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S. Hrg. 111–792 

AFGHANISTAN CONTRACTS: AN OVERVIEW 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING 

OVERSIGHT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 17, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

PAUL G. KIRK, JR., Massachusetts 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING OVERSIGHT 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

JON TESTER, Montana 

PAUL G. KIRK, JR., Massachusetts 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MARGARET DAUM, Staff Director 

MOLLY WILKINSON, Minority Staff Director 

KELSEY STROUD, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 1 

Senator Bennett ................................................................................................ 3 

Senator Kirk ..................................................................................................... 17 

Prepared statements: 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 35 

Senator Bennett ................................................................................................ 37 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2009 

Colonel William H. Campbell, III, Director of Operations, Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), U.S. Department of Defense ................... 5 

Edward M. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Procurement), Department of the Army, U.S. Department of Defense ........................ 7 

Jeffrey Parsons, Executive Director, Army Contracting Command, Department of the Army, U.S. Department of Defense ................................................ 8 

Charles North, Senior Deputy Director, Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, 

U.S. Agency for International Development ...................................................... 9 

Daniel F. Feldman, Deputy Special Respresentative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State ........................................................................... 10 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Campbell, Colonel William H., III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 

Feldman, Daniel F.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63 

Harrington, Edward M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Joint prepared statement with Mr. Parsons .................................................. 41 

North, Charles: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 

Parsons, Jeffrey: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Joint prepared statement with Mr. Harrington ............................................. 41 

APPENDIX 

Responses to questions for the Record from: 

Colonel Campbell .............................................................................................. 66 

Mr. Harrington ................................................................................................. 74 

Mr. Parsons ....................................................................................................... 85 

Mr. North .......................................................................................................... 93 

Mr. Feldman ..................................................................................................... 100 

Charts submitted by Mr. Feldman ......................................................................... 106 

(1) 

1The prepared statement of Senator McCaskill appears in the Appendix on page 35. 

AFGHANISTAN CONTRACTS: AN OVERVIEW 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2009 

U.S. SENATE,

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING OVERSIGHT,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in room 

342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Claire McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators McCaskill, Kirk and Bennett. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL1

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you all very much for being here, 

and this hearing will come to order. 

I have a great opening statement that an incredibly competent 

and conscientious staff has helped me with, but I think instead of 

delivering it I think I will make it part of the record. I think I will 

tell a story. 

Fresh out of auditing in the State of Missouri, having run a government auditing agency for a number of years, I came to the U.S. 

Senate and was honored to get a seat on the Armed Services Committee. So, as I began to learn about the conflict in Iraq, I kept 

coming back to contracting because the auditor in me was surprised at some of the things I began learning about contracting in 

Iraq. 

So I went to Iraq, and the purpose of my trip was not to do what 

many Senators do when they go to Iraq, which is to look at the conflict through the prism of the military mission. I went specifically 

for the reason to oversee contracting and what was going on with 

contracting. So I spent, frankly, more time in Kuwait, which will 

not surprise some of you, than I actually spent in the theater. 

And I had many different things that happened on that trip that 

are seared into my hard drive—realizations about the lack of coordination and integration between various pots of money, amazing 

lapses in scoping contracts, in making contracts definite enough 

that they could be enforced, particularly from any kind of accountability standpoint and the government getting their money back 

when it had been abused and misused by contractors. I will, 

though, tell you one of many stories I could tell you because I think 

it is so illustrative of how bad the problem was in Iraq. 

2 

We were sitting in a room where the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) was administered in Iraq. This was not in 

Kuwait. As so often the case, I say this with affection, when you 

are getting a briefing from the military, there was a PowerPoint. 

In fact, I think there must be a law somewhere that you are not 

allowed to get a briefing from the military without a PowerPoint. 

There was a PowerPoint, and there were a lot of important people in the room. There were command staff. There were lots of people that clearly had the military command authority in the area, 

but they turned over the discussion of the LOGCAP contract to a 

woman in the room, clearly a civilian and maybe the most knowledgeable about the LOGCAP contract in the room. And I think they 

turned it over to her because she was the one that was trying to 

make the trains run on time and knew a lot about it. 

She put up a PowerPoint showing the LOGCAP contract by year. 

As many of you remember, the first year, the LOGCAP contract 

wildly exceeded the estimates by billions of dollars. I think, I cannot remember now, and I have not gone back to look, but my recollection is the first year was maybe $17 or $18 billion on LOGCAP, 

and the original estimate was less than a billion. 

Then she showed a bar graph of the years, and you saw a big 

drop in the LOGCAP contract after the first year to the next year, 

and then it kind of leveled out and was still a huge amount of 

money. 

So she got through the presentation, and you could tell she was 

kind of nervous, and so I was trying to help her. Right? I was trying to be kind. I know sometimes in this hearing room and others, 

it does not appear that I am kind. 

I was trying to be kind to her, and I said to her, well, you left 

out what you all did to bring that contract down so much after the 

first year. 

There was an awkward, uncomfortable silence in the room as everyone kind of shifted and looked at each other. And, with God as 

my witness, she looked at me across that table and said, it was a 

fluke. 

That is the best example I can give you of several examples of 

how contracting went wild in Iraq. 

So here we are in Afghanistan, and I know many of you, because 

you reference it in your testimony, have gone through SIGAR’s 

book of hard lessons. I know many of you understand the challenges now that we face in contracting. 

But one thing is clear; we will have more contractors in Afghanistan than we will have men and women in uniform. There is no 

doubt about that. 

We will spend. A significant chunk of the tens of billions of dollars in Afghanistan will be spent through contractors. So the purpose of this hearing, and it will be the first of several hearings we 

will have, is to begin to get an overview as to how the ground has 

changed as it relates to contracting during a contingency. 

How is the coordination occurring, if it is? How integrated is the 

effort? 

Most importantly, is the mission now saturated with the knowledge that if we are going to have contractors do supply lines, make 

breakfast, do the laundry, build not only the buildings for our men 

3 

1The prepared statement of Senator Bennett appears in the Appendix on page 37. 

and women in uniform but also buildings and roads for the people 

of Afghanistan, do the taxpayers have any better shot of getting 

value for their money this time than they did in Iraq? I certainly 

hope they do. 

And I want to thank all of you for being here today, and look forward to your testimony, and a work in progress as we begin to try 

to get a real handle on how we spend money in a contingency, to 

make sure that we do not waste the billions of dollars that went 

up in smoke in Iraq. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I will turn it over to you, Senator Bennett, 

for your statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNETT 1

Senator BENNETT. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and 

I am interested in your story. 

I have a very quick story about when I went to Iraq and was 

being shown in Kuwait—as you rightly put it, that is where everything jumps off—the transportation program of how they were 

shipping material from Kuwait to Iraq. A very competent lieutenant colonel was in charge of this, and he was obviously very much 

on top of the whole thing. 

I asked him, are you regular Army or Reserve? And he said, I 

am Reserve. 

I said, what do you do in civilian life? And he said, I am a distribution manager for Wal-Mart. 

I decided, well, for once, the Army has the right joint of the civilian experience and the military assignment. 

That may be a jumping-off to pick up on where you have led us 

with your opening statement. The challenge in Afghanistan where, 

as you have correctly noticed, mentioned, we have as many contractors and contracting personnel as we have military personnel, and 

that ratio is going to stay the same and in fact we may end up with 

more contracting personnel than we have military personnel. 

They are both engaged in exactly the same thing, which is a 

counterinsurgency kind of battle which means the contractor cannot sit back and say, well, I have done my job, but I am not engaged in the counterinsurgency because the way we deal with 

counterinsurgency, to take the slogan of the Iraq surge, is that you 

control it, then you hold it, and then you build. The contractor is 

very much involved in the holding and the building, and must work 

hand in glove with the military, and cannot have its own separate 

command and control system and its own separate management 

plan without being completely integrated in this kind of circumstance. 

It is not your traditional war where the military does all of the 

warfighting and the contractor simply fills in the back functions. So 

I agree with you that you have described this properly. 

Now I am encouraged by the initiatives, some of the things we 

have learned in Iraq. I agree with you, there are a lot of lessons 

in Iraq that we need to learn that maybe we have not. 

But the Commander’s Emergency Response Program that allows 

the military to, if something needs to be done quickly, put out the 

4 

money to do it quickly—do we make sure that we do not cross the 

line there of having the commanders do something that the U.S. 

Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department should be doing, in the name of the Commander’s Emergency Response Program? That is another part of this where there 

needs to be some coordination. 

So I guess basically what I am saying is when the government 

agencies outsource the work that they want performed, they cannot 

outsource the results, and that is too often what happens. You 

outsource the work, and you say, well, that is the contractor’s responsibility, and we do not have to oversee the results. 

Everything has to be properly coordinated, and the work, the 

challenge that we have from our witness panel is to see that the 

military, the State Department, USAID, and the contractors are all 

meshed together for the best result there. 

I believe in contracting. I think it is a great improvement over 

the old military where everything had to be done by a soldier somewhere, even if it had nothing whatever to do with the military mission. But, as we move to that good idea, the challenge of coordinating all of that becomes a very serious one, and it is very laudatory that you are holding this hearing to try to probe into how that 

is done. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Bennett. 

Let me introduce the witnesses. We have with us today William 

Campbell, who is the Director of Operations for the Under Secretary of Defense, the Comptroller, at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) where in addition to oversight of operation and maintenance accounts, he has responsibility for the development of the 

Overseas Contingency Operations Request. Previously, Mr. Campbell served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for 

Budget. 

We have Ed Harrington, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of the Army for Procurement. He is a former senior U.S. Army officer with more than 28 years of experience in weapons acquisition 

and contracting. He also served as Director of the Defense Contract 

Management Agency from 2001 to 2003. 

Charles North is a Senior Deputy Director of the AfghanistanPakistan Task Force at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mr. North has been with USAID since 1987. He previously 

served as the Director of USAID’s Policy Office and the Regional 

Director for the Western Hemisphere in the Office of the Director 

of Foreign Assistance in the State Department. 

