot better. But right now 

what we are doing, Mr. Congressman, is examining, especially in 

Afghanistan, the answer to that question, do we have enough over-
18 

sight? Not just auditors, but Defense Contract Management Agency 

professionals, as well as properly trained contracting officer representatives. 

I think that in terms of auditing invoices for our U.S.-based contractors, we have got that down pretty well. When we start to talk 

about local procurements, then it becomes a little bit more difficult 

because there are situations where the contractor is there one day 

and not there the next. 

And so what we want to make sure of, however, is that as we 

award these contracts that sufficient oversight is in place. We are 

looking to put more contract oversight in theater. There is no doubt 

about that. We need to train our contracting officer representatives 

more capably, and we also need look at our Defense Contract Management Agency staffing. 

Right now there are about 240 folks in the Defense Contract 

Management Command who are overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

That probably needs to be plused up a little bit. 

General SCOTT. Sir, if I can comment on that. I would also say 

that in a contingency, the relationship between the auditors and 

the contracting officers has to be somewhat different than it is in 

typical state-side contracting. What we found worked very well was 

to maintain the independence that an auditor must have in order 

to do their job effectively, but there had to be some degree of cooperation. It was almost—I am an Air Force guy, so it was almost 

like an air defense solution where someone queues the weapon to 

the target and then somebody else goes out and prosecutes the 

fight. 

General SCOTT. And the someone that queued the weapon to the 

target most frequently was the contracting officer. Something 

smells bad about this. I have a bad feeling about something going 

on. Can you guys please take a look at this? Where state-side, we 

are more used to the auditors setting their audit agenda much 

more independently as well as conducting the audits themselves. 

But I will tell you I met with Special Inspector General (IG) for 

Iraq Reconstruction monthly. My staff met with them weekly. I 

met with the Army audit agency monthly. When Defense Contract 

Audit Agency (DCAA) established their presence over there, we had 

monthly meetings. And it was really kind of an audit coordination 

meeting where we would look at it and say, hey, look, I am really 

worried about blanket purchase agreements. I think that they may 

be being misused. Can you guys go take a look at that and give 

me either a thumbs up or thumbs down? 

The advantage for me as a commander was, those initial reports 

came directly back to me and to my contracting officer, so we could 

go do something about it right then, not wait until two or three 

months later when things go through the normal coordination cycle 

and the nice pretty bound report comes out. Well, by that time, the 

guy that was doing all the mischief is gone. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gone. 

Mr. ASSAD. If I might say something, Dr. Snyder, you had mentioned that we have a panel on contracting integrity that was set 

up by this committee, as a matter of fact. It was initiated through 

the House. One of the subcommittees that we have is on procurement fraud. And in particular, it was to educate and create tools 
19 

to educate our contracting officers on the battlefield to become 

more aware of areas or events or situations that they could be in 

that might prevent or that might cause fraud and/or waste and 

abuse. Creating check lists, simple things like checklists for when 

they were going to relieve another officer in a forward-operating 

base what they should be looking for. And also helping that officer 

who is at that forward-operating base to say, you better be prepared with the following documentation, because it is going to be 

expected of you by your relief. 

We have worked with the DOD IG as well as the Navy, Air Force 

and Army IGs in setting up some terrific tools on Web sites for our 

contracting officers who are in the battlefield to gain access to tools 

that will help them with regard to ferreting out fraud. 

Mr. PARSONS. I would just like to add one more point. Our design 

over these contracting support brigades led by these colonels, the 

Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and the Army Audit 

Agency had both agreed to make a pool of deployable CID agents 

and Army auditors that we can tap into as part of our deployment 

for the brigade. So when a brigade deploys, we will most likely 

bring a CID agent and an Army auditor with us as well. And those 

CID agents are already helping us in doing some instruction with 

the contracting officer representative. So when we give a class to 

the Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) today, the CID 

has a block that talks about procurement fraud and bribery and 

those types of things. So a lot of the education is improving. 

And I think the more we get our forces educated, the less auditors you really need on site. I think what we are suffering now is, 

like General Scott said, so much inexperience and not enough people kind of lead to that environment where you almost had to overreact with the number of auditors. I think in the future it will be 

better balanced. 

General HARRINGTON. Sir, I would add, with the help of OSD 

within the Army, we have restored what we called the Procurement 

Management Review Process. We have now just about completed 

staffing up two teams and very much appreciate Congress’s support 

for the resources to be able to do that. These two teams are specifically dedicated to going out into the Army. As recently as last 

week, we reviewed the Kuwait contracting command under Mr. 

Parsons. And today we are putting the planing together to go into 

JC CIA in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan in about another month. 

