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i 

50–057 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–37] 

COORDINATING CONTRACT SUPPORT ON 

THE BATTLEFIELD: DEFENSE, STATE, 

AND USAID 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 1, 2009 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

TREY HOWARD, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, April 1, 2009, Coordinating Contract Support on the Battlefield: 

Defense, State, and USAID ................................................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 ....................................................................................... 33 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2009 

COORDINATING CONTRACT SUPPORT ON THE BATTLEFIELD: 

DEFENSE, STATE, AND USAID 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

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

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Hutton, John P., Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 8 

Moser, William H., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (Logistics Management), U.S. Department of State ........................................................................ 6 

Motsek, Gary, Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Office of Program Support, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics) ............................................................................................... 3 

Shauket, Maureen A., Senior Procurement Executive, Director of the Office 

of Acquisition and Assistance, Bureau for Management, U.S. Agency for 

International Development ................................................................................. 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Hutton, John P. ................................................................................................ 62 

Moser, William H. ............................................................................................ 55 

Motsek, Gary ..................................................................................................... 43 

Shauket, Maureen A. ....................................................................................... 58 

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 37 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 40 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 79 

(1) 

COORDINATING CONTRACT SUPPORT ON THE 

BATTLEFIELD: DEFENSE, STATE, AND USAID 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 1, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:06 p.m., in room 

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

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

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

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. Good afternoon, and 

welcome to the House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations 

Subcommittee’s second hearing following up on specific legislation 

related to contingency contracting and the acquisition workforce. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the implementation of Section 861 

of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 

2008, which required the Department of Defense, Department of 

State, and the United States Agency for International Development 

(USAID) to sign a memorandum of understanding regulating contracting matters in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This subcommittee has been interested in interagency cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan for over two years, and contracting is 

an important piece of that. Earlier this year, Secretary Gates told 

the Senate, ‘‘We have not thought holistically or coherently about 

our use of contractors, particularly when it comes to combat environments.’’ 

In April 2008, in a full committee hearing on the Gansler Commission recommendations, Chairman Skelton noted the Commission’s suggestion that there ought to be an integrated expeditionary 

command to coordinate contracting with a ‘‘whole of government’’ 

approach. 

Just last week, Major General Darryl Scott, the former commander of the Joint Contracting Command Iraq/Afghanistan, gave 

us several specific examples of contracting projects where interagency cooperation broke down, resulting in waste of taxpayer dollars. 

Finally, as was mentioned at last week’s hearing that we had, 

the Department of Defense spends over half of all contract dollars 

on services contracts and smaller items versus major defense acquisition programs. 

Section 861 mandated that the agencies with witnesses before us 

today negotiate and agree upon a memorandum of understanding 
2 

(MOU), which they did in July 2008. We are here today to see how 

well they have done in implementing the MOU. The MOU was intended to increase visibility across the agencies and to enhance our 

ability to track contracts and contractors to know where they are, 

what they are working on, how much we are paying them, and how 

that work is proceeding. 

The MOU also provides a framework to ensure that contractors 

who are traveling though the battlespace do so safely, and that any 

contractor who commits a criminal act is prosecuted to the fullest 

extent of the law by the appropriate agency. Ultimately, the real 

purpose of this MOU is to help all our men and women in these 

wars, both in and out of uniform, accomplish the often difficult and 

dangerous missions that we have asked of them. 

The witnesses we have with us today are at the front lines of 

making sure this kind of coordination happens, and we look forward to hearing from each of them. And before I introduce them, 

I will turn to Mr. Wittman, our ranking member, for any comments 

he would like to make. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I wanted to thank our witnesses today for taking time out 

of your busy schedule to join us; we certainly appreciate that and 

look forward to your testimony. 

Now, at our hearing on contingency contracting last week, the 

Army and Department of Defense officials described the changes 

that the Department of Defense (DOD) is instituting to improve 

management of services contracting contingency operations. Indeed, DOD’s response to the Gansler Commission recommendations 

have been comprehensive, and it is beginning to have the desired 

effect. We will continue to watch closely to make sure that today’s 

urgent lessons are not lost in future contingency operations none 

of us can now foresee. 

Today’s hearing is about the next step; namely, integrating and 

coordinating the efforts of all elements of the federal government 

to ensure unity of effort in a contingency operation. While a seamless, efficient federal goal is a laudable goal, we should recognize 

that this standard will be difficult to reach. We are not close to 

solving interagency coordination here in peacetime; Washington, 

D.C. is a far easier challenge than figuring it out under fire in a 

sovereign foreign nation. 

Afghanistan and Iraq are the first major conflicts in which we 

have expected the civilian side of government to perform duties and 

deliver services in a non-permissive or hostile environment. It is 

understandable that our acquisition system is disjointed since we 

are literally experimenting as we go on new ways to meld the capabilities of the various elements of our federal government. 

We recognize that the State Department operates through the 

ambassador, the Department of Defense through the combatant 

commander, and USAID is semi-independent. But because our new 
3 

joint interagency way of operating promises better results, as we 

have seen in Iraq, it is even more urgent that we sort out clear 

lines of authority for U.S. government activities in contingency operations. 

I am less concerned with dictating a single computer system or 

contracting method than in ensuring that responsible officials on 

the ground, be they military or civilian, know what contractor is responsible for what services, and what contractors they are responsible to support. I would like to hear common sense solutions for 

the practical operational issues our deployed military and civilian 

leaders face in the field. 

I am confident we can make substantial progress, if not entirely 

fix the system, and we in Congress must do our part to rationalize 

the maze of authorities the various agencies possess for nationbuilding efforts. 

Our witnesses today are experts in this area, and ladies and gentlemen, I look forward to hearing from you and your thoughts and 

ideas about how we can bring all of these different efforts together 

in the most efficient way possible. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

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

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. 

Our witnesses today are Mr. Gary Motsek, Assistant Deputy 

Under Secretary of Defense for Program Support; Mr. William 

Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Logistics Management; Ms. Maureen Shauket, Director of the Office of Acquisition 

and Assistance and Senior Procurement Executive for USAID; Mr. 

John Hutton, Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management at 

the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

We appreciate all of you being here. Your written statements will 

be made a part of the record. We will recognize each of you for five 

minutes, and I think—hopefully our lights will work. When you see 

the red light go on that tells you five minutes is up. We want you 

to keep going if there are other things you need to tell us, but I 

would encourage you to err, kind of, on the side of a summary 

statement. 

I also appreciate you all being here today to discuss what I think 

is pretty complicated material, and this is all in the spirit of doing 

what we all want to do, which is get the best bang for the buck 

of the American taxpayer in a way that helps our men and women 

in uniform in a very, very complicated war environment in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. 

So I think we are going to begin with Mr. Motsek. Is that correct? Yes. We will begin with Mr. Motsek, so for five minutes. It 

is good to see you again. 

STATEMENT OF GARY MOTSEK, ASSISTANT DEPUTY UNDER 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, OFFICE OF PROGRAM SUPPORT, 

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY & LOGISTICS) 

Mr. MOTSEK. Chairman Snyder, good afternoon. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, and Mrs. Davis, good to see you. 
4 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and participate in today’s discussion. I would like to thank the committee for 

their continued support of our troops, and all you have helped already for us to do our mission. I would also like to recognize the 

men and women who serve our great country, and that includes 

our military-civilian coalition, interagency and industry partners. 

None of us could have gotten this job done without the other, and 

I am continually impressed by the increasing cooperation among 

us. 

I have a written statement, which you should have. I may go 

back to that during Q and A’s because we have imbedded some of 

the matrixes of where we stand with Section 861 on that written 

statement. 

In my brief opening remarks I would like to highlight the 

progress we have made in our broader efforts to improve oversight 

and management of contractors and contingency operation and specific emphasis on DOD’s progress in implementing the memorandum of understanding regarding contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan that was required by Section 861. We are continuing to 

make significant advances in executing our strategic goals as outlined in our earlier Section 854 report to Congress that was submitted last April. 

There are other complimentary enablers along with 861, such as 

Section 862 and 1248 of the last NDAA. In fact, we really have to 

look at holistically as we respond to your questions. And of course, 

as the chairman has noted, our response to the Gansler report is 

also integral to this entire effort. 

First, I would like to provide oversight—to provide oversight and 

synchronization inside of DOD, I, along with the vice-director for 

logistics, the J–4, have institutionalized what we call the Section 

854 General Officer Steering Committee. It consists of military department representatives and defense agency senior program managers for operational contract and support, and we meet regularly 

as the center of the community of practice and community of interest who regularly oversee and synchronize the implementation of 

our joint policies. 

Second, to ensure we have a single in-theater program manager 

providing oversight and management of our contracts and contractors, we have instituted a planning and coordination structure for 

future contingencies. The key to that is the Joint Contingency Acquisition Support Office (JCASO), which is building its capacity 

right now to perform program management and operational synchronization for all theaters and their contracting efforts. 

On October 20, we fielded a provisional JCASO structure with a 

Senior Executive Service (SES) in charge. We thank the Congress 

for giving us the two-star billet, which we will fill in the future 

when we have a qualified individual. We have developed a concept 

of operations, and we have been exercising that concept along with 

our joint combatant commanders, and narrow efforts include interagency planning and coordination. 

To assist our geographical combatant commanders to identify the 

requirements and identifying the gaps in their contracting support 

packages and their operation plans, we have allocated 14 joint 

operational contract support planners to the commands. These 
5 

planners are helping to integrate the required contractor support 

into future plans and synchronize requirements with its subordinate commands, the other agencies, and other government agencies, and our coalition partners. 

To this date, the planners have reviewed the operational plans 

and concept plans in each of the commands and are developing the 

overarching templates as an operational support annex to the 

plans. Just as an example, as we sit here today, the official direction about Annex W, which is contractors in what we call the Joint 

Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP), consists of two paragraphs of 

instruction. These planners have now expanded that to a provisional 12 pages of instructions. So that is the level of detail and 

broad context that we are trying to get into our future operational 

plans. 