Daniel Feldman is the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Feldman is one of two deputies to Ambassador Holbrooke, the Special 

Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He previously served 

as Director of the Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs at the 

National Security Council during the Clinton Administration and 

was the Counsel and Communications Advisor on this Committee, 

the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Most recently, Mr. Feldman was a partner at Foley and 

Hoag. 

Jeff Parsons is Executive Director of the Army Contracting Command. Mr. Parsons also serves as the principal advisor to the ComVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:16 Feb 04, 2011 Jkt 056155 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56155.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
5 

1The prepared statement of Colonel Campbell appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

manding General of the Army Materiel Command on Contracting 

Matters and as the Army Materiel Command Career Program manager for the Contracting and Acquisition Career Program. 

It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses 

that appear before us. So, if you do not mind, I would like to ask 

you to stand. 

Do you all swear that the testimony that you will give before this 

Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but 

the truth, so help you, God? 

Colonel CAMPBELL. I do. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. I do. 

Mr. NORTH. I do. 

Mr. FELDMAN. I do. 

Mr. PARSONS. I do. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the 

witnesses have all answered in the affirmative. 

We will be using a timing system today. We would ask that your 

oral testimony be no more than 5 minutes, and we will put your 

entire written testimony as part of the record. 

Once again, I want to thank all of you for your service to your 

Country. None of you are in these jobs because you are making the 

big bucks. You are obviously working in the jobs you are working 

because you care about your Country and want to contribute. So 

let’s start with that, and we will begin with Mr. Campbell. 

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL, III,1 DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

(COMPTROLLER), DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Thank you, Chairman McCaskill and Senator 

Bennett. I appreciate the opportunity to explain from a budget perspective the actions of the Department of Defense to improve the 

oversight of reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. My remarks in 

particular, though, will focus on the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) program. 

As you may know, CERP began as a U.S.-funded program in fiscal year 2004 and is designed to enable local commanders in Iraq 

and Afghanistan to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction requirements within their area of responsibility. It is 

a valuable tool that commanders use to fund projects that will immediately assist the local populations. 

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last 

April, General Petraeus called CERP ‘‘a vital counterinsurgency 

tool for our commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq.’’ He added, 

‘‘Small CERP projects can be the most efficient and effective means 

to address a local community’s needs, and where security is lacking 

it is often the only immediate means for addressing these needs.’’ 

Since 2004, DOD has obligated approximately $1.6 billion for 

CERP programs in Afghanistan. That includes about $551 million 

in fiscal year 2009. Of those projects, about 2,300 projects in 2009, 

two-thirds of those funds were spent on transportation projects, but 

about 90 percent of all the projects were valued at $500,000 or less. 

6 

Now recognition of the program’s effectiveness and the value, 

Congress has authorized for fiscal year 2010 about $1.3 billion for 

the CERP program, and we understand will appropriate $1.2 billion for the program. CENTCOM plans to allocate the bulk of those 

funds to operations in Afghanistan. 

Now, by its nature, CERP involves decentralized implementation 

by local commanders in theater. Its hallmarks are responsiveness 

to urgent needs and flexibility. 

And we have heard the concerns expressed by Members of Congress here today as well. We have studied the recent findings of 

audit reports, and we have examined lessons learned from previous 

deployments. And we have taken steps within the Department, 

within the Army, and within CENTCOM theater to improve the 

oversight of the program, all with a goal of not diminishing the key 

element of flexibility and responsiveness this program provides to 

the commanders in the field. 

Within DOD, the Office of the Comptroller provides guidance for 

the program though the Financial Management Regulation. These 

regulations went through a significant update in June and December 2008, and this guidance is then supplemented by field level instructions and training. All guidance is continually updated to respond to changing operational conditions. 

To improve oversight of the program, the Army has enhanced 

CERP training for four key positions: The project manager, the 

project purchasing officer, the paying agent, and the unit commander. The first three form a triad of expertise that every project 

must have. Unit commanders are vital to ensure the appropriate 

projects are identified. Integrated training and detailed procedures 

provide the checks and balances necessary in every project. 

In addition, in Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International 

Development now participates as a voting member on the CERP review board at the command level. Their participation prevents duplication of effort and helps identify any problems with sustainment of projects nominated by the CERP program. 

The time, energy, and ingenuity that people have devoted to improving CERP reflects both a desire to spend taxpayers’ money 

wisely and to maintain a program that has proven to be a valuable 

tool in the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

DOD recognizes that more improvements can be made in the 

management of CERP, to maintain both the flexibility and the accountability of this essential field-driven program. To that end, the 

Deputy Secretary will lead a review of CERP to determine how 

best to enhance the Department’s guidance, management and oversight, and this report will be completed and made available to the 

Congress this spring. 

Let me again thank you for the tremendous support of the Congress to this program, and I will be glad to address any questions 

on CERP. Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. Harrington. 

7 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Harrington and Mr. Parsons appears in the Appendix 

on page 41. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD M. HARRINGTON,1 DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR PROCUREMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Chairman McCaskill, Senator Bennett, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, 

thank you for this opportunity to discuss the Army’s contracting 

operations in Afghanistan where we strive to be agile, expeditionary, and responsive to our warfighters, while ensuring the 

proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars. 

With me today is 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. 

We thank the Members of this Subcommittee and the Members 

of Congress as we work to rebuild the acquisition and contracting 

workforce to execute the increasing workload in the number of contracted actions and the contracted dollars, which in the last 15 

years has increased in excess of 500 percent. With your help and 

the help of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, we are working 

aggressively to rebuild our workforce numbers and restore their 

skills to deal with the growing complexities of contracting. 

Along with the additional workforce personnel, we thank you for 

authorizing five additional general officer billets for acquisition. 

Our progress in filling these positions is outlined in our written 

statement. 

It is important to note, however, that Major General Promotable 

Bill Phillips will soon relinquish command of the Joint Contracting 

Command-Iraq/Afghanistan (JCC-I/A), and become the Principal 

Military Deputy to our Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. He will also become our Director for 

Acquisition Career Management. Both of these require a three-star 

billet. 

Brigadier General Camille Nichols is slated to take command of 

JCC-I/A later this month, replacing General Phillips. 

General Phillips is the first contracting general officer to be the 

Principal Military Deputy. We feel this is a strong example to the 

Army’s commitment to contracting. 

The JCC-I/A is authorized to contract for goods and services, to 

include supporting the Defense Department’s Commander’s Emergency Response Program. The JCC-I/A mission does not include reconstruction of Afghanistan because that mission is assigned to the 

U.S. Agency for International Development. 

JCC-I/A, however, does have a direct role in developing the economy of Afghanistan. For example, through the Afghan First program, JCC-I/A has awarded roughly $1.8 billion to Afghani business since October 1, 2008. Of note, JCC-I/A awarded more than 

$39 million to Afghani women-owned businesses. 

In support of the President’s decision to send an additional 

30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, General Phillips and his staff 

are conducting a mission analysis in coordination with CENTCOM, 

the Joint Staff and our Army staff, to determine the resources, perVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:16 Feb 04, 2011 Jkt 056155 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56155.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
8 

1The joint prepared statement of Mr. Parsons and Mr. Harrington appears in the Appendix 

on page 41. 

sonnel and locations where contractor support will be required for 

this surge. We are engaged with JCC-I/A on a daily basis to provide that direct support to them. 

Earlier this year, we established the Joint Theater Contracting 

Support Office within my office at the Pentagon to ensure JCC-I/ 

A has fully funded, manned, and supported resources in this contingency contracting mission. As additional troops deploy, this mission takes on even greater importance. 

We are also continually improving our processes to leverage 

stateside contracting capabilities to augment JCC-I/A’s. As an example, the Army Contracting Command established a Reach-Back 

Contracting Office as a center of excellence at the Rock Island Contracting Center in Illinois. Through this center, we are working 

with JCC-I/A and the Army Contracting Command to identify requirements in theater that can be performed at Rock Island. We 

have also initiated coordination with the Air Force to provide a 

team of its contracting officers to augment Rock Island’s reach-back 

capability. 

In addition, to ease the workload in theater, the Army has established a JCC-I/A specific Contract Closeout Task Force in San Antonio, now in the process of closing out 80,000 contracts. 

Thank you very much, ma’am. This concludes my opening remarks. Mr. Parsons will now discuss the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, after which we look forward to your questions. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. Parsons, would you like to go right after 

Mr. Harrington? 

TESTIMONY OF JEFFREY PARSONS,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

ARMY CONTRACTING COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF THE 

ARMY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. PARSONS. Thank you, Chairman McCaskill, Senator Bennett, 

and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for 

the opportunity to provide information on the status of the 

LOGCAP contracts in Afghanistan, including the continuing transition from LOGCAP III which relies on a single source company, to 

the LOGCAP IV which uses three different performance contractors. Both of these contingency contracts enable the Army to provide critical support to buoy troops serving on the front lines of Afghanistan. 

The highly complex and challenging LOGCAP program is accomplished by a team of forward deployed and rear echelon Department of the Army civilians, Army Reserve officers and noncommissioned officers in the LOGCAP Support Unit, and the officers, 

NCOs and civilian employees of the Defense Contract Management 

Agency (DCMA). These hardworking, highly skilled people make up 

Team LOGCAP and provide contract oversight of the three performance contractors: DynCorp, Fluor, and KBR. 

The Defense Contract Audit Agency also provides forward support and is a key partner in our oversight functions. Team LOGCAP is further supported by the men and women serving here in 

the United States with the U.S. Army Materiel Command and its 

9 

1The prepared statement of Mr. North appears in the Appendix on page 55. 

subordinate commands, the U.S. Army Contracting Command and 

the U.S. Army Sustainment Command. 

Today, I plan to provide you a status update and answer your 

questions on what we are doing to support deployed forces through 

the LOGCAP contracts in Afghanistan. I thank you for your continued interest in LOGCAP and the contingency contracting process. 