The procurement management review goes into contract files, 

looks at policies, processes, tools. It is not just the inspection activity; it is to say, to determine, are you adhering to the guidance that 

you have got? It is as well my tool to collect data on what we need 

to, at our level, to better enable our contracting workforce. Mr. Parsons has the same capability in the Army contracting command, 

and it is our ability to gain firsthand experience about what is really happening out in these activities wherever they may be. So we 

have that in process. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. See, we get to rest up for five minutes and you all 

don’t. We have a tag team going on here. 

I want to ask, have you, any of you, heard of the steamboat the 

Sultana? I see a nodding head in the second row back there. The 
20 

Sultana is the worst maritime accident in the history of the United 

States. It was a couple weeks after the end of the Civil War. I don’t 

remember where it shoved off from, but it picked up a load of mostly Union soldiers who had been released from prisoner-of-war 

camps in the South. They were all emaciated, sick, not doing very 

well. 

The company had a contract to haul these soldiers up North. 

Now this is where there became a problem, because the steamship 

was, I think, three times the load it was supposed to take. It actually pushed off from Memphis, picked up a load of wood at Marion, 

Arkansas, went out in the middle of the river; it was at flood stage, 

and the boiler blew. So I forget the number. I am not sure I know 

exactly, 1,700 or so lives lost because most of them were very 

weakened Union soldier war veterans. 

The country didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it, except for 

the families, because Lincoln had been assassinated shortly before 

then. The war was over. But it brings home, it is not just writing 

the contracts; it is what happens, the quality, the performance. Obviously, we haven’t had anything like that I don’t think ever since 

then. But we do have things that have occurred. The one I think 

has gotten the most press attention was the allegations of improper 

electrical work that has resulted in the loss of life. 

I have got your book now, and I don’t see anything along here 

in this little index thing about monitoring a contract or quality controls during performance of the contract. Where does that fit in? 

And that may not be your all’s responsibility. Where does that fit 

in for the guy who just signed this on the hood of a vehicle, what 

is his responsibility to go back and check on the contract? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, his responsibility is to ensure that the contracting officers’ representatives that are participating and working 

with him are in fact properly trained to execute their responsibilities, and that DCMA, working through the Joint Contracting Command in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, is in fact overseeing contract performance. It depends on the instrument. 

If it is LOGCAP, for example, much of that oversight is conducted by the Army contracting officer representatives. If it is a 

technical contract, that would in fact be overseen by DCMA. And 

so I believe there is a section in there, Doctor, and I would be 

happy to get it for you, that does talk to contract—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Contract administration? 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, sir, that is it. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ah, look at that. 

Mr. ASSAD. There is a section in there. But having said that, 

there is also a DVD in the back of that book that we have provided 

to our contracting officers that leads them to, it would be in the 

last page of that, that would lead them to a Web site that gives 

them additional information with regard to contract oversight and 

contract management services. It should be in the very last page 

of the book. 

Dr. SNYDER. Actually, I will read the first sentence. It says, this 

chapter discusses actions a contracting officer should take to administer a contract that covers actions to be taken and documentation included from contract award to contract close out. And this 
21 

includes seizures, monitoring, transferring, terminating and closing 

out contracts. So I missed a tab. You have it all covered. 

Mr. ASSAD. You had me worried there, Mr. Congressman. 

Dr. SNYDER. I know it. It is an issue, though. You mentioned, I 

think, the 600,000 contracts that haven’t been formally closed out. 

I suspect that is not because somebody did a bad job. I suspect it 

is because they are overwhelmed with volume. 

Mr. ASSAD. Dr. Snyder, I think that the issue here, and it is one 

that we are all looking at very carefully, and I did mention to you 

that there was one recommendation, actually it was three, that 

were tied into DCMA. And it was about contract oversight. And the 

difference of opinion was that the commission felt that contract 

oversight for post, camp and station in the United States should be 

done by the DCMA. I have two former DCMA commanders here. 

That has never been a responsibility of DCMA and would have required a significant change in organizational structure to make 

that happen. 

But it is our belief that, in order to have the operational force 

understand the capability that they are contracting for is to lay 

some of that responsibility on them to do oversight for post, camp 

and station. And so when we are in theater, when we are looking 

at life support services, dining facilities, laundry facilities, things 

of that nature, we are looking for the operational force in concert 

with the contracting officer and with DCMA oversight to do that 

oversight. You are absolutely right, sir, it is a critical function that, 

at the end of the day, we have got to assure the taxpayers as well 

as the warfighters that we got what we paid for. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One final question, gentlemen, the Government Accountability 

Office (GAO) and others have come out with a report talking about 

some of the longstanding challenges regarding contractor support 

for deployed forces. If you were to look at what the Army and DOD 

are recommended to do under the Gansler report, would you see, 

in comparing those, is there anything left, if all the Gansler report 

recommendations are fulfilled, would there be anything left that 

the GAO has pointed out that needs to be done? And if so, who 

would be responsible for doing those things? 