Fourth, we are making progress in our transition from the manual accounting of contractor personnel to use the synchronized predeployment and operational tracker—we call it the Synchronized 

Pre-Deployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT)—to track contractor personnel and contractor capability in theater. Approximately 70 percent of our contractor population, which includes virtually all U.S. and most third-country nationals, as reported in our 

last manual census, have been registered in SPOT. 

I anticipate two more cycles of the manual census before we transition to the operational system, but it is incumbent to me that we 

have a high confidence-level—high 90s percent confidence-level 

that we are tracking the exact numbers in both systems. And our 

interagency partners obviously have the capability to register their 

contract personnel. 

With respect specifically to the implementation of Section 861, 

State and USAID have signed a memorandum of understanding; 

we have identified our roles and responsibilities and identified 

SPOT as the common database. Since that July, we have made significant progress in our implementation. 

As noted in my written statement, many of the requirements of 

Section 861 have been met through the added functionality of 

SPOT. Other requirements are being addressed through policy 

changes and implementation guidance. And again, we are working 

very closely with our partners. 

We are now staffing a revision to the MOU to address the additional requirements that were placed upon us by Section 854 of the 

last NDAA. From my perspective, the Section 854, found in the 

2007 NDAA, was a seed change in the way we organize, manage, 

and support our contractors. Institutionalization of these changes, 

as well as stable funding for efforts, continues to be my primary 

priority. 

There are two important efforts that are ongoing right now. 

First, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a task force 

on the dependence of contractors in contingency operations. This 

task force has examined use of DOD contractors to determine our 

reliance and dependence on that contractor support. 

The second effort is the Commission of Wartime Contracting, 

chartered by Congress to look at not just DOD, but all federal 

agencies and their use of contractors and to make specific recommendations. We have been extensively engaged with both of 
6 

these efforts, and we urge Congress to let both of these efforts 

reach their conclusion before developing any future major statutory 

change to the way we deal with contractors in the battlespace. 

Again, your support has been absolutely critical to our progress 

thus far, and I will need your continued support to achieve our objectives. 

I thank you again, Mr. Chairman and the members of the committee, and I will be happy to answer any questions as they come 

up. Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Motsek can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Motsek. 

Mr. Moser. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. MOSER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE (LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. MOSER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Wittman, Mrs. Davis, 

I welcome the opportunity to provide you an update on the Department of State’s implementation of Section 861 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008. Please allow me to first express 

how much we at the State Department appreciate the support of 

this subcommittee. 

As the deputy assistant secretary for logistics management, I am 

responsible for ensuring that our global logistics platform provides 

consistent, reliable support to the men and women who directly implement our foreign policy around the world. I work daily with the 

Bureau of Diplomatic Security, part of the State Department, as 

well as with our interagency partners, to guarantee the safety and 

security of our personnel in the dangerous but critical environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I am pleased to be able to state before you today that this is a 

good news story. Legislation originated by this body is part of that 

story. 

Section 861 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 reinforced through legislation the strong cooperative effort the Department of Defense, the Agency for International Development, 

and the Department of State began in February—began in February 2007. Even prior to the signing of their July 2008 MOU, our 

three agencies had discussed at length how best to account for contractor personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

We concluded that the SPOT provided the best available information system solution. The Department has enthusiastically embraced this solution. 

In March 2008, the Department directed contracted officers to incorporate into each contract a regulation that required contractors 

to include their personnel deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in 

SPOT. Each of our agencies—and I will emphasize this—has its 

own business process for contracting. 

From July until November 2008, the Department of State developed our unique system hierarchy for data entry into SPOT and defined business rules, roles, and responsibilities. State met the Section 861 120-day deadline, and by November 2008 had included all 
7 

contracts, subcontracts, task and delivery orders over $100,000 into 

SPOT. 

In January 2009, SPOT was mandated for all State Department 

grants in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of today, in SPOT, State has 

entered data on 88 contracts and 53 grants. We have 5,670 contract 

personnel in Iraq and 1,649 in Afghanistan. 

Much work has been accomplished. SPOT system enhancements, 

which Gary has talked about in his written testimony, will continue as the State Department, DOD, and USAID continue to work 

together daily to improve our cooperative efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

This concludes my testimony, and I look forward to discussing 

with you any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moser can be found in the Appendix on page 55.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Moser. 

Our next witness—we don’t get many opportunities to have 

USAID testify before one of the defense subcommittees, but we appreciate you being here, Ms. Shauket, representing your agency. 

We should say that we are zealous advocates on your behalf on the 

need for USAID to have—as with the State Department—to have, 

in Secretary Gates’ words, ‘‘dramatic increases in funding and personnel.’’ 

So we appreciate you being here, and you are recognized for five 

minutes or whatever you need. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN A. SHAUKET, SENIOR PROCUREMENT EXECUTIVE, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ACQUISITION AND ASSISTANCE, BUREAU FOR MANAGEMENT, U.S. 

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Ms. SHAUKET. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be here. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Wittman, Mrs. Davis, thank 

you for the opportunity to appear before you today to provide an 

update on USAID’s compliance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008. USAID operates in more than 80 countries 

worldwide to provide economic, humanitarian, and development assistance in support of our U.S. foreign policy. 

In fiscal year 2008, USAID delivered more than $13 billion of assistance throughout the world. This success was achieved by our 

dedicated civil service, foreign service, local, and third-country national employees working together with our implementing partners 

to achieve sustainable development results. 

Our programs in Iraq and Afghanistan represent 5 percent and 

13 percent respectively of USAID’s total program budget. Strong 

oversight and accountability of our programs in these critical countries are priorities for USAID. Like our colleagues in the Department of Defense and the Department of State, USAID is committed 

to carrying out the terms of the MOU. Together, we are working 

closely with our colleagues to properly identify and report contractors on the ground through the use of the SPOT database. 

USAID has experienced steady progress with SPOT implementation, particularly in Iraq. This progress comes as a result of dili-
8 

gent coordination with DOD’s SPOT support team and our State 

Department colleagues. 

We are working closely to adopt SPOT to accommodate USAID’s 

business process. For example, SPOT is being revised to increase 

the system’s capability to track subcontractors. 

In Iraq, SPOT implementation became a reality for USAID in 

late 2008. Our staff has been trained and is actively using the 

database. We have also trained our implementing partners and developed specific procedures to assist their personnel in the appropriate use of the system. As a result of these efforts, USAID mission users, contractors, and grantees now have the capability to use 

the system. 

The current operating environment in Iraq facilitates USAID’s 

use of SPOT because SPOT is being used to generate letters of authorization, the mechanism for receiving U.S. government-provided 

logistic services. The long established practice of requiring letters 

of authorization as a means of gaining access to these facilities has 

expedited—has been expedited by the introduction of SPOT. 

This practice serves as one lesson learned for USAID as we look 

toward implementation of SPOT in Afghanistan. Reviews are underway to determine how we can best apply the lessons of Iraq to 

mitigate the challenges posed by the current operation environment in Afghanistan, which differs greatly from Iraq. With more 

than 10,000 contractor and grantee personnel on the ground in 

Iraq and only seven U.S. direct hire contracting officers supporting 

this effort, we face a great management challenge. 

Additionally, we do not use the letters of authorization due to the 

differing nature of operations in Afghanistan. Our implementing 

partners have long been responsible for their own in-country logistics and operational support. 

DOD and State have been extremely receptive to working 

through these challenges with USAID. Daily conversations are assisting us in moving forward with the practical implementation of 

SPOT, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

We at USAID are committed to actively working on these solutions. We look forward to continuing the collaboration with our 

DOD and State colleagues to further enhance our accountability 

and oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, 

and I will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Shauket can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Ms. Shauket. 

We do have a series of votes, but we will be able to hear your 

opening statement, Mr. Hutton, so you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN P. HUTTON, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION 

AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. HUTTON. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for 

inviting me here today to discuss DOD, State, and USAID’s efforts 

to implement a memorandum of understanding regarding contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. As you know, DOD, State, and 
9 

USAID have relied extensively on contractors to support troops and 

civilian personnel, and to help rebuild the two countries. 

And the use of contractors in contingency operations is not new, 

but the numbers of contractors and the work they are performing 

in Iraq and Afghanistan represent an increased reliance on contractors to carry out these agency missions. While recognizing the 

benefits of using contractors, we and others have noted the challenges federal agencies have in managing and overseeing their 

growing numbers. 

My statement today is drawn from our ongoing and prior work 

on contracting in the contingency environment, including Iraq and 

Afghanistan. I should also point out that we also had a requirement in last year’s NDAA, Section 863, to issue a report every October 1st for 3 years that would provide detailed information on the 

numbers of contracts, numbers of contractor personnel performing 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as information on casualties. 

We issued a report last October, and that work gave us some insights on where the agencies were at that time, but it also, as we 

are carrying forward in this year’s work, it has given us a sense 

of how much work has been ongoing. But today I will first highlight the importance of having information on contracts and contractor personnel to manage and oversee contractors, and second, 

the status of the agencies’ implementation of the MOU and the 

SPOT database. 

First, we reported extensively on the management and oversight 

challenges related to the use of contractors in support of contingency operations and the need for decision-makers, whether they 

be in the field or at headquarters, to have accurate, complete, and 

timely information as a starting point for addressing this challenge. 

Although much of our priorities focused on DOD, the lessons 

learned can be applied to other agencies relying on contractors to 

help carry out their missions. 

Agencies lacking the complete and accurate information on contractors supporting contingency operations may inhibit planning, 

increase costs, and introduce unnecessary risk. For example, our 

work has shown that without incorporating information on contractors in the planning efforts, agencies risk making uninformed programmatic decisions. The lack of insight into contract services 

being performed increases the risk of paying for duplicative services, and costs can increase due to a lack of visibility over where 

contractors are deployed and what government support they are 

entitled to. 

While actions have been taken to address our past recommendations, agency officials have noted that the implementation of the 

MOU, and specifically the use of SPOT, has the potential to bring 

dispersed information together so it can be used to better manage 

and oversee contractors. And this brings me to my second point: 

DOD, State, and USAID have made some progress in implementing 

SPOT as agreed to in the MOU, but not all contract personnel are 

being entered at this time. 