The Army Contracting command is committed to excellence in all 

contracting, including these very complex and critical LOGCAP 

contracts. We continue to collect lessons learned and make improvements and adjustments along the way to ensure mission success and protection of the interests of the U.S. Government and the 

taxpayer. It is my honor to lead the contracting team in achievement of these goals. 

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. This concludes my opening remarks. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Parsons. Mr. North. 

TESTIMONY OF CHARLES NORTH,1 SENIOR DEPUTY DIRECTOR, AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN TASK FORCE, U.S. AGENCY 

FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. NORTH. Chairman McCaskill, Ranking Member Bennett, 

Senator Kirk, and other Members of the Subcommittee, thank you 

for your invitation to testify before this Subcommittee on the topic 

of Afghan reconstruction and development contracts. I will keep my 

remarks brief and ask that my full written statement be submitted 

as part of the official record. 

Within the President’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, USAID’s 

mission in Afghanistan is to support Afghan-led development, build 

Afghan capacity at the local and national levels and strive for Afghan sustainability. 

As you know, Afghanistan is a high-risk environment in which 

corruption and extortion pose significant risk. As a result, it would 

be impossible for me or for USAID, under these circumstances, to 

declare unequivocally that wrongdoing will never occur. At the 

same time, though, it is important to underscore that we have in 

place well-designed systems and practices to minimize opportunities for misconduct and misappropriation of funds. 

Based on these requirements, we aggressively manage and monitor performance, review and improve our systems and practices, 

and promptly respond to all allegations. Furthermore, we work 

closely with the USAID Inspector General as well as the Special 

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the Government Accountability Office. 

To best respond to President Obama’s strategy, USAID has become an integral component in a whole-of-government unity of effort in Afghanistan. All our planning and operations are streamlined and coordinated with the various U.S. Government agencies. 

On the ground, we work under the leadership of Ambassador 

Eikenberry and Ambassador Wayne. At the Provincial Reconstruction Teams and in the Regional Command Offices, our field officers 

work daily with our military and interagency civilian counterparts 

to implement the U.S. Government’s mission in Afghanistan. The 

10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Feldman appears in the Appendix on page 63. 

PRTs serve as additional eyes and ears on the ground to further 

improve our program effectiveness and to flag potential issues. 

USAID’s U.S. and Afghan staff are central to program implementation. Our on-the-ground presence has doubled since January and 

continues to grow. As of December 7, 2009, USAID/Afghanistan has 

180 American staff in-country. USAID expects to have a total of 

333 Americans on the ground early next year. We also have 136 

Afghans and 16 third country nationals on our staff in Afghanistan. 

USAID currently has 10 contracting officers who focus on Afghanistan and more than 57 contracting officer’s technical representatives on our staff in-country as well. 

Our staff operate within a new initiative called Afghan First 

which others have referred to. The guiding principle is that Afghans lead, not follow, in their path to a secure and economically 

viable country. The program strives to buy Afghan products, use 

Afghan-owned firms for procurement and to use Afghan specialists 

whenever it is possible in order to build capacity in Afghanistan. 

In conclusion, Afghanistan is hungry for development. The 

United States, in coordination with international partners, is providing jobs for the jobless, a voice to the voiceless, food for the hungry and hope for the hopeless. 

We know it will be difficult. We remain optimistic even during 

weeks like this when five members of our team from Development 

Alternatives Incorporated were killed by a suicide bomber. But 

these principles—extending monitoring and oversight, a whole-ofgovernment approach, a skilled core of civilian development specialists, and placing Afghans first—will make a difference for the 

people of Afghanistan. 

Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. North, and obviously we 

continuously stand in awe of people who lose their lives in this effort. Whether they are civilians from State Department or a part 

of our military, it is obviously beyond bravery that people are willing to stand up and go into a contingency like that. 

Especially, in some ways, I do not think civilians get enough pats 

on the back. We love our military and their bravery, but I think 

we forget sometimes that there are a lot of brave people who are 

stepping forward that do not wear a uniform, that are in harm’s 

way. 

Mr. Feldman, please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF DANIEL F. FELDMAN,1 DEPUTY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. FELDMAN. Chairman McCaskill, Senator Bennett, and Senator Kirk, thank you for your invitation to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss our efforts to enhance oversight and accountability for development and reconstruction contracting in Afghanistan. 

11 

And, as a former staffer on this Committee, it is an honor and 

a unique experience to be back in this hearing room, but on this 

side of the table. 

Senator MCCASKILL. We cannot wait. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FELDMAN. As you know, this is a complex topic with many 

agencies owning various aspects of it. The State Department’s Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan has 

a role in formulating broader policy and then in reviewing and approving contracts. While our embassy in Kabul and our USAID colleagues can speak more directly to the challenges related to implementation, yet other colleagues can speak more closely to the situation in Afghanistan as it compares to Iraq. 

As Secretary Clinton noted in her recent appearance before the 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Obama Administration 

inherited an underresourced civilian effort in Afghanistan. As a result, efforts since 2001 have fallen short of expectations. 

Over the past 10 months, we have conducted a broader review, 

not only of our assistance objectives, but also how we go about delivering our assistance programs. The result of this review is a 

new, more focused and effective assistance effort aligned with our 

core goal of disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda. Additionally, our assistance is increasingly implemented in partnership 

with the Afghan government and local Afghan implementing partners. 

While we have not resolved all the problems that we uncovered, 

I believe we now have a more robust system of review, management and oversight in place that will deliver improved results over 

the next 12 to 18 months. Let me briefly outline a few aspects of 

our new approach. 

Our civilian assistance in Afghanistan aims to build the capacity 

of key Afghan government institutions to withstand and diminish 

the threat posed by extremism. Short-term assistance aims to deny 

the insurgency foot soldiers and popular support by focusing on 

licit job creation, especially in the agricultural sector, and improving basic service delivery at the national, provincial, and local levels. Long-term reconstruction efforts aim to provide a foundation 

for sustainable economic growth. 

To achieve these goals and maximize the effectiveness of our assistance, we have pursued four discrete topics or categories: One, 

smaller, more flexible contracts; two, decentralization; three, increased direct assistance; and four, improved accountability and 

oversight. 

On smaller, more flexible contracts, we are shifting away from 

large U.S.-based contracts to smaller, more flexible reconstruction 

contracts with fewer sub-grants and sub-contracts that enable 

greater on the ground oversight. 

The premise behind this flexibility is simple. In a dynamic conflict environment like Afghanistan, we need to be able to adapt our 

programs as conditions change on the ground. These smaller contracts and grants will be managed by U.S. officials in the field, 

closer to the actual activity implementation, making it easier for 

those same officials to direct, monitor and oversee projects to ensure the proper use of taxpayers’ funds. 

12 

On decentralization, USAID officials posted to region civilianmilitary platforms bring with them funding and flexible authorities 

to enhance the responsiveness of programs and better coordinate 

local Afghan priorities. We found that not only does a decentralized 

program platform enhance development activities at the provincial 

and district level, but that it is also more cost effective. 

On increased direct assistance, we are also decreasing our reliance on large international contractors and building Afghan institutional capacity by increasing our direct assistance through Afghan government mechanisms in consultation with Congress. This 

includes increased U.S. contributions to the World Bank administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, which includes the National Solidarity Program. To receive direct assistance, Afghan 

ministries must be certified as meeting accountability and transparency requirements. 

Support to the Afghan Civil Service Commission increases the 

professional skills and leadership within the Afghan government, 

enabling Afghans to increasingly assume responsibility for their 

country’s economic development. Our goal is to have up to 40 percent of U.S. assistance delivered through local entities by December, 2010, and to certify six of the core Afghan ministries in the 

same time period. 

On improved accountability and oversight, at the start of our 

contracting review, Ambassador Holbrooke and Deputy Secretary 

Lew reviewed individually every major contract to ensure that they 

were aligned with the strategy that the President had announced 

in March 2009. They focused on ensuring that our new contracts 

introduced mechanisms to improve performance and significantly 

decrease the overall percent of multiyear contracts. 

While Washington remains closely involved in the contract review process, Ambassador Tony Wayne, who you have previously 

heard about, our Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Assistance in Kabul, now has day to day responsibility for 

reviewing each contract to ensure adherence to our national security goals. 

Recognizing that the substantial international assistance to Afghanistan has the potential to contribute to corruption, we have deployed a sizeable number of new direct hire contracting personnel 

to enhance oversight of programs, as well as additional technical 

staff in the field to monitor program implementation and impact. 

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction is 

Congress’s eyes and ears on the ground in Afghanistan, and we 

support its role in evaluating internal controls and implementation 

of assistance programs. 

In conclusion, the Secretary and all of us who work on Afghanistan believe we have a duty to ensure that the resources provided 

by the Congress and the American people are used for the purposes 

intended and approved by the Congress. The reforms that we have 

implemented will, over time, decrease overhead and related costs 

for assistance programs, increasing the amount per dollar of U.S. 

assistance, directly benefiting the Afghan people and the Afghan 

institutions. 

Afghanistan is a complex, dynamic, and difficult operational environment, and that constrains our ability to sometimes provide the 

13 

high level of oversight of projects that we would otherwise require. 

But we are making every effort to ensure that the required operational flexibility is matched with the highest dedication to accountability, and we are committed to taking the necessary corrective actions when a problem occurs. 

Thank you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Feldman. 

We will each do 5-minute rounds and do as many rounds as we 

need to do in order for everyone to cover their questions today. 

Let me start out by asking a question that probably individually 

none of you can answer, but it might be one of those moments for 

collaboration that would be important. Can somebody give me a 

number in terms of how much we are spending on contracts in Afghanistan, what you would guess the number is going to be or ballpark number for either this year or next year? 

Can anybody do that? 

Maybe let’s do it by stovepipe then. Are there significant contractual obligations other than CERP and USAID? Am I missing a significant outlay of contracts other than CERP and USAID? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Ma’am, from an Army perspective, both the 

Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan will contract for all 

of the goods and services. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Oh, LOGCAP. I left out LOGCAP. The 

three: LOGCAP, CERP and USAID. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am, and the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan contracts for specific goods and services for 

those requirements outside the bounds of LOGCAP that are instant 

to the standing-up of a forward operating base command outpost, 

those types. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Host nation trucking, air support, services 

such as that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So we have CERP. We have LOGCAP. 