Mr. ASSAD. I think that we are really in the early phase of getting through integration of our operational commanders in the 

planning of contract operation. And I think that is the area we are 

focused on with the Joint Forces Command and the Joint Staff, but 

that is the area that we really need to place a significant amount 

of focus on. Every plan changes, that is true, but the reality is we 

need to ensure that we have inculcated that mind-set that says we 

really do need, not only to plan what is organic and what is not, 

but exactly what contracting mechanisms and who is going to do 

it as well as which part of the operating force is going to oversee 

the work that needs to be done. 

So I would say, Mr. Congressman, from my perspective, it is that 

aspect of contract planning and ensuring, as Darryl said, that you 

understand, what is in fact the battle plan and how will we integrate it into it to ensure that we provide the support that is necessary? 
22 

General HARRINGTON. Sir, we will provide a contracting officer’s 

representative pocket guide for you. We will get that over to you. 

That reinforces, that is what gives soldiers and actually anyone 

who is going to be a COR out there, boots on the ground actually 

watching what the contractor does. The challenge we have got, I 

think, is exactly as Mr. Assad described. We are on a path now. 

We need to have the continued emphasis at every level for it. We 

need it to evaluate contract files and show the contract team and 

the contracting officers that key input into that contract file upon 

which we judge the performance of a contractor. Those are critical 

functions. I think we have begun to reinforce; we just have to continue to emphasize it. 

Mr. PARSONS. I would just add that I think the other area where 

we are going to need continued help is the focus on this issue. We 

have a long way to go in building up this capability, as General 

Scott alluded to. And my fear is that, if the world becomes a calmer 

place and there is a draw-down on the number of deployments that 

we are making, there may be a sense that we can, you know, eliminate some of what we are trying to build up here. 

So my appeal would be, we have gotten great support out of Congress as we have gone forward on this Gansler Commission report. 

I think we need to keep that laser focus on that to make sure that 

the capability we are developing and building up, we do not lose 

it 10 years from now, and that we do follow through on the appointments of the general officers and developing the career path 

for these military officers and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs). 

General SCOTT. Congressman Wittman, as I was thinking 

through my answer and listening to my colleagues, I checked my 

route home to make sure I don’t have to get off at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop, because I would say that the one thing that remains to be done is not strictly the purview of this committee; it 

is the coordination and synchronization of everyone who is involved 

in stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

When I was there, half the money I spent came though the State 

Department. But USAID, main State, Department of Commerce, 

all had different rules; all organized to conduct contracting and 

contractor support differently. And the only place that all came together was in the ambassador’s office. And there needs to be a 

functional, operational and tactical level coordination that says, if 

we are going to bring all the elements of national power to a counterinsurgency fight, we have got to have a way where everybody’s 

capabilities are put on the table. And the senior leaders in charge 

of the U.S. mission, be they the ambassador’s staff or be they the 

Joint Task Force Commander staff, can look and say, who is best 

qualified and best positioned to do this? Because when you don’t 

do that, you have an opportunity for duplication. You have an opportunity for waste. You have an opportunity for effort that is less 

effective than it could. 

One of the classic cases that GAO pointed out is cases, for example, where one department would build a water treatment plant, 

but the other department is charged with putting in the sewer 

pipes that carry the waste to the water treatment plant. If the two 

schedules and the two contracts are not synchronized, you either 

end up with waste running in the street because the plant is not 
23 

there or you end up with a beautiful plant with no inflow coming 

in. 

So, in my view, that is what needs to be done. It is setting up 

the mechanisms for coordination between all the branches of government that are operating in the counterinsurgency. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you gentlemen, great answers, thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. General Scott, you answered one of the questions I 

was going to ask which is about State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) because this has been an ongoing 

interest of this committee is how to get everybody working together. The example you just gave, I think, you said came from 

GAO. What, did you have any, from your personal experience, 

where you saw things that didn’t go so smoothly? 

General SCOTT. Yes, sir. First of all, I would say that most of my 

relationship with State went very well, but it was highly personality-dependent. I worked very closely with the Iraq Reconstruction 

Management Office, later ITAO. And I don’t remember what the 

ITAO initials stood for, Iraq Transition Assistance Office. I worked 

very closely with those staff members, and we had an excellent relationship that allowed us usually to work out problems. But nevertheless, there were cases, for example, we had to take over the contract to complete the children’s oncological hospital in Basra after 

USAID had initiated the effort, the contract was overrun, the cost 

overrun. The contractor wasn’t making adequate progress and it 

eventually took my contracting officers and the Army Corps of Engineers doing quality assurance to come through and get the 

project completed. 