While agency officials have expressed confidence that certain categories of contractors, including those who have access to U.S. installations, are in SPOT, officials acknowledge that data on other 

contractors, namely Iraqi and Afghani nationals, for example, are 
10 

incomplete. Also, USAID is not yet requiring its contractors in Afghanistan to use SPOT. 

With these and other limitations, the agencies continue to rely 

on other systems to respond to requests for information on their 

contractors. For example, DOD still relies on a quarterly census of 

contractor personnel because it is regarded as more complete than 

SPOT. But you heard from Mr. Motsek this morning their plans in 

the near-time future to move away from the quarterly. 

With respect to contract data, while SPOT has the capability to 

track the required contract information, there seem to be different 

views among the agencies as to which contracts need to be tracked. 

The agencies agreed in the MOU to track contracts with a period 

of performance of 14 days or greater or valued at more than 

$100,000. 

DOD currently requires contracts of more than 30 days of per- formance or a total value of $25,000 to be entered into SPOT, but 

there is some consideration to increase this to $250,000. In contrast, USAID officials have suggested that other factors, such as 

whether personnel have access to U.S. installations, should determine which contracts go into SPOT. 

In closing, by designating SPOT as their database to track information on contracts and contractor personnel, DOD, State, and 

USAID are not only addressing a statutory requirement, but when 

fully implemented, they also have an opportunity to use this information to help address the longstanding contract management 

challenges. 

However, agencies have varying views on the level of detail and 

types of information to be captured by the database and the usefulness of such data to better plan and oversee contractors. It is important that DOD, State, and USAID continue to work together to 

develop and implement a database that is flexible enough to be applicable across the agencies while still providing detailed information to better manage and oversee their contractors. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement, and I 

would be happy to respond to any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutton can be found in the Appendix on page 62.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you all. And thank you for both your written 

statements and your oral statements. 

What we will do is, we have votes that will begin—or will end 

in about 10 minutes. And I am going to get in a couple questions, 

then we will need to recess. It is a series of votes, so it will probably be close to a half hour or somewhere in that range, I would 

think. 

I have to ask this, as the, you know, as the father of four very 

young boys, about the synchronized pre-deployment and operational tracker, what you refer to as SPOT: Mr. Motsek, do you get 

up in the morning and say, ‘‘Run, SPOT, run. Run, run, run.’’ 

I couldn’t help myself. 

I wanted to ask—— 

Mr. MOTSEK. Yes. 

Mr. HUTTON. And I do, too—— 

Dr. SNYDER. It certainly is. Synchronized pre-deployment and 

operational tracker. 
11 

When this MOU legislation was passed in the defense bill, the 

purpose is not to end up with another report—more information 

that you all have to compile and get together amongst yourselves 

to compile, and figure out how to work and make SPOT run, run, 

run. The purpose is to help achieve the goals that we are trying 

to achieve in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

And so my question for each of you, Mr. Hutton talked about 

when this information comes together, and if this information 

comes together, it helps manage contracts, which I would think 

would mean do our job better. My question for each of you is, to 

this point, do you believe that we are better off by having this 

MOU, in that—is it not just compiling information but is it helping 

you manage the war and redevelopment effort in Iraq and Afghanistan? 

Mr. Motsek. 

Mr. MOTSEK. Mr. Chairman, I would say, frankly, the MOU is 

a good first effort. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is that a ‘‘no’’? 

Mr. MOTSEK. No. I mean, no, it is a yes. But it is a first effort. 

MOUs, by their very nature, are a bit of a challenge because, as 

you know, there is not an enforcing mechanism, as you can imagine. And you have to—you know, we are in the crawl, walk, run 

mode, going back to your children, and we are in the crawl, walk, 

walk mode now with our interrelationships and our ability to talk 

some common lexicon and common language. 

I personally don’t foresee us ever, at this point in time, having 

some supernumerary contracting command that would be regional 

in its construct because we have separate appropriations, we have 

separate business rules, and quite frankly, we have separate missions. 

But this is one of the issues we have been addressing with the 

Commission on Wartime Contracting: What is the appropriate vehicle in the future to work this interagency process? Because fundamentally, even though it is in statute, it is generally a voluntarytype process right now; it is on the goodwill of the agencies involved to bring this forward as we sit here today. 

And I have got to tell you, frankly, it has been goodwill. But having worked with these folks working the MOU to begin with, the 

one thing I learned: If you want to find out how many lawyers you 

have in your agency, try to work an interagency MOU, because 

they will come out of everywhere, and there is just this inherent 

attempt—an inherent belief that you have to protect the interests 

of your agency, your department. And we have got to push beyond 

that. So this was an excellent first step. 

Just as an aside, the challenges USAID had are somewhat 

unique compared to DOD, and to accommodate some of their issues 

we have agreed and we are creating a classified version of SPOT 

as well so that they have the opportunity to put it in the protected 

but unclassified version or a classified version, where we can merge 

the numbers later, but the personal information can be protected 

as necessary. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Moser. 

Mr. MOSER. Chairman Snyder, I will say that we—the State Department really does take the position that it is essential in any 
12 

of these situations to have a strong interagency presence. We will 

starkly defend our independence, particularly the independence of 

our contracting authority, in this case, but it is also important that 

we know that we can’t get our mission done or execute the foreign 

policy goals of the United States without the help of our partners, 

whether it be in DOD, or with USAID, where we are located in 

many, many countries. I mean, this is something that we are used 

to working in this kind of interagency environment all over the 

world. 

Did the memorandum of understanding help? I think that given 

the situation in—given the situations here before that in Iraq, yes, 

they have been very helpful. However, I will say, is that we have— 

the MOU helped us to get a little bit more focus and then help 

push—help the people on the ground also get into more closer coordination on a whole host of issues, whether it be the reporting 

of incidents, or it be the movement coordination, that these things 

were—the MOU was part of an evolving situation where cooperation was getting closer and closer. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shauket, it really is okay to say, ‘‘No, it didn’t 

help.’’ 

Go ahead. 

Ms. SHAUKET. No, it has helped us, and while—and mainly in 

the area of collaboration. And what I have seen on the ground in 

both Afghanistan and Iraq is that USAID collaborates very closely 

with our embassy colleagues, as we do in every country, but we 

also coordinate very, very closely with the military on the ground. 

A difference has been, I believe that we are now all collaborating 

more closely in Washington as well, and that we have a venue for 

discussing more of the common problems at both levels now. 

Mr. MOSER. Yes. Dr. Snyder, if I could add one point to that is, 

you know, if you go—you know, Maureen and I are both foreign 

service officers, and Gary has been at our post, I think, in Brussels, 

right? Before. Yes. He has been actually stationed in one of our embassies overseas reviewing the NATO mission. 

And basically, you know, in a way that we feel that for the most 

part, at most of our overseas locations, that interagency cooperation works pretty well. Really, the real problems in interagency cooperation actually happen more frequently in Washington, and I 

think—because overseas there is a real clear understanding of 

what everyone’s role is and they know what they are supposed to 

do. 

The MOU, in that regard, was helpful in getting our domestic 

agency front really coordinated better. And that is important because it is through that coordination in Washington that we actually support those people out in the field. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think we better recess now for the votes. We will 

come back and we will begin with Mr. Wittman. 

[Recess.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Hearing will resume. Mr. Wittman is recognized for 

five minutes. We will give him an opportunity to catch his breath 

and put his glasses on. 

Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
13 

Again, I appreciate the patience of the panel members as we 

walk across the street to do our bonded duty. 

I wanted to direct a question to Mr. Hutton concerning the GAO. 

And as we have seen, the GAO and others have highlighted too 

many longstanding challenges regarding contractor support to our 

deployed forces. Can you tell us, what further actions do you think 

are needed, and who would be responsible, or who should be responsible for carrying them out? 

Mr. HUTTON. Sure. Thank you. 

With respect to SPOT, I think that it is going to be a big step, 

as we have said here. We have been calling for the importance of 

being able to track the use and the reliance on contractors, understanding what they are doing, the extent to which we are using 

contracts. I think the MOU provides an opportunity in this dialogue that you are seeing here for three agencies to get together; 

I know a lot of our work has been focused on DOD. 

So there is a chance that for the first time you are going to—each 

agency is going to be able to have a better understanding what the 

other agencies are doing in a particular area of responsibility. So 

I think there is an opportunity here to have improved management 

if the agencies are thinking right now as to what specific data they 

think they need to better manage their contractors, and how will 

SPOT provide that. 

With respect to other things, I think that—and Mr. Motsek mentioned earlier—you know, there is a lot of activity going on right 

now in many different areas, and one of the areas that we also recognize as important: You can have a database, hopefully to help 

you be more proactive, but we think it is important that you also 

focus on some of these other important areas. 

Somebody talked about last week things like making sure you 

have a trained non-acquisition workforce, for example. Things like, 

are we able to leverage the lessons learned and be able to plan and 

incorporate bills into our plans for future operations? So I would 

throw those out as two areas that I would say are things that we 

can continue to look to as areas that are very important, as well 

as just having a handle on the database. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you. 

You know, I have heard all of you speak as you talk about this 

MOU and the things that it has brought about—talk about collaboration, coordination, more understanding, more opportunities. 

What I would like to get from that, though, is to understand what 

actions it has brought about. What changes has it brought about 

in things that have happened in the field? 

It is great to be able to collaborate, to communicate, to talk more, 

to understand, to look at opportunities, but what I would like to 

hear are maybe some examples, and to go down the panel and start 

with Mr. Motsek and look at giving us examples of where the MOU 

has actually resulted in things that happened that would not have 

happened without the MOU. 

Mr. Motsek, we can start with you. 

Mr. MOTSEK. Well, I would just premise my remarks by saying 

we don’t look at the MOU by itself, but as Mr. Hutton said, in a 

broader context of everything else we are doing. The dialogue, for 

example, that Mr. Moser and I have started with our memoran-
14 

dums of agreement and private security contractors, and the MOU 

was a natural outgrowth of that. So from a practical standpoint, 

the—we actually have in place a process of negotiation and discussions on a routine basis to make things happen. 

As a practical example, when in Iraq we knew that we were 

going to lose immunity for our contractors in Iraq, State Department and DOD did not operate in isolation of each other, we collectively, jointly held meetings with our contractors. 