I am going to refer to what you just said as the other. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And USAID. 

Anything else that I have missed, any big pots of money somewhere that are being spent that I have missed? 

Mr. Feldman. 

Mr. FELDMAN. Yes, the State Department altogether, we are in 

a little bit of a state of flux with one particularly large contract. 

One of our largest contracts under INL, which is for police training, 

that is in the process of being transferred back to DOD. That was 

about $450 million. 

If you take that out, and that should probably be back at DOD 

in the first quarter of next year, if you take that out, we have 

about $900 million of programming. The majority of it is INL for 

counter-narcotics, for justice programs, for corrections programs, 

for a range of other things, and then there is some smaller contracts for security personnel and embassy security. But altogether, 

it comes to about $900 million. It seems with taking out that police 

piece, under 1,500 contractors altogether. 

Senator MCCASKILL. What about LOGCAP? How big is LOGCAP, 

Mr. Parsons, in Afghanistan? 

14 

Mr. PARSONS. Ma’am, the current LOGCAP III contract in Afghanistan is probably in the neighborhood of $1.8 to $2 billion, and 

the recent awards that we made to both Fluor and to DynCorp will 

well exceed over a billion dollars as well. 

I would also like to add that I know we are doing quite a bit of 

contracting for the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), where we are buying a lot of equipment that 

is being provided to the Afghan army and the Afghan police, plus 

some of the training support contracts that we do for CSTC-A. 

Those, I know are averaging probably a total of about a billion dollars a year as well, if not more. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK, and that is not in other? That is not in 

Mr. Harrington’s other? That is an additional? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. 

Mr. PARSONS. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So now tell me again what that is 

called. 

Mr. PARSONS. The Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A). 

Senator MCCASKILL. CSTC-A. 

Mr. PARSONS. Right. 

Senator MCCASKILL. You guys kill me. [Laughter.] 

Mr. PARSONS. Lieutenant General Caldwell. 

Senator MCCASKILL. You have never found an acronym you did 

not love. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Actually, Senator, the funds that they spend 

are out of the Afghan Security Forces Fund, which is a separate 

account that is appropriated to DOD. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. What I really need you all to do, we are 

going to try to do a chart after this hearing as to where the money 

is being spent because what I want to make sure I know at this 

point in time is who is responsible for each pot of money. That is 

one of the things that made my eyes cross in Iraq. It was just not 

clear who was the one that was going to be accountable when 

things went badly. 

Let me ask this because one of the things that happened in Iraq 

was you had Army Corps of Engineers that kind of got layered in 

there. And it was interesting to me because I would go in Iraq to 

talk to the Army Corps of Engineers, and I would hear one set of 

facts. Then I would move to somewhere else, and I would hear a 

completely different set of facts. So where is Army Corps of Engineers in here, if at all? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Ma’am, I was going to say the Army Corps of 

Engineers is the other component of this, and I will take a question 

for the record to get an accurate dollar count for you. Some of this 

is still slightly unknown because requirements are going to be generated throughout this timeframe, but we will get the accurate figures for you for the Army Corps of Engineers. 

Senator MCCASKILL. What will the Army Corps of Engineers be 

doing? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Obviously, ma’am, primarily construction 

projects, permanent building type construction projects. 

Senator MCCASKILL. For the military or for the Afghan people, 

because they were doing reconstruction in Iraq? 

15 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am, essentially for both. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And their money is going to come from 

where? The Army Corps money is coming from your money or is 

it coming from State’s money? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. I do not know, ma’am. I will find out. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Ma’am, I believe actually the Army Corps of 

Engineers—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. I appreciate your honesty that you do not 

know, but it is a problem. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. My understanding is the Army Corps of Engineers will oversee large projects, and that is probably why you 

would get different facts from Corps of Engineers than you would 

from an Army command because the Army is going to be executing 

funds appropriated to the Army, funds appropriated in the case of 

Iraq to Iraq Security Forces funds. There could also be some 

MILCON projects that go directly through Army Corps of Engineers and not through the commands in theater. So I can understand why you would get different facts in theater. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And that is how things get lost in the shuffle. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Right. 

Senator MCCASKILL. You know CERP is doing big stuff now. And 

I am about out of time for this round. So I am going to go ahead 

and turn it over to Senator Bennett. We will come back to that, but 

CERP is no longer just fixing broken glass on store fronts. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Right. 

Senator MCCASKILL. CERP is doing large projects. The question 

is are they contracting with people to do that or is Army Corps 

going to come in and do that? That is where I am not clear. 

Has CERP drifted from its initial, what I affectionately called, 

walking-around money? Has it drifted into the category of an 

USAID or an Army Corps reconstruction major project, and are we 

losing expertise in this shuffle? More importantly, are we going to 

get the oversight and the monitoring that we need? 

Thank you, and I will turn it over to Senator Bennett. 

Senator BENNETT. Thank you very much. 

Following through with what the Chairman has said, I have 

talked about the coordination between the combat units and the 

contractors, and when combat units are in the field they expect to 

have a high degree of situational awareness established between 

operating centers at higher levels of command. This means that the 

tactical maneuvers of one unit do not get messed up with the tactical maneuvers of another unit. All right. 

What is the command structure at the local, provincial, and national level in Afghanistan to ensure that you have the same degree of coordination, or avoidance of duplication if you will, that is 

expected of combat units with respect to reconstruction units? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Senator, within the Central Command, the 

Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan has the responsibility for what we call theater business clearance for all requirements coming into the Central Command. That is the clearinghouse, if you will, for those requirements with respect to where our 

16 

responsibilities lie at, for executing the requirements for the 

warfighting units. 

Outside of that, we do not have a purview of those other requirements. But, within that Central Command function, the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, in coordination with 

LOGCAP, is the central point through which we find ways to execute requirements for the warfighters that we support. 

Senator BENNETT. All right. Since you have that group in place, 

do you have any information about how often they stumble into situations where what is being done in Reconstruction Unit A does 

not properly coordinate with what is being done in Unit B, and 

they exercise their authority to say, OK, straighten that out? It is 

nice to have the thing in place, but you have been there for long 

enough that you can give me some examples of how it works? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Sir, it is the organizational structure in terms 

of executing those requirements at the different geographical locations. When a requirement comes in for a forward operating base 

in a certain geographical location, that regional contracting center 

gets that responsibility to execute that. If it is a large, more complex requirement, that is when we turn it back to the reach-back 

capability at Rock Island. 

So Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, the staff that 

supports that, oversees the allocation of those functions to award 

those contracts and has the purview of all of those functions coming to it. That is within CENTCOM, though. That is our responsibility. 

Senator BENNETT. Anyone else have a comment on that? 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Senator, I can tell you, again, I am a budget 

person. I am not one who works out in the field from an operational level. 

But on the CERP program, what they have done in Afghanistan, 

and partly from lessons learned in Iraq and even going back to 

Kosovo and Bosnia, they have set up a CERP review board. And, 

as I mentioned in my opening statement, it has a USAID representative on there, and that board is at the command level. So 

it is not sort of segregated or dispersed out in the field. All those 

CERP projects come back up to at least a two-star, if not higher 

level, command where they can do the kind of integration that you 

are referring to. 

I cannot say that they have everything in there, but they do their 

best to integrate at least with USAID. 

Senator BENNETT. There have been reports of friction between 

the State Department and USAID that exacerbated after the 2006 

merger of USAID into State. I am not asking you to tell any tales 

out of school, but can you give us some characterization of the relationship between USAID and the State Department? 

Mr. FELDMAN. I think we should both answer. 

Senator BENNETT. Everything is fine? 

Mr. NORTH. Sir, we work very closely with the State Department 

at all levels. Certainly here in Washington, Ambassador 

Holbrooke’s staff is an interagency group which includes three 

USAID officers on his staff. 

We have three USAID officers on Ambassador Holbrooke’s staff 

to help with that coordination here in Washington. Out in Kabul, 

17 

we work very closely with Ambassador Wayne and Ambassador 

Eikenberry. We have several examples of interagency strategies 

and implementation plans, for example, on agriculture, with the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Guard and how 

we go forward on implementing agricultural programs in Afghanistan. 

When you go out to the provincial level, at the planning level 

there, we have heard USAID does participate in CERP decisionmaking, but it is also interagency effort, not just USAID and the 

military but also with the State Department. 

So it is a close relationship, two different organizations. There 

are areas we continue to work on to improve that coordination. 

Senator BENNETT. Mr. Feldman, do you have any comment? 

Mr. FELDMAN. No. I would just say the success of our mission 

would be impossible without a very close working and cooperative 

relationship with USAID, and we feel very lucky to have the working relationship that we do with them. It was part and parcel of 

Ambassador Holbrooke’s intent when he created his office to make 

it the whole-of-government approach. 

We have detailees from 10 different agencies, but USAID is the 

only one that has three there right now. Actually, DOD also has 

three representatives. So those are far more representated than 

any of the others, and they are extremely well integrated into our 

staff, into all of our planning. 

And I would also amplify the point about Ambassador Tony 

Wayne in the field, who is the Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs ever since June. So he oversees all U.S. 

Government non-military assistance, and we have created a counterpart also in Pakistan to try to have the same sort of coordination. So he directs and supervises a wide range of embassy sections, programs, agencies, and there are 15 national level working 

groups to coordinate policy implementation. 

So, not only do we believe, we have to work towards as coordinated an interagency approach as possible to be successful. 

Senator BENNETT. Thank you. 

Madam Chairman, I have another Subcommittee I have to go to. 

So I am at your mercy. You can do whatever you want by unanimous consent. [Laughter.] 

Senator MCCASKILL. By unanimous consent, I would like us to 

vote on the health care bill by Monday, so I can get home for 

Christmas. Will that work? 

Senator BENNETT. Maybe not that? 