It should have been apparent that this was a program that exceeded USAID’s capabilities, because at the time, USAID had three 

contracting officers in country. And they had no ability to extend 

their contract oversight down to Basra. I had a local contracting office down in Basra. The Corps of Engineers had a regional office 

down in Basra. We were well able to provide contract oversight and 

quality assurance. It was almost like a Chinese menu; pick the 

services that you want, and we can provide them. But there was 

no mechanism, short of the First Lady herself getting involved in 

this, to cause people to coordinate and cooperate in order to bring 

success to the project. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think our opinion is that there is a lot of excellent 

State Department USAID people, but we have dramatically cut 

back on their numbers in the last decade and a half, to our great 

detriment as a country. 

General SCOTT. Sir, that would be my observation. I had no question about the quality of folks either in USAID or in State, but I 

had 171 contracting officers in Iraq, and they had three. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask, Mr. Assad, I wanted you to go into 

a little more detail about the DCMA, Defense Contract Management Authority. And you go through it on page 6 of your written 

statement, and I want to be sure I understand, which was Gansler 

recommended that DCMA would manage all the contracts for base, 

security, water, all those kinds of things. 

Mr. ASSAD. Actually, what he recommended, Congressman, was 

that the responsibility for base operations and base oversight in 
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CONUS at all of our post, camp and stations would be done by 

DCMA. 

Dr. SNYDER. DCMA. And the Army said, no, because we actually 

have some officer bases we refer to as the mayor. Because you felt 

that that, not you but the Army felt that was an integral part of 

being the base commander and that was a military function. Is 

that correct? So that was why there was a push back on that? 

Mr. ASSAD. Actually, Mr. Congressman, it was all force services, 

Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine were uniform in the thought 

that the responsibility for oversight at a particular post, camp and 

station should be resident and the responsibility of commanding officer. 

What Dr. Gansler’s concern was, was that, when we went into 

theater, if we were going to expect DCMA to do that kind of oversight for post, camp and station oversight in theater, if they didn’t 

have the same experience in the continental United States 

(CONUS) or a way to train themselves repeatedly, that that could 

be a problem. But our view, where we are headed is to ensure that 

when our soldiers and our Marines and airmen are in garrison, 

that they are getting the experience that they need in garrison to 

do that kind of oversight and that they will conduct the training 

so that when we have our plan in place, each of our organizations 

knows how many of their folks within their operational unit will 

actually have to do that kind of oversight overseas, and that we 

have that training in place so that they can in fact do it in 

CONUS. 

We just didn’t feel like that particular responsibility, never having been a responsibility of DCMA at any time in its existence, was 

an appropriate way to use the resource. 

Dr. SNYDER. That makes sense. 

Mr. Wittman, do you have any other questions? 

Mr. WITTMAN. No questions. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask if you had any comments, and I 

think, General Scott, you talked a little bit about it because you are 

the Air Force, but if we had a group of people here today from the 

Army, from the Marine Corps. and from the Navy, would we have 

a similar type of reporting? What do you think with regard to 

where the other services are at, Mr. Assad? 

Mr. ASSAD. It is not consistent. If what we are talking about is 

senior leaders across the force, we need more, in my view, more 

flag officers, more general officers in the acquisition and contracting profession. There is no doubt about it. At one point in 

time, the Air Force really was the preeminent service in terms of 

leadership within the contracting profession. 

When General Scott, who is now about to retire, leaves, we will 

have one. At one point in time, there could be three or four general 

officers serving in various positions within the Air Force who would 

be significantly capable in the contracting profession. The same is 

true for the Army. But the Army has in fact recognized and, much 

to the credit of the chief and secretary, they have moved out smartly in terms of increasing their numbers. 

The Navy has remained relatively stable. It turns out that we 

have a resource within the Navy that we haven’t always tapped, 

and that is our flag officers who are in the Civil Engineering Corps. 
25 

Every one of those officers has to be a level three certified contracting officer. So they are perfectly capable of operating in a combat environment and serving in the role that General Scott served 

in. 

In terms of the Marine Corps, it is a much smaller force. There 

are only about 175 Marines who are presently contracting officers 

or NCOs with contracting experience. So the path that the Marines 

have chosen, and frankly I fully support, is one where they are trying to get their logistics officer to have significant contracting experience so that, when they get to the 06 level, it becomes an enhancement to command and an enhancement for general officer 

rank to have contracting experience. 