I hosted the meetings in Washington for our contractors in the 

morning; Will attended with me. I went to the State Department. 

I attended his meeting. We agreed that we would have one database—or, excuse me, one website where we would post all the relevant documents for both sets of contractors so we would stay focused and fused as we went through the process. And I would 

argue that has been very, very successful. So that was a small example. 

The fact that we started in DOD exercising the JCASO concept, 

and the State Department, on our first exercise in European Command (EUCOM)—which is a good place to practice these things, in 

European Command—had about five people there to more or less 

observe the process. 

In the exercise that is coming up, I believe it is called Austere 

Challenge, this fiscal year, State Department is coming in fullblown. They are going to play it as a participatory partner so that 

it doesn’t affect what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan today, 

but that is this predictive and this future context that we are operating in where we have learned hard lessons from our lack of 

synergies in the existing operation and we are building an entire 

exercise program where we are playing together in the same sandbox as we go through it. 

And that, in my mind, has been extraordinarily successful. And 

my combatant commanders—DOD’s combatant commanders have 

embraced this dramatically. I mean, they see the value of starting 

at the joint exercise level with our agency partners, because unless 

you do it in an exercise, it becomes too ethereal when you have to 

do it in practice. 

Mr. MOSER. The one additional one that Gary did not mention 

is that I think that as a result of both 861 and 862—and even 

though I know the hearing isn’t really concerned with 862, but I 

do consider them as linked areas—one of the things that we have 

now that we did not have before was an office to our Regional Security Office in Baghdad that is for our contractor oversight. 

And I think that through this—through the MOU process—we 

have gotten much tighter about the whole chain of incident reporting, not only just the movement coordination that is in 861, but 

also about the incident reporting and the other things that are in 

862. And that has been a much more formalized process, and I 

think the MOU helped on that. 

In reference, though, of what Gary said, and just elaborate a little bit more: I don’t think we would have ever had such a successful approach to the contractors after the signing of the security 

agreement in November of 2008 if we hadn’t already worked on the 

MOU and already set the foundations in the collaboration. And it 

really is a very interesting fact that, you know, I went around in 
15 

preparation for this hearing, said, ‘‘Well, since we have had the loss 

of immunity for the contractors, has there been any effect on our 

personnel?’’ Well, the answer is, from all my contracting staff, is 

‘‘no.’’ 

Well, part of the reason for that is, I think—not that I will fault 

Mr. Motsek for this—but I think he and I did, actually, a very, very 

good job in rolling this out not only to our contractors, but to 

USAID’s and Justice’s contractors as well, and I don’t think that 

we would have gotten to that level of collaboration if we hadn’t already done the work that we did with the series of MOUs. I think 

that one led to the other. 

Ms. SHAUKET. Thank you. I agree, and especially as it relates to 

the incident reporting. We have definitely had lessons learned on 

that; we have collaborated and we have a much improved system 

for that now. 

For USAID, it really has expedited our letters of authorization 

(LOA), as I have mentioned. Prior to that, we received Common Access Cards (CAC) and it was a very cumbersome process, and we 

didn’t understand how to route through the system to go through 

the embassy and DOD to get the CAC Cards for our implementing 

partners. Now that has been very streamlined and expedited with 

the onset of SPOT, so that has been a real benefit to us. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mrs. Davis for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for being here. I would like to ask about a situation to try and see how the MOU and the changes are able to 

track this situation. In 2006, the Army Material Command reported that approximately $43 million was wasted on free meals 

provided to contractors who already were receiving the daily per 

diem for food. Recent reports indicated that it is possible that this 

type of waste is still ongoing. 

Could you each tell me how you determine whether or not contractors are receiving services for which they are not eligible? How 

do you do that? And has that improved? How have you corrected 

it? 

Mr. MOTSEK. Mrs. Davis, you couldn’t ask a better question, because it dovetails on exactly what my counterpart was talking 

about. Let me set the stage: In 2006 we had, at last count, that 

I could count, we had 192 separate letters of authorization floating 

out there—types of letters. Everyone was authorized to sign anything to tell a contractor that you were entitled to the moon, as 

necessary. We had no standards of medical support; we had no 

standards of health care; we had no standards of housing, if you 

will. We were really pretty much out of control. 

Under our program—and we all play in the same sandbox now— 

if you are issued a letter of authorization, which you are not going 

to get on a military aircraft in the area of responsibility (AOR) 

without it, it is a standardized format which your contracting officer controls the input. You only have certain options that you can 

authorize. 

If you are a general contractor, you are only going to be entitled 

to resuscitative care, for example. If we are going to provide meals 

for you, it will be listed as meals. And the letter itself—Chairman 
16 

Snyder has a copy of one in his book—has a barcode on the bottom. 

You can actually scan the letter as if it was your ID card. 

So I will be blunt with you: I don’t care whether you are authorized to eat in my dining facility or not. What I do care is that if 

it is not part of your contract to be fed in that dining facility, that 

I have a process that I can bill you. I don’t care, frankly, whether 

or not we gave you more medical care than basic resuscitative care 

in our medical field, but you have to be able to register into our 

system so that we know what we gave you so that we can bill you 

in the future. So that is the issue. 

The second piece of your question is that until we had the centralized database or data source, we literally had incidents where, 

for a variety of good reasons, people were entering and exiting our 

facilities on an access card of some sort, but the access card dates 

were not necessarily tied to your contract dates. And so you may 

have been given your access card on a calendar year, but your contract ended on 30 October. 

In theory and in practice, you could have stayed 60 days in theater on our dime—the government’s dime—getting housed and fed, 

looking for additional work. Now, the letter of authorization is 

keyed and becomes void the date of the end of the contract. So we 

policed that up. 

The other piece of SPOT is—as I said, it is hundreds of readers. 

We put them out already, and of course we have forced State and 

USAID to fund their own. But it is a standard barcode reader so 

we can track you where you are, because from my position, SPOT 

doesn’t do its job until I can link you to a contract, to the execution 

of that contract, to a location that that contract is being executed. 

And so you have got to scan when you go through the process. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Now, are you able to go back—he was telling the 

folks who received medical care, for example, that was way over 

and above what was—— 

Mr. MOTSEK. I don’t think we will go back. You know, it is a 

start and we have had a—we have presented this to the medical 

community, and they have embraced it very, very quickly, because 

they recognize what is going on. 

You know, we are in a box where we pay for an insurance policy 

for medical care. And in practice, what we were seeing that we 

really didn’t charge that medical insurance process unless you were 

evacuated from theater. So we missed what was happening in theater, and part of it was self-inflicted. We did not have standards 

because of the lack of standardized letters. 

Mrs. DAVIS. What do you hope will be the timeframe of tracking 

that and then making certain that people—— 

Mr. MOTSEK. It is virtually ongoing right now. I mean, we were 

with the medical department folks not more than two weeks ago 

trying to finalize, making sure we have the scanners in process for 

example. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do any other—your agencies, is there any different 

take that you would have on that issue, in terms of trying to work 

with it? 

Mr. MOSER. Well, we are currently exploring the use of the readers, although the LOA, which Maureen has talked about and Gary 

as well, are actively used now. That was part of something that we 
17 

recognized that we had to have. In fact, we were in the position 

where we were saying, ‘‘Well, let us get to the person in SPOT. We 

know it is coming, and we will get you the LOA,’’ but we had to 

kind of play a little bit of a catch up game, because the actual LOA 

process went into effect before we were really completely ready for 

it, but we got there. I think we are pretty comfortable with it now. 

Ms. SHAUKET. And then just addressing the issue of the cost 

and—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shauket, would you pull one of the microphones 

in a little closer to you? Thank you. 

Ms. SHAUKET. And then just to address the issue of cost to ensure that there is not double billing, because it is controlled by the 

contracting officer who is issuing the letters of authorization, it is 

the same contracting officer that is writing and negotiating the 

contract, so they are very aware of the logistic support that will be 

provided, and if there is going to be that support provided, then it 

is not budgeted in the contract. And if they aren’t going to be getting it, then we would budget for it in the contract. So we have 

that kind of control. 

Mr. MOTSEK. If I may add just one more thing, I am sorry. You 

had Mr. Assad up here, I think last week; he may have touched 

on this. But one of the other things that we—what he has forced 

into the process, which is extraordinarily important, is that we now 

have contractor officer representatives (COR) in the theater to 

manage these things. 

For example, we have a COR at the dining facility. The contractor can’t grade his own papers. The COR is there. 

What Mr. Assad has forced the process into is the contracting officer must now certify the training of his contractor officer representatives. Before it was just an additional duty; if we found you 

were a warm body you went and did it. Now, the contracting officer, as a direct link, must certify the training of his representatives 

in the field. That is an extraordinarily huge change from where we 

were just a couple years ago, and it will pay off in the future. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Dr. SNYDER. I know you all have been here a while because of 

our votes, but we are going to go around another time or two, if 

we can. 

I wanted to ask—you all seem to have a pretty good attitude 

about this congressional mandate to do this, that it has been productive when you see it going as walking and running—or crawling 

and walking, I believe was your metaphor, Mr. Motsek. 

We are now what the sixth—it has been six years in Iraq and 

seven and a half years in Afghanistan. Why does it take so long? 

Why does it take some kind of congressional mandate to say, ‘‘Can 

you all sit down? You know, you have got people running around 

the same areas in a very dangerous situation.’’ 

Why does it take a congressional mandate, because you—and of 

course, Mr. Motsek, you set yourself up for this question because 

one of your specific things is, ‘‘We urge Congress to let both of 

these efforts,’’ referring to the Joint Chiefs of Staff task force on dependence on contractors in contingency operations and the Commission on Wartime Contracting started by Congress, you say, ‘‘let 

both those things run out before we develop future statutory direc-
18 

tion,’’ which I think is not unreasonable. But in fact, it was a statutory direction that has you saying fairly warm and fuzzy things 

about being forced to collaborate with each other. What is going on 

in your all three’s respective organizations that this didn’t happen 

by itself five, six, seven years ago? 

And Mr. Hutton, I will let you at some point respond, too. 

Why don’t we start with you, Ms. Shauket? [Laughter.] 