Senator MCCASKILL. I thought I would give it a shot. [Laughter.] 

Senator Kirk. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Senator Bennett, for this opportunity. It is a timely hearing, obviously. 

We welcome you gentlemen and thank you for your service. 

We are about to spend billions of dollars in the construction and 

counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, a country that enjoys a reputation of having a culture of corruption. It is sometimes said it is the 

second most corrupt country in the world. 

General McChrystal, when he was here, and he has written beforehand that the success of the American operation in Afghanistan 

18 

will largely be measured on how we do—I am paraphrasing—by, 

with and through the Afghanistan government. 

I guess my first question is with that as a background, in each 

of your agencies and departments, are there particular procedures, 

practices and systems that you are going to undertake that will 

give us some assurance, and the American taxpayers some assurance, that the money that is going to be spent over there will be 

properly overseen and accountable, so that we do not fall into the 

trap of that culture and find that a lot of our taxpayers’ dollars are 

being expended as payola or for kickbacks or however you want to 

describe it? 

Maybe I will start with you, Mr. North, and if others want to join 

in, in terms of what is happening in your respective departments 

and agencies, it would be helpful. 

Mr. NORTH. Thank you. We do recognize the issue of corruption 

is a major concern in Afghanistan, but we are also looking increasingly to put more of our resources through the government of Afghanistan, but doing it responsibly. 

We have ongoing programs to strengthen the capacity of government ministries, not only the personnel, but their systems, so that 

they can bring them up to the standards that we require for us to 

provide direct assistance to the government. We signed an agreement with the Ministry of Health a little over a year ago for over 

$200 million, and we have since also certified the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Finance to receive direct financing. 

In addition to continuing to strengthen their systems, we have 

ongoing assessments of other ministries including the Ministry of 

Education, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Rural 

Rehabilitation and Development. By going through these assessments, we can identify where the weaknesses are and support their 

efforts to strengthen their systems, not just to be able to manage 

our resources, but also to improve the overall accountability of Afghan resources for the long term. 

So this is very much a part and parcel of what we are about. It 

is strengthening their systems but also working with and through 

the Afghan government. 

Mr. FELDMAN. I am happy to. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you. 

Mr. FELDMAN. There are a range of initiatives that we have tried 

to implement since the beginning of this year, to try to improve 

contract oversight and performance, and they fall roughly into five 

broad categories. 

The first is the overarching organizational structure, and, as I 

laid out already, having Ambassador Tony Wayne there helped to 

do that. That position did not exist a year ago. Its establishment 

helped improve the oversight and the interagency coordination. 

Second is the actual contracting methods, and the structure of 

these development contracts has changed. So USAID is now increasing its use of performance-based one-year contracts which give 

more options for contracting officers who encounter poor performance. Contracts are designed with fewer subcontracting layers and 

with more professional supervision, so they will hopefully perform 

better. And, as Mr. North has said, we are moving towards Afghan 

19 

contractors when feasible and international contractors that have 

a strong percentage of Afghan personnel. This also includes working with certified Afghan ministries. 

The third category is the actual personnel additions. So the State 

Department and USAID are both increasing the number of financial analysts, contracting officers, technical officers, program officers, who altogether better track the flow of money and ensure that 

contractors are performing more according to standards. 

The fourth is the general civilian increases in the field at the national and sub-governance levels. We have more than doubled and 

come close to tripling the number of U.S. Government civilians deployed to the field this year. The more that are there, where the 

contracts are actually located and the projects are happening, the 

more oversight we can provide. 

And the fifth is the external oversight mechanisms, and that is 

obviously working in close concert and supporting the missions of 

SIGAR, the various inspectors general, the GAO and other external 

reporting mechanisms. 

Then last, what I would say about corruption in particular is 

that this is obviously an issue that is at the core of our strategy 

in combating it in Afghanistan. We have made a very robust and 

consistent case on dealing more aggressively on corruption to the 

Karzai government. It was part of his inaugural speech, as we had 

hoped it would be. He held just yesterday the anti-corruption conference. But it is something that we and the rest of the international community are going to continue to watch very closely. 

There has been a range of suggestions from revitalize the anticorruption commission, to hopefully bring some high level prosecutions, if we cannot deal with it at the national level, to working at 

a sub-national, regional governance structure where we can hopefully work around corruption if we have to. So it is something that 

is very central to our core mission. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PARSONS. Sir, if I could add just real quickly, one of the 

things that we are doing with our soldiers that are becoming contracting officer representatives is we see them as kind of the front 

line on being able to identify bad business practices. We are teaching all of them now a block on ethics training and the things that 

they need to look for as they perform their duties as a contracting 

officer representative. So I think that will go a long way. 

In fact, I met with the Expeditionary Fraud Investigation Unit 

right before this hearing, this part of the Criminal Investigation 

Division of the Army, and they are increasing their presence there 

as well, in Afghanistan. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you. Madam Chairman, I know my time is 

up, but may I just ask if there are any other statments? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Absolutely. Take all the time you would 

like, Senator Kirk. 

Senator KIRK. Mr. Campbell or Mr. Harrington? 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Senator Kirk, yes, thank you. 

What I would do is just give you an example which I think will 

get to sort of at the local level issue you are talking about. Of 

course, all CERP money is executed and managed by U.S. GovernVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:16 Feb 04, 2011 Jkt 056155 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\56155.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
20 

ment employees or soldiers. In rare exception, Coalition Forces can 

use CERP money. 

One of the things that General McGhee, who is the resource 

manager in CENTCOM, has implemented is moving more towards 

electronic transfer of funds. So, in Iraq, years ago where we used 

to have to essentially just fly in plane loads of cash, what you are 

finding more in Afghanistan is a lot of this money is being transferred, one, in local currencies but, two, as an electronic fund transfer. 

Of course, once it gets into the hands of the local population, it 

is kind of up to them to deal with, but I think that is where State 

Department’s and USAID’s more overarching efforts will come into 

play. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Sir, Army-wide, to reinforce Mr. Parson’s comments, we are taking a lot more of an active role in training our 

contracting officer’s representatives earlier in the process and ensuring that they are identified, trained and assigned, with certificates, such that when they do arrive in theater they are then 

linked with their contracting officers, and they go through a very 

good briefing on the contractor’s performance and the contractor’s 

functions. 

That training includes being able to evaluate the contractor’s 

performance and provide that relative information to the contracting officer. That really culminates in ascertaining the deliverable we are supposed to get, in either a supply or a product, and 

then executing a payment, as Mr. Campbell notes, electronically, so 

that we have got a very good, succinct process all the way through 

the payment of the contractor. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you. 

Just a final question on this, the notion that has been advanced, 

I think, by President Karzai that the contracting or the licensing 

program be managed or administered through the Afghan government, is that something that we should take comfort in? Is that notion something that can work out, do you think? 

I mean are you confident about that for the same reason that obviously this is a great amount of dollars, a very important theater? 

In my own view, we are taking a huge bet on success in Afghanistan, and part of it obviously is going to be the civilian component 

of it. I am just wondering about the licensing program being administered by the Afghan government. Is that something that each 

of you subscribe to as the right way to go? 

Mr. FELDMAN. Ambassador Eikenberry addressed this in his recent testimony, and we are fully supportive of that. We do think 

that it would help to provide a certain consistency. 

This came up in part due to the rates that international contractors pay compared to rates that Afghans may make, lesser rates at 

this point, if they go into the army or police or things, and wanting 

to make sure that we create the right incentives and do not create 

disincentives for them to join security forces, which is in our own 

long-term interests. This was a question that obviously Chairwoman McCaskill asked about. So we do see this as one way to 

help address that, and we would strongly favor it. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you very much. 

21 

Madam Chairman, I am also going to have to excuse myself. 

Thank you for your forbearance, and I thank you gentlemen as 

well. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Kirk. We are glad you 

were here. 

Let me start on a little bit drilling down on LOGCAP. You know 

how I feel about LOGCAP III, it is like the movie that never ends. 

I continue to be confused why we are utilizing LOGCAP III and not 

more aggressively transitioning to LOGCAP IV. 

Even though we have awarded under LOGCAP IV, it appears to 

me that less than a billion has been funded under LOGCAP IV, 

and LOGCAP III now is totaling $34.4 billion. What is the holdup here? Why can we not let loose of the KBR dynasty? 

Mr. PARSONS. Well, ma’am, I think we are letting loose of that. 

We have been deliberately moving from LOGCAP III to LOGCAP 

IV. I think as we have testified before and have talked with many 

of the staffers, there was a deliberate process that we would move 

from Kuwait requirements on LOGCAP, move them from III to IV, 

then move to Afghanistan, and then move to the more complex situation which was in Iraq. And that is what we have been following. 

I think you are aware that all the work, LOGCAP requirements 

in Kuwait have now transitioned fully to LOGCAP IV. We are in 

the beginning parts of the transition in Afghanistan, from the old 

LOGCAP III to LOGCAP IV. We expect that transition to be complete by about July 2010. 

It is not a simple transition process, as we have learned especially with having to account for all the equipment that has been 

bought by KBR at the different FOBs and the different camps, and 

having to account for that, and also just getting men and women 

and equipment in to transition in Afghanistan. So it does take 

some time, and we have got to be cognizant of the commanders’ 

operational requirements as well. 

With LOGCAP requirements in Iraq, we should be making an 

award I hope at the end of this month or the beginning of January 

for some of the services in Iraq. What has been holding us back a 

little bit on the base life support is knowing exactly what the requirements are going to be now that the President has made the 

decision with the drawdown and trying to extract all the forces by 

December 2011. 

So it has been taking us some time working with theater to identify those, but I think we are there. We should be releasing that 

RFP very soon, and then that transition will start taking place 

again sometime in 2010. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It is my understanding that Fluor has the 

North in Afghanistan and DynCorp has the South, correct? 

Mr. PARSONS. Correct, ma’am. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And they are doing all of the tasks in those 

areas? 

Mr. PARSONS. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So it is not task to task competition that we 

ended up with. It ended up regional competition. 