So right now, we have no—well, that is not true. The two-star 

general officer who is in charge of logistics for the Marines, in fact, 

it was a contracting officer at one time, but that wasn’t necessary 

done by plan. The Navy has two officers. In fact Rear Admiral 

Dussault just returned from Iraq. She relieved General Scott. And 

Rear Admiral Kathleen Dussault is now back home in CONUS, 

who is moving on her way to the Joint Staff. They have two officers 

in contracting, and then they have their contracting officers in the 

Civil Engineering Corps. So I would say, of all of services, I think 

the Air Force, frankly, in my view, needs to relook at increasing 

the number of general officers that they have in contracting. I 

think the other three services are pretty well addressing the matter. 

Dr. SNYDER. General Scott, you have only about six days left, do 

you have agree with that assessment of the Air Force? 

General SCOTT. Yes, sir, I do. At one time, there were six general 

officers in Air Force contracting. When I retire in six days, there 

will only be one, Brigadier General Wendy Masiello. And she is 

currently not serving in contracting. So the value of the kind of 

background that I had proved itself, I think, over in Iraq and Afghanistan. And frankly, one of the questions that was asked was, 

could we do the job with a member of the senior executive service, 

and we looked very closely at that when it was time for me to rotate out of the command billet. And the conclusion that we universally came to, and by the way the guy with the heaviest vote was 

a guy named Dave Petraeus, was no, you need an experienced flag 

officer to do these kinds of missions. And with the Air Force only 

having one, that is a mighty thin bench. 

Mr. PARSONS. I think it is very critical that the junior officers see 

that there is a career path for them to be general officers. If you 

eliminate those general officer slots, then what we found, especially 

in the Army, is that anybody that came into acquisition would lean 

over towards program management side, because they knew there 

was a possibility to make general officer on the program management side. 

I think it is really key that, if you want to keep a viable career 

path, not that everybody attains this rank of general officer while 

they are in active duty, but it is a career goal for many in the service. 

Dr. SNYDER. I see General Scott sitting there about to retire next 

week, and it seems to be a career path that preserves your youthful 

appearance. 
26 

In response to Mr. Wittman, you all talked a little bit about the 

way ahead. Do you all have any specific concrete legislative things 

you think are obstructing your way or suggestions of things we 

need to look at that we had in year’s defense bill? 

Mr. ASSAD. Dr. Snyder, actually, I think Congress has done very 

well by us. I mean, as far as we are concerned, almost everything 

that we have asked for, Congress has in fact enacted some form of 

legislation to support us. And so, at the present time, I think what 

we need to do is utilize the flexibilities and capabilities that Congress has given us to move forward. 

There were a couple of minor legislative actions that we asked 

for which were not significant that would make life a little easier, 

but really, one of them, for example, was the express option at the 

GAO. We asked for that, but in reality, every time have we asked 

the GAO to use the express option, they have given it to us. So, 

in practical terms, I don’t think it has much benefit. So, right now, 

I would like to say, I would like to thank the Congress very much 

for being so responsive to us in enabling us to get our jobs done. 

General HARRINGTON. Sir, we second that. Particularly with respect to the workforce, Congress’s help has been tremendous, the 

flexibilities we had with the section A–52 funding will help us get 

the workforce built back up, restored and trained over the coming 

years, so that we can make them a permanent part of the Army 

civilian workforce structure. So it is incumbent upon us to execute 

the support and reinforcement part. 

General SCOTT. Sir, as a field commander, I was delighted with 

the support I got out of the Congress. It was clear that the Members were paying attention. When we asked for something, it came 

through quickly, usually in exactly the form that we asked for it. 

So one of the things that we had to be very careful was to make 

sure you know what you are asking for, because Congress is going 

to give it to you. I have nothing but praise for the support that I 

received from the Congress while I was a field commander. It was 

clear that you all were on our side, even when there were a lot of 

other people who were putting obstacles in our way. Congress was 

not one. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think the last question I would ask, and it is not 

answered today, but I hope that you all will feel free to provide in 

writing anything you want to add, we will make it a part of the 

record in response to, considered as formal question, to augment 

anything you have said today if there is something you think we 

need to hear of. 

General Scott, I think I will give you the last opportunity here, 

and you are one week out, if there is anything you would like to 

tell us about before we close the hearing, this is your last chance. 

General SCOTT. Well, sir, since it will be on the record, I just 

want to say, for 34 years, it has been my honor and my delight to 

serve our great nation. When I went over to Iraq and Afghanistan, 

I felt like the athlete who had trained long and trained hard and 

had never got an opportunity to play in the big game until then. 

I got in the game. I got to score some points. I may not have gotten 

a complete victory, but I think we put everybody on the right path. 

It is with somewhat of a slightly heavy heart that I hang up the 

uniform after serving the nation for as long as I have. 
27 

One thing I can assure you is I will always be there to answer 

when the nation calls, even if it is not in uniform. I thank you, sir, 

for the opportunity to testify, thank you for the support that you 

and the committee have given us. God bless you all, and God bless 

America. 