Well, the reason I want to start with you—I actually think 

DOD—I don’t know about Mr. Motsek personally—but I think DOD 

would have been receptive to other organizations coming in and 

saying, ‘‘We need to sit down and come up with a way to keep our 

people protected, because I have got contractors in development 

running around; I want you to know where they are going so that 

they will be as safe as they can be.’’ I don’t think—that is examples 

of the kinds of things that could have occurred. 

So I am asking, I guess, to critique your own organization. 

Ms. SHAUKET. Sure. Well, for USAID, we are very used to operating in an overseas environment, but we are not used to operating 

in a contingency environment, and I think for us that really has 

been the difference, where we were working in the same environment as the military. Normally we would go in after the military 

had concluded their mission. 

So this has been a very big learning experience for us. Also, at 

the same time we had huge influxes of resources and we had a 

mandate to deliver results immediately on the ground at the time 

that our staffing within the organization was at probably its alltime low. So it created real challenges for us, and I think with the 

resources that we had we were very, very successful. But certainly 

it has been a learning experience. 

And as security has improved, our implementation and our coordination has improved also. I think it has been a real learning 

environment for us, which is one of the lessons that we are taking 

from how we operated in Iraq to see how we can apply those lessons in Afghanistan even though it is a very different environment 

for us. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Moser. 

Mr. MOSER. Well, I will say that Mr. Motsek and I actually met 

in July of 2007 for the first time in a meeting that we had in the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and we were talking 

about some kind of joint database in order to do accounting for contractors, because those of us who take these issues about contractor 

accountability very seriously were very much seized with it. But I 

must say that in the pressure about the war and in the effort and 

the immediacy, you know, the administrative details, or the contract oversight, that we all feel is very essential is not exactly on 

our policy—on our senior policy officials as always the top uppermost in their mind. 

Dr. SNYDER. Shouldn’t it be, though, if over half of your money— 

over half of your money is spent on services contracts? 

Mr. MOSER. You know, I will defer part of this question. 

Dr. SNYDER. I mean, it is not just, like, a waste of money. It is 

somebody needs to pay attention—do you actually get—is there actually water in the bottle—— 
19 

Mr. MOSER. Dr. Snyder, I will say this. I will defer part of that 

question to Gary, but I will tell you this. We have a big—you know, 

State is very different from DOD because of the size of our operation, and I will give you an example, and I actually have—I am 

in very frequent contact with the Wartime Contracting Commission, and this is what I am told from them: ‘‘You know, we actually 

do contingency contracts all the time. State Department does them 

all the time because we have emergency situations all over the 

world all the time.’’ 

So contingency contracting, you know, the developments on this, 

I told the Wartime Contracting Commission, it is like ‘‘Contingency 

Contracting Are Us,’’ to use a grammatically incorrect phrase, because it is something that my contracting authority does. But let 

me give you an example of one of the big ones, which was evacuating the 13,000 people from Lebanon in 2006. You know, that was 

a contingency contract; didn’t involve any shooters from DOD or 

any military personnel on the ground, but was a huge effort. 

We do relief efforts all of the time. We evacuate people from 

other countries all of the time. Some of these only make the papers 

for a couple days. So that is not anything unusual. As Maureen 

said, we only had—we have not had this scale where we have been 

involved with DOD on the field, and it is a different thing. 

But in regard to your more specific question about why you 

should have been doing this, this is where the real distance is for 

me in DOD. All of my contracting officers that do the major contracts in Iraq sit three floors below me, and if I need to talk to 

them I go down and see them, or they come and see me. 

So the contracts that we have for personal security, or the contract staffs that built the embassy in Baghdad, all of those people, 

I talk to these people every day. And it is a lot different for me, 

because one of the things that we have done to try to—to control 

the situation is that we actually have centralized that contracting 

authority in the State Department in Washington so that we could 

keep a better handle of it. 

Now, you asked, well, shouldn’t you have account of the contractors? Yes, but we have small enough numbers that we could actually do this pretty well through manual systems. And it wasn’t the 

same thing, you know—I always tell—Gary is always bigger. You 

know, I have 7,000 in Iraq; Gary has 163,000. And so this is where 

we get into the differences of scale. 

Dr. SNYDER. But Mr. Moser, it was not just, can you keep a handle on what everyone acknowledged would be a dramatically smaller number of contractors, it was, given that you have got those 

number of contractors, can you work with—is DOD aware of where 

they are and what they are doing to keep them safe? And I don’t 

think—is that where we are—— 

Mr. MOSER. Well, I think that that is a fair comment, Congressman Snyder. I think that that is a fair comment, but we could have 

been better on this. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Motsek or Mr. Hutton, any comments you want 

to make? 

Mr. HUTTON. I would like to, if I could, first mention, you know, 

you asked a question about why does it take legislation, and I per-
20 

sonally think—I have been in this town for a few years—that it 

often takes legislation to put a real sharp focus on something. 

Some of these issues we are talking about today GAO has been 

reporting on. For example, one thing we were looking at was, you 

know, with respect to DOD, should there be a—you know, there 

should be a DOD focal point to help execute a lot of these policies 

and bring them up to Deputy Secretary Lynn to make sure that 

people are doing the right thing. 

I think Mr. Motsek, in that position right now for the last couple 

years, we see some of that muscle and we see some of that direction. But I do think sometimes it comes from the outside to put 

some focus. 

And I would like to react to something Mr. Moser said, and I 

think you were just touching upon it from the way I look at it, Dr. 

Snyder, was that, you know, while the agencies have their own individual contracting operations, the key here, in my mind, and 

where maybe the MOU is going to get people talking, is that we 

have got to take a focused, interagency approach to a lot of these 

things. We have more than one tool of statecraft to execute a mission. 

And I think that the fact that we are sitting here, and I think 

this kind of oversight hearing, quite frankly, puts a little extra energy into the focus again on the importance of this issue and getting the agencies to get together and talk about their needs, their 

requirements, and hopefully finding the database that fits each 

other’s needs, but one that is going to allow them to be proactive 

in their management, and not just reactive all the time. 

Mr. MOTSEK. I am going to probably echo much of what you have 

heard. Interagency process hasn’t been as effective, probably, in my 

tenure as I experienced it earlier in my life when I was a serving 

officer. I frankly saw it better in those days. 

So, to be blunt about it, you need a catalyst to make something 

happen—you either need a crisis or a catalyst to make something 

happen. USAID was absolutely correct: All of our plans, all of our 

mental focus, all our processes up to this one was sequential in nature. Win the war, let USAID come in and do their thing, because 

we are gone. That did not happen. We were operating in parallel 

lanes with agencies and departments with their own criterias and 

focus, so it was—the fact that we didn’t fight the way we ever 

planned to doing something, or we didn’t go through the reconstruction as we planned. 

The size of the operation was beyond anyone’s focus. No one, in 

I don’t think any of our departments, would ever have extrapolated 

the numbers that we have in the theater today, and to be blunt 

about it, DOD had their own problems managing contractors—our 

own contractors. We would probably be generally reluctant to take 

on what we would perceive as a management responsibility for 

someone else. So there is that inertia inside of our own bureaucracies that would state that. 

For us, two things happened: We had a meeting at OMB in 2007, 

and then we had our private security contractor issue that blew up 

between State and DOD. And those two things were the catalyst 

that literally forced us together, and we—since that point in time, 
21 

I have got to tell you, it has worked well. So from my perspective, 

the MOU was a continuation of what we were working—— 

It put some bounds on us, by the way. You know, it gave us some 

focus. I am not against more legislation, by the way; it is major legislation that I am worried about because we, quite frankly, have 

been running nonstop trying to implement what we have been directed, and we really haven’t had a chance to get our—to catch our 

breath. We almost need an operational pause so that we can collectively do what we think we have been told to do up to this point, 

because the GAO is absolutely correct: We are grinding through 

this stuff, but no one is every happy with the speed that we grind 

through it. 

Mr. MOSER. No. And I think that that is fair. And as Gary said 

before, we do—we are all three involved with the Wartime Contracting Commission, and we really do want to see them take a 

more reflective approach, and one thing that the three of us have 

already discussed is that we really do want to use what we have 

done in Iraq and really make that instructive; in other words, to 

not repeat in Afghanistan—when we have a build-up in Afghanistan, to not make some of the mistakes that we did make in Iraq. 

And I think that you try to take advantage of where you had 

problem areas in the past, and GAO has been helpful in that process as well. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think those are interesting points, Mr. Motsek and Mr. Moser, 

that you bring up, and that you point out that with the speed 

under which things have been pursued, that it would be nice to 

slow down a little bit and kind of figure out what is happening and 

to be able to learn from that. With that, do you see a need, then, 

to do sort of a comprehensive reevaluation of the use of contractors 

for contingency operations? 

And look at that standpoint and then, Mr. Motsek, you talked 

about sort of the hesitancy about legislation, but I pose this question: Do you think there may be the need—if you have a chance 

to go ahead and reevaluate or look at what is going on, what is 

working, how these pieces are coming together from previous legislation—do you think that there might be a need for legislation or 

policy changes that might be needed to facilitate or improve the 

management and oversight of contractors in these contingency operations? 

Mr. MOTSEK. Well, I can’t disagree fundamentally with anything 

that you said. The challenge that we have is, inside of DOD, is that 

the secretary has directed the chairman to do an in-depth analysis. 

In other words, we are where we are, and we have three sources— 

we have three fundamental sources of resources to do any mission 

in the battlespace: We have our military force structure, which is 

set by rank, by number, by everything; we have a government-civilian workforce, which is capped at a particular number; and then 

we have the contractor side of the house, which is flexible, to be 

blunt about it, because it is resource-driven. 

My argument to you—or my discussion with you—is that we do 

a heck of a good job working the military piece. We are Nth degree 

detail. But what we have not done to the same fidelity is work the 
22 

DOD-civilian piece—the government-civilian piece—which has still 

remained out of focus when we have about 9,000 of those folks sitting in Iraq, and the contractor piece. We are where we are because 

of the force structure requirements that were placed upon us. 

So the chairman is trying to take a clean sheet, saying, ‘‘Based 

upon all the missions that the department has, based upon the requirements and log, based upon a variety of requirements, what do 

I need in each bin?’’ And what will eventually happen is that you 

will do as much as you can in the military bin, then you have to 

default to the other two. 