Mr. PARSONS. Yes, ma’am. What we did, we made a conscious decision in Afghanistan to split Afghanistan in two, with two different contractors, because we wanted to maintain that capability 

22 

and capacity with two contractors. So, if we need to increase the 

requirements, which obviously we need to do now, they will have 

that capacity in there. 

Plus, we did not want to have a single point of failure, which is 

what we really recognized in Iraq. We were tied to KBR in Iraq. 

If KBR decided not to perform anymore, we did not really have a 

backup. This way, if we have problems with one of the performance 

contractors, we will have two there in the theater. Then one of 

them, the other one could pick up. 

I know you had concerns about the way we structured these task 

orders. We recognized that if we were going to select one for the 

North and one of the South, we would have to find a way to preserve the competition that we had with the award of those task orders. So what we did was we established what they call a service 

price matrix. 

We took about 80 percent of all the key services that are provided underneath those task orders for all the different base life 

support, and we had a matrix where the baseline pricing, which 

the fee was based on. So the fee that these contractors will earn 

are tied back to that pricing matrix. So, even if there is really no 

incentive for them to run the costs up because they will not get any 

more fee. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So what you are telling me, which is great 

news, huge improvement, is that somebody who is peeling a potato 

up North is going to get paid about what somebody who is pealing 

a potato down South? 

Mr. PARSONS. Not necessarily, ma’am. There are differences for 

some of the services between what we have in our price matrix for 

the North versus the South, but that is because the contractors 

have different rate structures. They took different approaches at it. 

What we are also going to have is DCAA going in and auditing 

the baseline for both contractors for these prices. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Right, I am aware they are doing that. 

Mr. PARSONS. If they see something out of whack, we will go 

back and negotiate with them. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Let’s just say something a little bit easier. 

Per head breakfast, I mean on a per head. I assume we are buying 

breakfast by head. 

Mr. PARSONS. Very close. There was no unbalanced pricing that 

we saw when we did the competition. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. PARSONS. So, when you take a look overall, we are pretty 

comfortable. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I saw that DynCorp’s partner got indicted, 

Agility, criminally indicted for violations of the False Claims Act, 

which to translate into lay terms, they got caught ripping us off. 

Now I understand that you all have suspended them, but it is 

also my understanding that the way the rules and regs and laws 

work, they can continue to get work under their contract with 

Fluor even though they have been indicted for ripping us off. Is 

that accurate? 

Mr. PARSONS. Ma’am, interesting that you should bring this 

question up. Mr. Harrington and I met with DynCorp officials earlier this week to discuss another matter, but they did bring up 

23 

Agility. I know that what they informed us was that they were no 

longer going to be using Agility as a partner. They had set up the 

agreement with their partners that if anybody got indicted for any 

reason, that they could dis-establish that relationship, and we were 

informed on Monday this week, that was their plan. 

Senator MCCASKILL. More progress, OK. I also understood that you recently suspended $14.2 million in costs that were billed by 

Fluor, that you, under LOGCAP IV, have refused or decided not to 

pay $14.2 million worth of expenses that were submitted. 

Mr. PARSONS. Ma’am, there are some withholdings that are taking place. I do not know the exact amount. I would have to get 

back to you on that, but there have been some questions about 

Fluor’s compensation and also their purchasing system. So I know 

that the administrative contracting officer, working with the contractor officer, has been looking at withholds until those systems 

are corrected. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I would love to know the details of 

that. For one thing, it will reassure me that we have transitioned 

into a situation where we are going to try to take money away, instead of paying them and then saying later: Maybe we should not 

have given that to you, but too late now. We have already given 

it to you, and we are not going to try to claw back. 

Mr. PARSONS. Right. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So I would like to know the underlying details. If in fact we are withholding, I would like to know what the 

details are. 

Mr. PARSONS. OK, we will get that for you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Now let’s talk about the contractors versus 

police and military. If you cannot give me these answers now, these 

are answers I think it is very important for the record. 

Understanding I went over this with Secretary Gates in the 

Armed Services hearing, and with McChrystal, it is my understanding that many of these contract positions—people need to understand this is a world of difference from Iraq in terms of the use 

of Afghans. We have got more than 50 percent, in fact almost 100 

percent of the security contractors are Afghans. I think right now 

we have about 11,000 security contractors, and 10,000 of them are 

Afghans. Clearly, that is a much different scenario than what we 

had in Iraq when it was almost all third party nationals. 

Now the same thing is true with the other contractors. More 

than half, in fact I think it is close to two-thirds of the 100,000 contractors we have in Afghanistan are in fact Afghans. 

Now it is my understanding, and some of this was from talking 

to Ambassador Holbrooke, that he mentioned to me that Karzai 

talked about this problem in his inauguration address. That is that 

we are paying our contractors more money than they are paying 

their police or their military. If you are an Afghan and you can 

make more money cooking for American troops than you can make 

taking up a gun to fight the Taliban, I am betting they are going 

to cook for the troops. 

If our entire mission is to build up the Afghan military and the 

Afghan police, how do we accomplish that if the left hand does not 

know what the right hand is doing and we are paying our contractors more than those military or police make? 

24 

1The chart referred to by Mr. Feldman appears in the Appendix on page 106. 

Can any of you confirm that is in fact the case and what is being 

done to fix that problem? Because we are never going to accomplish 

our mission since we are hiring certainly many more contractors 

than we are ever going to be able to attract to the police or the 

military. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Ma’am, let me take that question for the 

record and get the accurate facts back to you. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. If it is true, then it really worries me 

because that means once again we have not had the integration between the military mission and the realities of contracting. In fact, 

the realities of contracting in this instance are completing undercutting the military mission, and I am betting the military did not 

even realize that was potentially occurring. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. I understand. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So I think it is pretty important. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Certainly. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And I really want to know specifics. How 

much does somebody make doing laundry for our troops and how 

much do they make, let’s say, in Kandahar or at Camp Phoenix? 

What do they make and what do they make in the police department locally? So we can do an apples to apples comparison about 

the level of salary and if we are cutting off our nose to spite our 

face. 

Let me go to USAID and State Department now for some questions about that. I know there is a reason we have six ambassadors 

in Afghanistan, but it is not clear to me who is doing what. Who 

is the ambassador? Who is in charge? 

Where is the org chart? What is the difference between Eikenberry and Holbrooke, and who is answerable to them? 

Can you help me with that, Mr. Feldman? 

Mr. FELDMAN. I would be happy to. We do have six ambassadors 

in Kabul, but we feel extremely well served by having them there, 

given the critical nature of our mission and given the talent that 

they bring. 

So Ambassador Eikenberry is charged with all of our work coming out of the embassy. I am just looking for the actual org chart, 

which I brought with me and am happy to share.1

Senator MCCASKILL. That is fine. You can get it to us for the 

record. 

Mr. FELDMAN. Sure. 

Senator MCCASKILL. The reason I ask the question is not to try 

to—I am sure that there is a valid substantial reason for all of the 

work that all of them are doing. I am trying to focus on this just 

because I have learned the hard way that the accountability piece 

never happens if you do not know who is in charge, and I am trying to determine among these ambassadors who is the ambassador 

that has the authority and the accountability and the responsibility 

in terms of the contracting that is going on. 

Mr. FELDMAN. Yes. Ambassador Eikenberry has responsibility for 

the State Department’s operations in Afghanistan, including all foreign assistance programs. Ambassador Ricciardone is his deputy. 

Ambassador Mussomeli helps to run operations. 

25 

And, Ambassador Wayne, as we said, is the Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Assistance. So he is the one that 

oversees all the U.S. Government non-military assistance to Afghanistan. He directs and supervises the range of embassy sections, programs, agencies, offices in the field. He is our main point 

of contact on many of these specific contracting issues, but obviously anything would go up to Ambassador Eikenberry, if need be. 

Ambassador Holbrooke, here in Washington, coordinates the 

interagency effort to advance the U.S.’s strategic goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So Ambassador Holbrooke’s office is the one 

that would be looking to see if CERP was trying to do the same 

thing that USAID was doing, that was trying to do the same thing 

State was trying to do? 

Mr. FELDMAN. Yes, in Washington, we do all of that. That interagency coordination is done from our office. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. FELDMAN. But, importantly, much of this work is actually 

done in the field, obviously—so, on CERP, on the specific decisions 

that are done with the local councils, on how the project is implemented. We need and rely on what is being done in the field, which 

ultimately goes through Ambassador Wayne for our coordinating 

basis, but we do the coordinating in Washington 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, if we determined down the line that 

there was a lack of coordination that caused a massive amount of 

waste, the buck would stop at Ambassador Holbrooke’s desk? 

Mr. FELDMAN. I think it would be jointly our desk here in Washington, and we would be working with the appropriate people at 

post as well, but, yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. FELDMAN. As far as the fifth ambassador, I think it is just 

Ambassador Carney who was there for the specific elections purpose and, now that the elections are over, will be returning. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. USAID, you are not putting your contracts into the database. 

Mr. NORTH. Which database? 

Senator MCCASKILL. SPOT. 

Mr. NORTH. SPOT. 

Senator MCCASKILL. The fact that you had to ask which one is 

a problem. There is supposed to be one, and everyone is supposed 

to be using it, so we can have transparency across in terms of all 

the contracts that are outstanding and the work that is being done. 

Mr. NORTH. We are, definitely. We are putting our contracts into 

SPOT. We are putting at the company organizational level. 

We have not put in individual names because of concern for the 

security of the individuals. Of the 20,000 people who work under 

USAID contracts and grants in Afghanistan, 19,000 are Afghans. 

There is great concern, particularly among the NGO community, 

about having their names in a database. There are concerns for 

their security and privacy. 

So, while we are complying with the law in terms of ensuring 

that all the companies that are working for us are included in the 

database, we have not as yet put individuals into the system. 