Dr. SNYDER. We appreciate your service, General Scott. I hope 

you will convey to all the folks who work for you how important 

we think they are. They are not the kind of folks that are going 

to be on television, but they are so important. 

Now, they will get these cool pictures, though, of them signing 

contracts on hoods of vehicles, but we think they are so important. 

And the American taxpayers think they are very, very important. 

And the men and women in uniform and their families, they may 

not know who it is who is important in their lives, but it is the 

folks you are trying to train up and the ones already doing the 

work, and we appreciate you. And you can count on us revisiting 

these topics as time goes by. This is very important to the Speaker 

and very important to Mr. Skelton, and very important to all the 

Members. 

So we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 25, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 25, 2009 

(83) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the ability to define contract requirements and to manage contractors and contract service support part of the performance evaluation for military 

personnel who are outside the acquisition workforce but have these responsibilities? 

Should it be? 

Mr. ASSAD. The Department currently mandates that a Requiring Activity affirm 

that performance of Contracting Officer Representative (COR) functions will be addressed during COR performance assessments. This requirement appears in a Deputy Secretary of Defense memorandum dated August 22, 2008. The Gansler Commission report identified CORs as an essential part of contract management. As 

highlighted in the March 25 testimony to the Subcommittee, the Department’s section 813 DOD Contract Surveillance Subcommittee has made much progress in the 

area of CORs, including developing the requirement for COR functions to be addressed during performance assessments. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the use and management of contractors included in unit readiness 

assessments? 

Mr. ASSAD. Unit commanders assess the readiness of contractors to support their 

mission when contractors are assigned to deployable positions that are in direct support of that unit’s mission. Further, the use, management and performance of contractors are evaluated on a consistent basis through contractual oversight. Contracting personnel, requiring agency leadership and contracting officer representatives manage service contractor performance through Performance Based Service 

Acquisitions (PBSA) in accordance with contractual requirements. 

Dr. SNYDER. What is the status of the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics strategic workforce plan to address sourcing contracting personnel with the right skills 

for contingency operations? 

Mr. ASSAD. The Secretary of Defense recently announced intentions to grow the 

organic DOD acquisition workforce by 15 percent. This growth will directly enhance 

DOD’s readiness and capacity to deploy contracting professionals worldwide who are 

effective immediately upon arrival. In addition to growth, the plan to source contracting personnel with the right skills includes the recent effort to identify competencies critical to the contingency mission as part of the DOD-wide contracting 

competency assessment initiative. Results are being factored into development of a 

joint contingency contracting certification program based on a three tier proficiency 

level approach. Additionally, DOD continues to improve training and performance 

support resources. DOD just released the second edition of ‘‘Contingency Contracting: A Joint Handbook for the 21st Century.’’ This pocket-sized handbook and 

DVD provide essential information, tools, and training for contingency contracting 

officers. DOD has also redesigned its contingency training courses to include interactive simulations, hands-on practical work, and robust capstone projects. Cultural 

awareness and ethics are emphasized. Subject matter experts provide perspective in 

an expeditionary environment. In addition, lessons learned, best practices, and after 

action reports are posted on the Contingency Contracting Community of Practice 

web-portal. DOD is also developing an advanced Contingency Contracting Course, 

which provides ‘‘just in time’’ training to senior level contracting personnel deploying to a management position. The course addresses several important issues: 

sustainment contracting in a contingency environment, major source selection, cost 

and price analysis, and reconstruction in a contingency environment. 

Dr. SNYDER. In the early 1990s, Congress passed the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) to try and ensure that the acquisition workforce 

receives the necessary training to perform its duties. DOD implements DAWIA 

through DOD Directive 5000.66. 

a) Do these mechanisms provide adequate policy guidance for the contracting 

workforce? b) Should Congress revisit DAWIA in light of the current situation, particularly in relation to contingency contracting? 

Mr. ASSAD. a) DAWIA is implemented through DOD Directive 5000.52, DOD Instruction 5000.66, and the DOD Desk Guide. These documents provide adequate 

guidance for managing the career development of the acquisition workforce. Each 

year the Functional Advisor for each acquisition career field reviews the currency 
84 

of competencies and certification requirements for the career field. Certification requirements for the acquisition career fields are posted each year at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Web site in the DAU Catalog. 

b) The Department has efforts underway to standardize experience, education, 

and training requirements for contingency contracting professionals. Changes to 

DAWIA are not required to accomplish this effort. The Commander, Joint Theater 

Support Contract Command, needs to deploy the right contracting assets. In today’s 