What I have urged and the DOD comptroller has embraced is 

that we ought to be doing this in DOD in the Quadrennial Defense 

Review (QDR) process. Now, we do a Quadrennial Defense Review 

where we are supposed to be looking at these big resource issues. 

And we said in our national defense strategy that we had three 

components to our force: military, civilian, and contractor. And yet, 

we have always concentrated on the military piece. 

And to my astonishment, and I am very pleased to see, the new 

comptroller said, ‘‘No, we have got to look at the other two pieces 

as well as we go through the QDR process.’’ So he is championing 

that on, frankly, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics’ (AT&L) behalf, and I can only applaud that. 

So that is a major step. I will tell you that we probably would 

not have had that step had we not had the 861 MOU in place, had 

we not been engaged, had I not prepped him for his testimony for 

his confirmation hearing about these issues. Something took, something engaged him, and there can be only be goodness, in my mind, 

coming out of that. 

So I agree 100 percent, but at the end state, it ends up being a 

resource-driven exercise, whether you like it or not. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Moser. 

Mr. MOSER. I think that we are going to continue to need contractors to handle contingency operations. We don’t know where 

they are going to come; we are better off now than we were at the 

beginning of the Iraq conflict because we now have our Office of 

Crisis Response and Stabilization. That is an institution within the 

State Department that is, in the future, supposed to coordinate the 

interagency platform and try to do a better job to address these 

issues, so that part is there. 

But I will tell you, Mr. Wittman, that basically there are a lot 

of—the functions that we are having the contractors do in Iraq 

right now are not the ones that we really want our diplomatic core 

to do. And basically, we see that being the same in any kind of operation like this in the future. And that is not a bad thing. That 

is not a bad thing, but given, you know, the will of the administration and the will of Congress, we will have to use contractors to 

supplement things that are not part of our core workforce. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Hutton. 

Ms. SHAUKET. For USAID, we have our contractors and grantees 

as a core part of the delivery of our mission. We don’t actually implement the programs ourselves, but we have our partners implementing our programs. If we were to do away with the contracts, 

we would have to fundamentally shift the way that we are 
23 

resourced as an organization so that we would have the direct hires 

to be able to implement those programs. 

Right now, we have 10,000 contractor and grantee employees in 

Afghanistan, and we have over 4,000 in Iraq. So it has been a fundamental shift in resources for us. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Let me ask just your thoughts: Do you think there 

are things that could be done to improve the management and 

oversight of those contractors in these contingency operations, just 

from your experience? 

Ms. SHAUKET. Well, certainly we have learned a lot. Oversight 

has been a challenge in areas where Americans cannot go. We have 

learned a lot from that; we collaborate very closely with the military on the oversight of our programs. 

We have instituted contracts to do monitoring and evaluation. 

We work very closely with the Inspector General’s Office to try to 

ensure that we are covering our bases and that we are doing due 

diligence with the taxpayer funds. 

Mr. HUTTON. Thank you. You are right, contingency contracting 

and the issue of getting visibility on the use of contractors—the 

controller general in the past has talked about, you know, looking 

at even broader than that for an agency, the use of contractors. 

And, you know, it is really, as we are talking about all these service contractors, they are all a lot of these individual decisions. You 

know, where is that strategic look? 

And, you know, things such as, you know, to what extent are we 

using them? What are we asking them to do? How are we using 

them? 

Is that where we want to be? If that is not where we want to 

be, then how are we going to get to where we want to be, in terms 

of use of contractors? 

We talked about the total force in many different ways here, I 

think. You know, I keep my ears pretty sharp when I hear discussions talking about how agencies accomplish missions, and the 

word I am always waiting to hear is do I hear the word ‘‘contractors’’? And I would think that as you have your oversight hearings, 

that is a little thing I do for myself just to see if it is ingrained 

in the thinking. 

I do think that we are seeing more and more discussions. I think 

the opening comments, we talked about, yes, we are reliant on contractors, so we have to think about them. And how do we better 

manage them, and are we using them the way we need to use 

them? Are we, you know, protecting overall the government’s interests? 

So, I think, you know, GAO in the past, while this is a huge important issue here, we have also talked even broader. Not just 

DOD, but other agencies. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shauket, you, in your written statement at 

least, mentioned a couple times from the perspective of you and 

USAID, you see dramatic differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. I need you to explain that to me. 

Ms. SHAUKET. Well, in terms of the support that we receive from 

the military, when we are working in Iraq, then we are relying a 

lot on the military for movement of personnel and for tracking of 

personnel, and initially we had the cafeterias that everyone was 
24 

going into. In Afghanistan it is very, very different. Our contractors 

are out in the local communities; they aren’t behind any walls. And 

they are working in some areas where there is no military presence. So it is really a very different environment for us. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Motsek, I might have told you this story before. 

In my office we call it the story of Barney the contractor. Barney 

is one of my constituents—Barney Morris. And in fact, he wrote 

this op ed about this incident, but I wanted to describe this incident that occurred. 

He gives me credit for it, but my only credit was I managed a— 

I was able to manage my congressional office in such a way that 

we paid the phone bill and the phones kept operating, because that 

was my only role in this. But this was back in 2004. It was a Friday afternoon. My staff member—I was back and had headed for 

the airport, but my military legislative assistant happened to answer the phone, and it was Barney’s girlfriend in Little Rock saying she had just gotten an e-mail or some kind of a message from 

Barney in Iraq, and her feeling was that he was really in trouble. 

And he was a contractor, was in a sector that was controlled by 

Ukrainian troops, the al-Sadr forces were attacking them, and she 

implied—I think she actually thought he was calling to say goodbye, that it was not going at all well. So my staff member picked 

up the phone that I helped pay the bill on, because I am a member 

of Congress—just teasing; I didn’t have anything to do with it—he 

picked up the phone and called the local Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and it wasn’t very long at all before a call came back 

and the answer was something like ‘‘Congratulations. You just 

called in an airstrike,’’ which goes back, I think, to the Haiti operation where somebody found a payphone to call an airstrike. 

But in fact, what happened, Barney feels very strongly that because of that communication, that a couple hours later a couple of 

helicopter gunships went in and we were able to protect them until 

the next morning they got them out. That is a really shabby way 

to run a war. They couldn’t convince people that there was a problem in the Ukrainian sector. 

So my question is, given what has occurred now, do we feel better about the possibilities that our contractors are safer in Iraq and 

Afghanistan because of the communication and collaboration that 

you all are doing? 

Mr. MOTSEK. I can’t talk about Barney. 

Dr. SNYDER. I understand. And he would be embarrassed that I 

am talking about him. 

Mr. MOTSEK. I commend his initiative, by the way, but I can’t 

talk about Barney. But let me talk in a more general context from 

our perspective in 2004. The best way I can put it is, I met with 

the third Division Support Command (DISCOM), regional support 

command commander. He has a—at that time, under the organization of the Army, he had about 8,000 troops under him and he was 

part of the initial fight in Iraq. 

And one of his comments to me—and this is when I still worked 

in the Army—was, ‘‘You know, your Army supported me great; 

they did a wonderful job. No one told me that by the way, besides 

my 8,000 troops I had another 4,000 contractors I was responsible 
25 

for from day one.’’ He did not know that, and of course now it is 

a 50–50 ratio. 

So during Barney’s time, I will tell you that we, as a department, 

didn’t do a very good job teaching our leaders, because frankly, we 

were every bit as surprised at the numbers that showed up in the 

battlespace. And we shouldn’t have been surprised, because Bosnia 

has always been a 50–50 ratio, so if we had extrapolated off of Bosnia we might have known better. 

So going back to what Mr. Moser had said earlier, the lessons 

learned pieces is probably the most critical piece. Today, there is 

not a brigade commander that hasn’t been there before, does not 

understand that he has the responsibility, from a force protection 

issue, of not just military but x-thousands of civilians and government employees. And that includes our other agencies, because on 

the ground they have broken that code. 

We try to institutionalize that training, because this is not the 

school of hard knocks. We got the Military Education Coordination 

Council, which handles the joint training requirements for the 

chairman, to make this a special area of emphasis. So now, in other 

words, when the chairman goes out and reviews the schoolhouse of 

the departments—the services—one of the areas he is going to be 

looking for is, are we training our future leaders—our future brigade commanders, future wing commanders and the like—about 

the responsibilities of managing these contractors on the 

battlespace? 

Joint Forces Command today stood up an online program for a 

pre-deployment course, which is a direct outgrowth, by the way, of 

the GAO’s criticism of us for not having adequate pre-deployment 

training for these folks institutionalized. There is now an institutionalized course that is out there; it is riding on the Joint Knowledge Online program, so it is behind the firewall, but it is there 

and it is processing that. 

So in 2004, we had not, as an institution, taken our hands to understand the responsibilities associated with everyone in the 

battlespace. That is changed today. We have learned that lesson; 

we have learned it the way you would see it in the hard knocks, 

quite frankly. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman? 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to follow up on 

that, I think it is interesting that, you know, you all have pointed 

out that obviously Iraq and Afghanistan are two very different 

places. We have learned some significant lessons in Iraq. Obviously 

we are having the challenges in Afghanistan unfold in front of us. 

The question is, the lessons that we have learned in Iraq—how 

translatable are they to Afghanistan? What are the challenges that 

we will face in Afghanistan? And can we anticipate how to overcome those challenges based on knowing some of the challenges 

that we have been through in Iraq? 

Mr. MOTSEK. If you don’t mind, I will go first very quickly. Just 

one example: As you know, we have created the Joint Contracting 

Command (JCC) that sits in Iraq to manage contracting across the 

area of operation. Central Command (CENTCOM) is in the process 

of making a final decision to move that. The value of the Joint Contracting Command, which we, by the way, have institutionalized in 
26 

our—so he has already—CENTCOM is already changing the force 

structure of those folks that manage contractors, and they are 

weighing the fight in the Afghan location—the contractor fight, if 

you will. 