26 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, let me ask is the information that the 

Army is putting in, I assume it is more comprehensive than what 

USAID is putting in? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. I do not know what USAID is putting in, but the Army requires the contractors to put specific names 

of his contractor personnel in the database. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think we got to resolve this. Clearly, everyone is hiring Afghans. I mean this is an unprecedented hiring 

of locals in terms of our country. I do not think we have ever embarked on this kind of massive hiring program in-country when we 

have been in a contingency, or even close. So I think we have to 

decide if it is a security problem for the people at USAID, then certainly it is a security problem for the people that are working 

through the military. 

The problem is going to be this whole SPOT was designed so that 

we could at least have one central repository which we never had. 

I mean we did not even have electronic in Iraq. It was all paper 

everywhere. The accountability is very important, that this database work in theater, everyone using it. 

So I would ask USAID to come back to the Subcommittee with 

their specific concerns as to why they are not fully utilizing the 

database and what needs to be done in terms of getting everyone 

together and everyone doing the same thing. 

Mr. NORTH. I would note that there is a separate meeting ongoing this afternoon on SPOT, here on the Hill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Good timing. 

Mr. NORTH. Thank you. Also, about 40 members of the NGO 

community asked to meet with us this afternoon to express their 

concerns about the system. It was also supposed to be today, but 

now we have been able to put that off to the first week of January. 

We need to work with them to ensure that as we go forward with 

implementation that their concerns are addressed. We have considered the possibility of using the classified version for putting individual names in. That is a possibility we can look at, but we still 

need to work through those issues. 

We want to fully comply with the law and make a joint, full U.S. 

Government effort on this, but we also have to be mindful of the 

concerns of the groups that we work with. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I think if everybody gets in the same 

room, I would find it defies common sense that you all would not 

share the same set of values as to what should go in the database 

and what should not. I think that we just got to all agree on what 

we are going to put in or what we are not going to put in, and, 

if we are not putting in something, then there has to be obviously 

a great justification for it. 

My concern is everyone is not utilizing it the same way. Until 

they are, it is of limited value. I am really tired of databases with 

limited value. There is about every five feet you walk in Federal 

Government, you find a database that is of little value. 

So I am determined that we are going to—since I was involved 

in trying to make sure we had some kind of central database—I am 

determined to stay on it and make sure that we get it so that it 

is working the way it should. 

Mr. NORTH. If I could make one last comment on this. 

27 

Senator MCCASKILL. Sure. 

Mr. NORTH. There is a memorandum of understanding that we 

are working out with DOD on SPOT and how we will go forward. 

That is in draft. So we are trying to figure this out. 

I would also say we are also hiring a full-time person just to administer this database from our side and make sure that we are 

keeping up to date on data entry. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That is terrific. Chop, chop. I know how 

long those MOU drafts take sometimes. Let’s see if we cannot move 

that along because we are spending a whole lot of money, and we 

have got a lot of contractors on the ground. The ability to do oversight is going to be greatly hampered if we do not get that database 

working the way it should. 

Let me go to CERP. I am trying to get a handle on the evolution 

of CERP and especially when you realize that such a large percentage of the monies being spent now are on projects that cost more 

than a half a million dollars. 

General McChrystal told me in the Armed Services hearing that 

there was sign-off. It goes as high as Petraeus on some of these. 

Is JCC-I/A doing the oversight and reporting requirements on 

CERP, and is it your responsibility that is where it is occurring? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Ma’am, at dollar values of $500,000 and above, 

JCC-I/A contracting officers execute CERP actions as contracts. 

They are overseen with contracting officer’s representatives. They 

are paid in accordance with our payment processes for the normal 

FAR-based contracts. So, yes, on those types of actions. For actions below $500,000 it is much as Mr. Campbell described 

in terms of the assignment of a project payment officer, project control officer. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Is the COR still somebody who, are they involved in the CERP, the contracting officer’s representative in unit? 

Are they doing part of this? 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. The requiring activity provides 

the contracting officer’s representative in all these types of actions. 

So, when the CERP requirement comes forth, we require a contracting officer’s representative to be able to be there to surveil. 

Typically, the project control officer, so far anyway, has been that 

function, to oversee the execution of that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Would it make sense when it is over 

$500,000 that it transfer over to USAID? I mean would that not 

make more sense? 

I mean you guys oversee. I mean you have got turnover. The idea 

that we have the military overseeing a massive road-building 

project just seems weird to me. 

Yes? That is nod for the record. He is nodding yes. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. We will take whatever job comes 

to it and try to do our best with it. But, if it is more appropriate 

and the expertise lies in another area, then absolutely. We are here 

to take the mission on when it is assigned to us. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I mean we are going to build up a whole 

level of expertise within the military in overseeing massive building projects. To me, that is very duplicative of what we are trying 

to maintain at USAID. Right? 

He is nodding yes, for the record. 

28 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. North, would you like to comment on 

that? 

Mr. NORTH. I would just note that as I have mentioned before 

we do work very closely with the military on CERP planning, certainly at the provincial and at the district level. 

Before the striker brigade began clearing areas of Kandahar, 

there was close coordination planning. USAID development officers, 

with other civilians at that level, worked with the military to figure 

out what needed to happen. We advised on the use of CERP, so 

that it would have a development impact that all thought was appropriate, and then our folks entered the clearing areas within 24 

to 48 hours behind the military. 

So there is a very close relationship that we are working to build, 

and continuing to build, at the provincial level, and even down at 

the district level. When an idea comes up, that here is something 

we need to do, to finance, it is that joint interagency team of military, USAID, State Department, USDA, others, that figures out 

which is the best mechanism to get the job done. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I have a sneaking suspicion, and maybe I 

am being cynical, that it is easier to get money in the budget for 

CERP than it is for USAID. I have watched CERP grow, and my 

suspicion is that folks around here are much more willing to go 

wherever they are asked to go, to support the military in a contingency, whereas when you start talking about USAID, then all of a 

sudden it does not feel that it is as important to many members. 

We do this all the time around here. Because of ways to get 

money in the budget, we twist up like pretzels in terms of what our 

responsibility should be. 

So I want to make sure that even if you want to continue to try 

to get CERP money in the budget, I want to make sure you are 

not duplicating the expertise at USAID in order to spend it because 

that truly is a waste of money. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Yes, ma’am. I think our obligation—it is Commander’s Emergency Response Program, and I think our obligation 

is to ensure that requirement is a commander’s emergency response requirement. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Yes. Building roads, I mean I know it may 

seem like an emergency in Afghanistan in some instances. But I 

do not ever remember someone saying we have an emergency, we 

have to build 15 miles of highway. 

Mr. NORTH. Well, I think in the case of roads one of the reasons 

that CERP would see as a reason for funding it is a way of employing youth in the region and, therefore, pulling loyalties away from 

the Taliban. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And that makes perfect sense. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. And Senator, if you would not mind if I could 

expand a little bit. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Sure, absolutely. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. I would say the reason that CERP does such 

a large funding of road projects in Afghanistan is for two reasons. 

One is just kind of where we are in the process of, in the phasing 

of operations in Afghanistan. 

29 

1The chart referred to by Mr. Feldman appears in the Appendix on page 106. 

As has been mentioned here already, I believe it was there are 

about 300 USAID officers in Afghanistan. There are 60,000 soldiers 

in Afghanistan, out in the field. So they act as kind of the eyes and 

ears of what is needed out in the population and bring those back 

up through their command level, so that it is then integrated with 

USAID. 

Actually, I was on the phone the other day with someone in 

Kabul, or actually Kandahar rather, and what they were explaining to me on why there are so many road projects is because there 

are not any roads in there now to speak of. Less than 20 percent 

of the villages are actually connected by a road. 

Your phrase that you used where CERP was initially was walking-around money, well, they need something to walk around on in 

Afghanistan, and so that is why I think you are seeing so much 

emphasis on road projects. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So many more road projects, yes. That 

makes sense. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. At some point, it should transition to more of 

a State Department/USAID issue, but right now it is in the military’s interest. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Let’s talk a minute. 

Mr. FELDMAN. Madam Chairman, can I say one word on that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Yes, Mr. Feldman. 

Mr. FELDMAN. On CERP, we absolutely believe it is a valuable 

program, and it is closely integrated with the civilian effort. 

I just wanted to also make sure you and the Subcommittee real- ize that the State Department had requested and received $30 million from Congress through fiscal year 2009 supplemental, for 

quick response funds which is meant to be exactly that type of 

walk-around money, which we will start implementing in the first 

half of 2010 and will be used for State Department civilians in the 

field—so nothing approaching CERP—which have been trying to 

implement. 

Senator MCCASKILL. CERP that is small. 

Mr. FELDMAN. But to get at that same core mission, which you 

realize. 

And I did find the org chart.1

Senator MCCASKILL. OK, great. Let me talk about projects that do not work. We have $1.4 billion 

contract to restore Afghanistan’s infrastructure, a joint venture between Berger and Black and Veatch, USAID. It was supposed to 

build two power plants projected to deliver 140 megawatts of electrical power. Two hundred and fifty million dollars have been 

spent. It is 2 years later. The two projects together were only capable of producing 12 megawatts of power and not 1 megawatt has 

been delivered to 1 single citizen of Afghanistan. 

Worse than the failure to complete the project, the inspector general at USAID found that the Afghan government may not be able 

to even operate the Kabul power plant because it cannot afford to 

pay for the diesel fuel it needs to run it. The other plant, which 

is producing zero power, is costing USAID one million dollars a 

month to be guarded. 

30 

So we have $250 million spent. We have a little bit of electricity 

being generated but not being delivered. And we have one plant 

that has been built, and we are spending a million dollars a month 

to guard it with nothing going on. 

What is the problem here and have the contractors been held accountable? 

Mr. NORTH. The security has been a major issue certainly for 

many infrastructure programs. In the case of the Kabul power 

plant, the latest figures I have show that it is now producing 105 

megawatts of power. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Is any of it getting delivered? 

Mr. NORTH. Yes, it is. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. NORTH. And we are also concerned about the sustainability 

of this plant. Mind you, the intent, in addition to the economic 

needs for Kabul, was certainly to demonstrate that the government 

of Afghanistan was able to deliver services. So there was certainly 

a short-term political need. 