Joint operational environment, which comprises individual Component contracting 

personnel—military and civilian—experience and education/training levels vary. To 

ensure the Commander can leverage the varying backgrounds and skill sets within 

this cadre of contingency contracting professionals, the Department is developing 

standard proficiency levels. A key tenant of this program is to track experience, as 

well as education/training, looking at both contracting generally and contingency 

contracting specifically. The certification levels associated with DAWIA remain an 

important way to track general contracting experience and education/training. On 

top of this, the contingency contracting cadre model looks at contingency contracting 

experience and education/training. Contingency contracting operational experience 

is of principal importance, ranging from exercises to multiple deployments. The cadre’s participation in contingency contracting training, in a specific set of core 

courses, also feeds into the proficiency assessment. Developing this contingency contracting cadre is one of the many initiatives being worked by the Department’s Task 

Force on Contracting and Contract Management in Expeditionary Operations. Originally established to address the requirements of section 849 of the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, the Task Force continues to support implementation of contingency contracting improvements. The Task Force comprises representatives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and all the Military Departments, so it leverages the full range of initiatives—from the policy level to the grassroots level. 

Dr. SNYDER. Should the Gansler Commission examine the contingency contracting 

capabilities of the Air Force and the Navy? a) Do these departments provide adequate contingency contracting training for military personnel outside the acquisition 

workforce? b) Do they incorporate contingency contracting in pre-deployment training and mission readiness exercises? 

Mr. ASSAD. No, an examination of the contingency contracting capabilities of the 

Air Force and Navy was conducted as a result of the Gansler Commission findings 

and recommendations. Section 849 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2008 required the Department to examine the applicability of the 

Gansler Commission’s 40 recommendations to the Air Force and the Navy. The Department engaged in a six-month analysis and reported its findings to Congress on 

June 2, 2008, which included an assessment of the Air Force and Navy. 

a) Yes, the Department has created DOD-wide contingency contracting training 

for military personnel outside the acquisition workforce. The Department developed 

a broad program of instruction (POI) for non-contracting operational military leaders on the management of contractors with deployed forces. The Military Education 

Coordination Council has added the POI as a special area of emphasis, so that it 

will be taught at the war colleges. In addition, the POI is available as an on-line 

module. 

b) Yes, contingency contracting is covered in pre-deployment training and mission 

readiness exercises. In conjunction with all the Services and the Defense Acquisition 

University (DAU), the Department has established a core set of required DAU 

courses for contingency contracting officers (CCOs). The Joint Contingency Contracting handbook—which serves as the basis for one of the required CCO DAU 

courses—provides a consolidated source of information for our CCOs conducting contingency contracting operations in a Joint environment. It provides the essential information, tools, and training to meet the challenges they will face, regardless of 

mission or environment. In addition, mission readiness exercises like EUCOM’s 

AUSTERE CHALLENGE, SOCOM’s PANAMAEX, and PACOM’s COBRA GOLD 

are major joint military exercises that incorporate contingency contracting. These 

exercises serve as joint training, done for the way we fight. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is there anything you didn’t have an opportunity to share during the 

hearing that would be valuable to the subcommittee’s enquiry? 

Mr. ASSAD. No additional information to provide at this time. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is there anything you didn’t have an opportunity to share during the 

hearing that would be valuable to the subcommittee’s enquiry? 

General SCOTT. I thank the Chairman and the members for the opportunity to 

share my experiences and insights. I urge the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to continue to press the Services on their plans to build viable career 

paths for uniformed contracting officers that will attract their share of each service’s 
85 

‘best and brightest.’ The Army has a good plan, but executing it successfully will 

require close attention at least through this term of Congress and the next. 

I believe the Air Force, on the other hand, is in danger of repeating the neglect 

that the Army’s contracting career field suffered from prior to the Gansler Report 

findings. They don’t have a strategy for developing officers that can compete with 

the service’s best beyond the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. 

The Air Force hasn’t made a clear distinction between the roles of its officer, enlisted and civilian contracting officers. Consequently, there is a misperception that 

the three are largely interchangeable, which leads to the perception outside the career field that officers in contracting are narrow technicians, rather than leaders. 

This lack of deliberate, purposeful career development for officers in particular has 

resulted in today’s situation where not one Air Force contracting primary executive 

leadership position is held by a military officer—they are all held by civilians of the 

Senior Executive Service. As the Gansler Report pointed out, the Army’s deteriorating contingency contracting capability began when they eliminated General Officers from the career field—I believe the Air Force has started down that same path. 

The Air Force doesn’t have clear doctrine or training for operating in a joint and/ 

or interagency environment—this in spite of the reality that, because they have the 

largest contingency contracting force, they will likely provide the bulk of contingency 

contracting assets at least until the Army completes its build-up, and perhaps beyond that. 