That will probably mean—in fact, I can’t say with certainty, but 

I am pretty certain—that the flag of that headquarters is going to 

move. It is going to move. General Petraeus clearly sees the value 

of that. He developed a very, very good working relationship with 

the commander of JCC. It is another good example where Congress 

has done something and we were kicking and screaming, but we 

did it, and it turned out to be the right thing. 

In Section 854 in 2007, you said that you have to have one flag 

or general officer responsible for contracting in the region, and that 

guy has to report to the combatant commander. He doesn’t report 

to the chief of staff; he doesn’t report to the J–4; he reports to the 

combatant commander. Based upon what I see now with General 

Petraeus, I mean, he has embraced that. 

You had General Scott here last week; Admiral Dussault, who 

was his replacement, just came back a few weeks ago. I mean, they 

are in the hip pocket of the combatant commander. That would not 

have happened, I am certain, had we not been mandated by law 

to do that. So that, you know—I can whine about being told what 

to do, but the reality is, there have been some good things that 

come out of it. 

But that simple shift to Afghanistan is happening, and we are 

not waiting for the numbers to change, we are shifting in anticipation. 

Mr. MOSER. I think in two very important ones. You know, we 

have major programs with our International Narcotics and Law 

Enforcement Bureau (INL) in both Afghanistan and Iraq. There 

have been problems early on in the Iraq conflict about oversight 

problems. There was a 30-position staff-up in INL staffing. Mr. 

Bowen, the special inspector general, has pointed out the swimming pool that was built incorrectly under a contract. I can guarantee you those kind of mistakes will not be repeated because people in the State Department have really taken the contract oversight part of that very, very seriously. 

I will give you another example: Our whole relation to private security contractors in Iraq, and if the function does plus-up in Afghanistan, it is getting tighter and tighter. After the Nisour Square 

shooting in 2007, Mr. Kennedy, currently our Under Secretary for 

Management, did an extensive report about how we increased the 

oversight of these contractors. That report’s recommendations have 

been pretty much wholly implemented, or we felt like that the reason for implementation had been overtaken by events. And you are 

going to see that kind of focus. 

Now, to get to one that is important to me, because I really do 

care about this stuff, I am going to make sure as we ramp up in 

Afghanistan that we count every vehicle and every piece of capitalized property that the contractors hold, because I am tired of getting a tough time from my external auditor about contractor-held 

property. Now, those are the kinds of things that are really important to me because those are things that I am directly accountable 
27 

for. And so yes, I think I have learned my lesson and I want to 

make sure I don’t get in trouble again. 

Mr. HUTTON. I think we have heard some good examples of how 

lessons learned are—at least we are thinking about Afghanistan, 

and we now have some operations and things in Iraq that we can 

maybe transfer. But the thing that I just want to at least put out 

on the table—and this is something I observed early on, first there 

in 2003 in Iraq—was, you know, where we make sure that we have 

sufficient numbers and sufficiently-trained contracting people and 

the oversight people. 

When I was doing the work in Afghanistan back in 2004, 2005, 

one of the things we found was that—I believe it was USAID contracting officers—when you just look at the dollars that they had 

a manage of the contracting officer, per person, they were huge. 

Now, that is not a great metric, but it at least gives you some insight as to the workload. The thing that you want to avoid is having so few staff that you end up doing these quick, urgent, and 

compelling type contracts where you don’t have sufficient time to 

do some decent acquisition planning and get a little competition 

and things like that. 

So I would just, as we are perhaps putting some more emphasis 

in Afghanistan and we talk—we have heard about some of the new 

initiatives, and I think they are all in a positive direction, I would 

be looking to see, well, how are we doing on just the sufficiency in 

the trained contracting and non-contracting personnel. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Ms. Shauket. 

Ms. SHAUKET. I would agree. For us it is really an issue of resources, and the amount of our staff that are working on the Afghanistan and Iraq programs has been significant. 

I think a difference was when we first went into Iraq we had 

staff dedicated both in the field and in Washington to just issuing 

all the contracts. Contracting officers around the world pulled together to do that. 

We can do that in the short term; it is very hard to do it in the 

long term. Right now we have the seven contracting officers, five 

in Kabul, and we have additional contracting officers supporting 

out of Thailand. But we need more resources in order to be able 

to do this right, and we need more and better-trained contracted 

officers, technical representatives, as well. 

It is a very different environment for us and for our partners 

when we are in Afghanistan. We have had 407 of our contractor 

personnel killed in Afghanistan compared to four in Iraq. That is 

a significant number. 

The challenges for us are very, very great there, and we need to 

recognize that we continue to try to compete to bring in new organizations, but there are very few that are going to be operating in 

those environments. And so we need to ensure that we have the 

resources to do the proper oversight. 

Mr. WITTMAN. That is very, I think, timely. I know that Secretary Clinton is at a conference talking about aid to Afghanistan 

and Pakistan. In fact, her comments just yesterday are, ‘‘We are 

going to have a concerted effort within the State Department and 

USAID to reform the process.’’ She also said, ‘‘I am very committed 
28 

to it. I know that it is a challenge because we are dealing with decades of practice.’’ 

So it does seem as though there is an acknowledgment there, and 

a real emphasis on making sure that that part of the process gets 

the kind of attention that it deserves. So I appreciate what you all 

are doing to bring all of the different pieces of this together. I think 

it is a Herculean challenge at best, and I appreciate the efforts that 

you all are putting forth. 

And, Mr. Chairman, with that I will finish my line of questioning. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

Mr. Motsek, and we talk about—you are not interested in major 

pieces of legislation, and Congress would understand that. For each 

of you, including Mr. Hutton, what do you need from us? In fact, 

why don’t we start with Mr. Hutton, just to change the order here? 

Mr. HUTTON. Well, quite frankly, I can’t think of any of our work 

right now where we have been pushing Congress with one of our 

recommendations or matters of consideration. I think this type of 

forum and having this type of dialogue, getting folks up here talking about what they are doing and bringing some light—good questions that we are getting here—this type of oversight, I think, 

helps keep pushing it along. 

You know, the thing I want to guard against is that maybe some 

of the positive steps we are taking aren’t because of the personality-driven. I want to make sure that there is processes in place 

and there is going to be something sustainable about it. 

And I do think there has, over the last couple years, based on 

the work that we have done, there has been some pretty big steps 

here, and I mentioned some of them today, but I think it is no time 

to kind of take our eye off the ball, and I think a forum like this 

is a very productive thing. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Shauket. 

Ms. SHAUKET. Well, you have recognized that we are different 

than our colleagues here at the table with us. USAID is a very 

small organization. Our resources are limited. 

We appreciate the understanding that you have had in realizing 

the challenges that we have had to implement the SPOT system. 

We will continue to devote ourselves to it, and we are committed 

to it. And we appreciate your continued patience as we do resource 

in order to be able to meet these objectives. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Moser. 

Mr. MOSER. Congressman Snyder, I think that the main thing 

that I would ask you for is that we would appreciate Congress’ continued interest in these issues, because if—you know, we have our 

own budgetary process which goes to OMB and the President, and 

we definitely respect that, but we do want to make sure that the 

whole issues about contractors and how—our relationship to contractors and how we use them effectively. It continues to be a talk 

that Congress is involved in, because we really do need that input, 

I think, from Capitol Hill, in order to make the best decisions—the 

best decisions for the U.S. government. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Motsek. 

Mr. MOTSEK. Sir, actually, he means legislation. 

Mr. MOSER. He always does. 
29 

Mr. MOTSEK. Four areas, sir. One is resourcing. The dollars and 

the resources that we are talking about with all the issues we have 

laid on the table with you are very, very modest. But because they 

are so modest, they get lost in the noise of the big department. So 

unless I have someone here providing eyes on the target and making sure that we are adequately resourced, we are going to have 

a challenge. 

Virtually everything we have done up to this point has been 

funded via supplementals because that was the fastest way of 

doing business. We have to be able, and we need your help, to get 

that transition into base budget language and base budget 

resourcing. 

The second issue is the threshold that we report things. We talked about in the MOU, it is $100,000; there is actually other 

pieces of legislation that talks about $25,000 threshold to put 

things into the system. 

Dr. SNYDER. $100,000 was not by statute, correct? 

Mr. MOSER. No, it is actually in the statute. 

Mr. MOTSEK. It is in the statute. I believe it is. I know it is in 

the MOU, so I—— 

Let me just say it is in the MOU. What I would say is that we 

have talked with staff up here before in both houses, and realistically, that is an—the $25,000 is clearly unobtainable. There is too 

much churn. 

What we have proposed and we are going to ask is for some help 

to raise that threshold to $250,000, 30 days or less, because otherwise there is a churning, and most of that work is really more vendor deliveries than it is actually hiring of contractors. And that 

churn will let us become more accurate with what we are doing. 

Third thing we need a little help on is on definitions, because in 

different parts of the statutes, when we talk about contractors, are 

you talking about contractors with a bona fide contract? Are you 

talking about Cooperative Research and Development Agreements 

(CRADAs)? Are you talking about grants? 

We need consistency across the board so we understand exactly 

what we want to measure. We know what we want to measure, but 

when you go into the interdepartmental side of the house, we need 

some sort of standards. 

The last thing I would ask you to consider is—and we have 

talked around it a couple of times—is that you are talking about 

the ‘‘big three’’ inside of the area of operation, but we are not the 

only agencies with folks in there. So it may be wise for you to police up the other agencies and say, ‘‘You know, you ought to be reporting your numbers as well.’’ 

We have got to defend them; we have got to feed them; we have 

got to protect them in Iraq, and they are in the battlespace in both 

locations, so you may want to consider to pick up those 240-plus 

Justice Department contractors that are out there, by directing us 

to do that. Because again, it took statute to force into the MOU. 

I can’t speak for the rest of, you know, the government, but I suspect it is going to require the same thing to piece it—to pick up 

the smaller pieces. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Wittman, are you—do you have any further 

questions? I have a couple more I wanted to ask. 
30 

Mr. Hutton, how accurate is SPOT? 

Mr. HUTTON. I will answer it this way: Right now SPOT has the 

capability to bring in different data. For example, a year ago they 

couldn’t track SPOT casualty—contractors killed. There is a capability now, but it is not live yet in terms of—I think there just 

might be starting to populate—— 

Mr. HUTTON. Right. But I am talking across the board for all 

three agencies, so I think that was a big change. 