But at the same time we were looking at the sustainability of the 

plant. We had negotiated with the government that they would 

pick up the operating costs, but with the understanding that we 

were also building transmission lines coming from the North integrated with Central Asia, to provide power to Kabul, so that the 

power plant then becomes a backup system rather than the main, 

primary means of power. 

The other plant I believe you are referring to is the Kajaki Dam 

which is now producing 33 megawatts of power. Kandahar now has 

power 24 hours, though there are some areas that are not. It is uneven in some areas. 

We have two of the turbines that are running. The third needs 

to be installed. It is at the dam. It took one of the largest NATO 

operations since World War II to move that turbine into place a 

year and a half ago. We are now, due to security concerns, unable 

to get that turbine installed as well as to build additional transmission lines. 

So we are taking actions to hold off on further costs to us until 

the military, ISAF, can secure that region so those programs can 

go forward. 

With the third turbine, we will increase power going from Kajaki 

to 55 megawatts, but we are already seeing significant impact in 

Kandahar and some of the smaller cities, Lashkar Gah and so forth 

in that region, from what we have already been able to do. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Well, I am glad that you have updated information based on our research, and I would appreciate getting all 

of that for the record, so we can compare the information we 

have—it came from the IG—and check with the IG on it. 

Frankly, if you are holding off to make sure that you have the 

correct security environment, that is progress over Iraq because we 

did not hold off in Iraq and almost everything we built got blown 

up. That is part of the money that went up in smoke. 

So thank you for the additional facts that you have done there. 

Let me finish up. Unfortunately, if I allowed myself to, we could 

be here for another couple of hours. I have that many questions. 

31 

But there are more hearings, and we can cover many of these subjects as we go forward in these hearings. 

Let me ask each of you to give yourselves a grade on how well 

you are coordinating contracting in Afghanistan. Let’s assume that 

there was an F in Iraq, and, if you think you deserved more than 

an F in Iraq, you are grading on a different scale than I am grading on. I think it was an F. 

Now, in the end, it got better. But in terms of how it all came 

about and how the LOGCAP happened and how all of the reconstruction happened and the confusion and the lack of accountability, maybe a D minus. 

What do you think your grade is in Afghanistan right now, in 

terms of how well you are integrating, coordinating, monitoring, 

and overseeing contractors? 

Mr. Campbell. 

Colonel CAMPBELL. Yes, ma’am, I can start. Right off, I would say 

probably about a C, and let me put that into perspective for you. 

I think we have done a good job, probably towards the A and B 

range, on the front end where we have put together now some lessons learned. We have put out guidance. We have put out training. 

We now have these officers and enlisted soldiers being trained here 

in the States before they go over to Afghanistan, on CERP and 

CERP management. So we have done, I think, pretty well here on 

the front end. 

Where we are lacking and where we still need some work and 

where we are concentrating our efforts now is more the back end. 

We have systems in Afghanistan that track contracting. We have 

systems that track the financial piece. We have systems that the 

Corps of Engineers uses to track construction projects—all useful 

databases, but, to your point, what we have got to do now is link 

them together. 

That is one of the things in this review group that we are looking 

at. We have the Business Transformation Agency looking at the entire business process—end to end as they call it—in Afghanistan, 

to see rather than going and inventing a new database and inventing a new process or system, how do we first link together what 

is out there, so we can get some immediate feedback and immediate results, so that we do not have soldiers and civilians out 

there doing spreadsheets, pulling numbers out of three different 

databases. So, on that part, I would say we are still in the D 

minus/F. 

So, on average, I would probably rate CERP at about a C. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Mr. Harrington. 

Mr. HARRINGTON. Ma’am, I would give us a C also for a different 

reason, if I understand your question correctly. We see awarding 

contracts to contractors. Over the period of time, some of the prices 

for the commodities and services continue to get bid up because 

other agencies, other organizations are contracting with the same 

contractors and contractors are enjoying being able to present products at a higher price. I think the organization aspect of this needs 

to be addressed further. 

We have review boards, requirements review boards. We have 

priorities, allocation processes in place to evaluate what comes first 

in the order for addressing, in terms of the most urgent needs and 

32 

in terms of the most widespread needs. But it is an organization, 

from my perspective, at a higher level that gets together and collaborates in theater to determine overall where the requirements 

are being placed and how to best leverage the contractor community there, the vendor spread if you will, to be able to make sure 

we are getting the best deal for the government as a whole. 

So I think there is an organizational element needed at a higher 

level to be able to accomplish that. We would obviously participate 

as a component to that and be able to present our priorities to that 

and, as well, coordinate with other agencies to determine how to 

get the best contracts in place, perhaps on a wider basis, on an 

agency level basis as opposed to an individual basis. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. North. 

Mr. NORTH. I guess I am a little more optimistic. I think we have 

a B, but I think a lot of that relates to the effort and the progress 

we have made in the last 10 months. Things like the agricultural 

strategy as a whole-of-government strategy, clearly defining roles 

and responsibilities among the respective agencies involved, but 

also the clarity of purpose in where we are trying to go in the agriculture sector—this is one example that we have developed. 

There are others. Certainly our collaboration in the health sector 

with the U.S. Military, with CDC and others has been quite strong. 

An area that we need to improve on, that we are working on certainly is getting more of our staff into the theater, so that when 

you are at the PRT there are more development staff there to help 

with coordination and to monitor and manage our programs. 

So there are systems that still need work, of course, but I think 

we are moving in the right direction. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Mr. Feldman. 

Mr. FELDMAN. Showing the synchronicity between State and 

USAID, I would say—— 

Senator MCCASKILL. Oh, you guys get along so well. You are 

going to give yourself a B, let me guess. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FELDMAN. I would also give ourselves a B, but I think actually more important than the grade is the general trajectory. I 

would say at the beginning of the year we were probably much 

closer to a D, and I think that we have gone up quite a bit. 

There is a lot of people in Washington, a lot of people in Kabul, 

a lot of people around the world and certainly in the field, actually 

implementing these projects, that are working very hard at doing 

all the things that we uncovered in the course of our review and 

that we tried to put in place to make sure that we were the best 

possible stewards of U.S. taxpayer money. 

And I think that we are definitely going in the right direction, 

with the better coordination with civil agencies, with military partners, with the international community, with the civilian surge, 

with all the kind of oversight mechanisms that I laid out, including 

the financial and technical officers. 

But, yes, this is going to take a while to do, and there is going 

to be a lot more to be done, and we will have to continue to be very 

vigilant and rigorous in implementing this. So there is always room 

to do much better, but I think at this point I am pretty comfortable 

with where we are. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Mr. Parsons. 

33 

Mr. PARSONS. I would say if Iraq was a F, then I think we are 

a C in Afghanistan because we have learned a lot of lessons out 

of Iraq. 

Certainly with the establishment of the Army Contracting Command and being part of AMC with LOGCAP, we have a very close 

bond now with the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan. 

We are doing reach-back for them, so there is a lot of good coordination going on there. What the ACC is allowing us to do from an 

enterprise is look where are we duplicating efforts and where can 

we be more effective in using different types of contract instruments. 

I know that one of Brigadier General Camille Nichols’ concerns 

as she goes in to be the new commander in Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan is even though we have established some of 

these Joint Logistics Procurement Support Boards where we try to 

bring the different parties together to look at the procurement requirements in Afghanistan, those are more of a collaboration and 

cooperation by the parties to come see those boards and look at it. 

And we do have coalition partners there, and I know one of her 

concerns is that we understand that NATO is doing quite a bit of 

contracting in Afghanistan as well as for some of their forces. So 

I know General Nichols is going to put that as one of her priorities, 

to look at how do we get closer collaboration and cooperation there. 

But there is a lot of room for improvement. 

Senator MCCASKILL. If we are getting integration and coordination between NATO and our efforts, then I will give all of you an 

A because that means we have our house in order and now we can 

try to integrate NATO into it. I still think we have a ways to go. 

As time goes on, we will see if the grades hold up. I think it may 

be a little grading on a curve, Mr. Feldman, to go from a D to a 

B in 10 months because you are moving a very large thing here. 

This is not an organization, as it relates to contracting, that is nimble or flexible. 

When it is nimble and flexible, it generally is a bad contract because it happened too quickly, and nobody was paying attention to 

what was in it and whether it was definite enough and whether 

there were enforcement mechanisms contained in it. 

Let me leave you with what I would like to still get for the record 

as we begin to build our information, so that we can continue to 

do the kind of oversight I think that we need to do. 

I want to make sure I understand what every silo is in terms of 

contracting money. The new CSTC-A, I want to try to—that is a 

new one I have to now put into my jargon. Now that I finally figured out LOGCAP, you spring a new one on me. 

I want to make sure that there is some kind of org chart that 

has where the contracting money is all going, and we will put that 

together if you all will give us what is within your silo of contracting money and how much it is. 

I believe that we will end up spending as much or more on contracting in Afghanistan as we spend on our military. Therefore, we 

have a huge obligation to try to get this right. So, if you all will 

get that to me, that would be great, and then we will begin to drill 

down in those various places and make sure of the on-the-ground 

oversight. 

34 

And the other thing that we would like from you is if you believe 

you have enough oversight personnel in place, right now in theater, 

and if not what you need to get enough oversight people in place 

in theater. 

I really appreciate all of your time today. 

And I am going to say this. I do not mean to embarrass her, and 

I do not mean to embarrass Mr. North or Mr. Feldman. But the 

woman in the front row that keeps handing you notes, I think I 

want to have lunch with her. [Laughter.] 

I think she knows an awful lot because every question I ask— 

everyone was feeding them to her. OK, the whole little group, I 

need all of you to come to my place for lunch, so I can begin to 

get—— 

Mr. FELDMAN. This is how integrated we are. 

Mr. NORTH. She is an USAID officer on Mr. Holbrooke’s staff. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That is great. There you go. There is that 

integration. 

OK, thank you all very much. I appreciate your time today. 

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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