The Air Force’s contingency contracting doctrine and training focuses primarily on 

how to execute contracting transactions in short-term contingencies, not how to plan 

and conduct contracting operations in support of a large campaign. For example, I 

continually had to convince my Air Force officers that buying commercial items from 

the local Iraqi economy, and hiring local Iraqi labor was in the U.S. interest, even 

though the Operation Iraqi Freedom Joint Campaign Plan’s objectives for its economic line of operation included revitalizing the Iraqi economy and putting military 

age young men to work. They were trained to look for the lowest price—which was 

often from the U.S. or another Persian Gulf region country—and none of them had 

been exposed to the Campaign Plan prior to deployment. My soldiers, on the other 

hand, were far less proficient than their airman peers at executing transactions, but 

were wizards at developing innovative methods of synchronizing acquisition planning and execution with tactical and strategic objectives. 

The Army, on the other hand, has ably addressed campaign planning in the design and concept of operations for its Contracting Support Brigades, as evidenced 

by the recent exercises that Mr. Parsons referenced in his testimony. Greater and 

more frequent cooperation between the two services (and the Navy and Marines 

where appropriate) in training and exercises could provide an efficient remedy. For 

example, the Army already includes contracting activities in their pre-deployment 

planning and exercises at Brigade and Division HQ levels. Air Force contingency 

contracting officers who will support those units should be included as well. 

Finally, let me express again, for the record, my appreciation for the interest and 

support of the Congress, and this Subcommittee in particular, in this area. I was 

the anonymous Flag Officer quoted in the Gansler report as saying that my troops 

solved unprecedented problems every day, and they deserved a medal for it; but if 

we approached the next contingency with the same lack of preparedness as this one, 

we should all be fired! Thanks to your leadership, and the energetic response by the 

OSD and Army staffs, I think our jobs are safe for the next time! 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the ability to define contract requirements and to manage contractors and contract service support part of the performance evaluation for military 

personnel who are outside the acquisition workforce but have these responsibilities? 

Should it be? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. The rating official will address appropriately, based in the OER, 

the percentage of the person’s duties and importance in that subject area. Some 

Contracting Officers Representatives (CORs) only spend a very small amount of 

their time on this duty whereas others perform COR functions nearly full time, and 

the OER reflects that accordingly. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is the use and management of contractors included in unit readiness 

assessments? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. No, contractors do not factor into the personnel readiness ratings of operating force units. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you have any concerns for funding any of the efforts or initiatives 

the Army is undertaking to implement the recommendations of the Gansler Commission? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. To date Congress has been very supportive of Army needs to 

facilitate the transformation recommended by the Gansler commission. The Army 

wishes to express its appreciation for this support. The Army is striving to capture 
86 

sufficient data on which to base a fully supportable decision regarding its need for 

additional resources in the out years. When that information becomes available, the 

Army will look forward to working with the Congress to ensure the Army is well 

positioned to meet its obligations in support of all contingency operations, both in 

conflict and in support of the American people. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is there anything you didn’t have an opportunity to share during the 

hearing that would be valuable to the subcommittee’s enquiry? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes. Since September 11, 2001, there has been a 300 percent 

growth in contracted dollars and contract actions have grown significantly. 

The report of the Gansler Commission on Wartime Contracting (Gansler Report) 

is the clearly defined product illustrating a decade of decline in Army contracting 

workforce due to attrition, retirement, and downsizing, all to the point that the remaining workforce could focus only on the most pressing needs. Training and professional development have suffered and critical expertise have retired. The Commission revealed a problem that we were well aware of within the acquisition workforce, and has provided the momentum to overcome a decade of inertia. 

The Army is institutionalizing the systemic and long-lasting improvements necessary to ensure ongoing, successful alignment of contracting, doctrine, organization, 

training, leader development, materiel, personnel, and facilities for supporting our 

Soldiers and to provide the best value to the nation’s taxpayers. The theme of the 

Gansler Report was that the Army did not have the organizational structure in 

place to support the explosion in expeditionary contracting, nor sufficient numbers 

of professionally trained contracting personnel to meet greatly increased requirements for contracted support Army-wide, with the requisite oversight, controls, and 

contract administration. Additionally, the Report emphasized the need for the 

Army’s commitment to recognize contracting as a core competency and to enhance 

training, professional development, and career opportunities among the workforce. 

It took more than a decade to get Army Contracting in to this damaged shape. 

There is no quick fix. It will take time, and more important, the sustained commitment and support of the senior leadership of the Army, DOD, and Congress to rebuild the Army contracting workforce’s skills, training, and experience. ASA (ALT) 

leadership will continue to provide the support, structure, and oversight needed to 

ensure a premier contracting workforce. Our Soldiers and our nation deserve nothing less. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is there anything you didn’t have an opportunity to share during the 

hearing that would be valuable to the subcommittee’s enquiry? 

Mr. PARSONS. No. 

Æ