Some of the contracting information, they are now—I think they 

now have the capacity to bring in some data through the federal 

procurement data system. I think that is something that, if you 

were to look into it right now, I don’t think you would see it fully 

implemented in that way, but I think you have the capacity and 

the capability to do it right now. 

Our work last year and this year, where we have been required 

to identify the number of active contracts, dollar values, descriptions of the contracts, number of personnel in the areas of responsibility that we are talking about, Iraq and Afghanistan—as we are 

doing our—last year SPOT wasn’t going to get us there; this year 

SPOT is—right now it is not going to get us there because it is just 

not ready yet. 

Hopefully it will be when we get around to our third year, because it is pretty data-intensive for us. It is basically casting out 

a large net. DOD has given us multiple spreadsheets and things 

like that for information. USAID, I think last year a lot of it was 

manual, State as well. 

So right now I don’t think I could go to SPOT and be able to report on our objective as part of Section 863, but I think just in 1 

year the capability of SPOT—and then we talked about the letters 

of authorization—that is huge, I think, because that is leverage, 

that is something that is going to—one, you have to have it. So you 

are going to get into systems; contractors have to put in systems. 

So that is a big thing. 

But I don’t think right now I would say that is accurate enough. 

I think we are still going to use the census data on the personnel 

for DOD, and I know State and USAID, particularly in Afghanistan, you know, there is going to be the queries of the contractors, 

things like that. So I would say that is the current status. 

Dr. SNYDER. My last question is, I think it is important to ask 

one question that there is no way we would see it coming, so it is 

going to be directed to you, Mr. Hutton. 

You were a National War College graduate in 2002, spent—was 

it 10 months there, or about a year? How did you think the last 

5 or 6 years—like, perhaps this topic today—how has your analysis, how has your work done at analyzing this topic, following this 

along, how has that been impacted by the experience you had with, 

I assume, probably 14 or 15 uniformed people, spending 10 months 

with them at the War College? 

Mr. HUTTON. Well, it is a great question, and it is quite larger 

than that. We had a fairly large State presence, some USAID, very 

large DOD, plus some international fellows. It is also interesting 

the fact that I was there at 9/11, and it was—I still have a lot of 

those memories then, because, you know, we immediately started 

talking about what we were going to be doing in Iraq and Afghani-
31 

stan, and it was interesting to watch the interagency discussions 

going on. 

And I think an institution like the National War College, where 

you bring people in—and I understand that even for some of the 

other things we are talking about today, we are trying to put more 

information into the service academies and things like that, understanding that contracts are often the way the government executes 

its mission, so we ought to be thinking about contracts. It is just 

not something that, you know, you don’t have to manage so you 

don’t have any insights on, and things like that. 

But I would say institutions like the National War College, 

where you get the different institutions talking about these issues, 

and over time I think it is getting ingrained—I mean, they have 

been doing that for many years; it gets ingrained into the psyche 

of the participants, and networks are created, and I think it is a 

very positive—one aspect, but a positive aspect to encourage—— 

Dr. SNYDER. I was out at the—several of us were—Dr. Fenner 

and some others were at the Industrial College of the Armed 

Forces yesterday morning, and one of the things that came out in 

my informal meeting with about 10 students was, they—there, they 

divide them into groups of 16 and they stick together for that period of time, and the groups that did not have somebody from 

USAID or the State Department were very, very envious of those 

groups that did have one person, and they recognized the problem 

was this—we have talked about that they have a staffing issue 

that, you know, just don’t have a float that you can say, ‘‘Yes, we 

can send over 20 people for a year every year.’’ You just, you 

can’t—you can’t do that, so these issues interrelate. 

Mr. HUTTON. Dr. Snyder, if I may say, though, that experience— 

I think it is a great institution, but the best part of it was that I 

don’t think I have ever been around such great Americans across 

the interagency, and it was really valuable to experience. And it 

gives you a lot of, you know, excitement, I think, about the type 

of talent that is in government. And I think it is just a matter of, 

whether it is a SPOT database or something else, getting the interagency process to function better, and I think things like that will 

help. 

Dr. SNYDER. Only a person from GAO would say they get excited 

about the SPOT database. [Laughter.] 

I think what is interesting, too, and it is some difference from 

when you were there in 2002 is, there is—everyone has already 

bought into the idea that the interagency has to work closely together, in view of our experiences over the last several years. And 

I think that is important. 

I appreciate you all being here. I am sorry we got delayed on 

votes, and it enables me to go home and tell my little 2-year-old 

boy that I spent all afternoon talking about SPOT. 

So, we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:42 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 1, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

APRIL 1, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

APRIL 1, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you believe the language in the Memorandum of Understanding 

meets the spirit and intent of the Section 861 legislation? 

Mr. MOTSEK. The Memorandum of Understanding meets the spirit of the legislation while respecting the different agencies’ authorities and separate appropriations. 

The Department of Defense continues to work in close partnership with the Department of State and USAID. We have established a common database. We continue 

to align our processes where we are able, and where it is not appropriate to align 

them, we are ensuring that our procedures are consistent. 

Dr. SNYDER. How can we verify the accuracy of SPOT? How do we move away 

from the manual census? 

Mr. MOTSEK. The Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker’s (SPOT) 

data accuracy can be validated using three different measures surrounding contract 

accuracy, completeness of contractor personnel records in SPOT and maintenance of 

vendor companies’ contractor information in the system. 

The first way to verify the accuracy is by comparing the contracts entered into 

SPOT versus those represented in the Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation (FPDS–NG). This methodology also applies to validating the manual census 

as compared with SPOT and FPDS–NG. In the future, SPOT will have real time 

services with the FPDS–NG that will enable SPOT to receive contingency contract 

information from FPDS–NG. Success will depend on government contracting activities posting contract actions to FPDS–NG within a specified time frame. 

The second way to verify data accuracy in SPOT is to ensure that SPOT contains 

the contractor records required by the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). This is accomplished first by comparing the number of active contractors by contract in SPOT versus the manual census count. Second, we look at 

Joint Asset Movement Management System (JAMMS) scans captured in theater and 

ensure contractors consuming services in theater are in fact registered in SPOT. 

This methodology also will be applied using scans captured by base authorization 

and biometric systems that enroll contractors and issue cards. If a contractor receives an access or identification card, then a contractor record is expected to exist 

in SPOT. 

Third, we provide compliance metrics on companies maintaining their contractor 

records in SPOT. Companies are required to set the actual in theater arrival and 

departure dates once a deployment is created. 

Once the contract and contractor personnel information is correct, the manual 

census can be turned off. We presently estimate that two more cycles are required 

until we are confident in the ‘‘capture’’ of contractor personnel and so are able to 

turn off the manual census. 

Dr. SNYDER. As the agency responsible for maintaining and upgrading SPOT, 

please provide an overview of planned upgrades to the system and what those capabilities will provide. How much do these upgrades and regular maintenance of SPOT 

cost? What is the plan and timeline for rebidding the SPOT contract? 

Mr. MOTSEK. Planned upgrades to the SPOT system are occurring in several 

areas to include key integrations with other authoritative data systems; improvements to user interface with the system inclusive of finalizing and fielding a robust 

SIPR-based business intelligence tool (SPAARS). By integrating with other federal 

data systems, this reduces redundant processing and data collection steps for contractors. Integrations improve data quality by enabling the comparison of data contained in SPOT with other data that is contained in authoritative systems. These 

services enable the exchange of information between SPOT and other requiring systems/activities. Planned upgrades to SPOT focus on reducing the time it takes companies and government users to input contractor data into SPOT. Improvements to 

SPOT include completing the ‘‘create a contractor deployment task’’ web services 

functionality that would enable companies to export all required data fields from 

company owned systems directly into SPOT; expand the Letter of Authorization 

(LOA) functionality to ‘‘bulk’’ renew, revoke, modify and extend active LOAs; enable 

companies to create deployment templates that could be applied to many employees 

versus creating them on an individual basis today; build more defined SPOT user 
80 

roles that would enable customers to receive adaptive roles for their agency and organization; provide the ability for organizations or individuals to create and maintain adaptive hierarchies in SPOT that would no longer require a data base administrator to make these changes in time sensitive situations. Finally, the Joint Asset 

Movement Management System (JAMMS) will be installed in additional government furnished point of service locations to provide tracking and audit type capability for contractors serving in contingency areas. The SPOT program’s projected cost for FY 2009 is $18.5M. If additional federal 

agencies utilize SPOT to manage their global contractor footprint, costs would increase by an additional $2.5–$3.0M to support increased training, customer service, 

hardware and hosting costs. Separate from the direct cost of the SPOT program is 

the CENTCOM SPOT/JAMMS theater support consisting of 21 contractor personnel 

that help resolve contractor movement and life support issues, provide SPOT/ 

JAMMS training to new organizations and administer Tier 1 JAMMS technical support in the AOR. The theater support costs $6.2M annually and is funded through 

GWOT. SPOT is a system which was initially developed and fielded to meet immediate contingency operations requirements. Subsequently, it has grown and is now 

included in federal acquisition rules and inter-agency documentation required by 

statute. The system, therefore, must transition from a supplemental funding to normal base budget funding. 

The contract action for ‘‘rebidding’’ SPOT is scheduled for release in mid-May 

2009. Expected contract award is the first week in August 2009. This effort consolidates SPOT NIPR/SIPR, the business intelligence tool (SPAARS), and JAMMS software maintenance and support. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you support the extension of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) to private security contractors of all federal agencies? 

Mr. MOTSEK. The Department of Defense consistently has supported unambiguous 

application of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act to all U.S. government 

private security contractors operating in a contingency area. 

There must be assured legal accountability for the actions of all U.S. contractors 

deployed to an area of combat operations. The application of the Uniform Code of 

Military Justice (UCMJ) and MEJA to DOD civilians and contractors are ways to 

ensure legal accountability. 

In the recent review of the Manual for Courts-Martial, the Joint Service Committee on Military Justice provides guidance on the appropriate application of the 

UCMJ to deployed DOD civilian employees and contractor employees. In essence, 

the punishment scheme for civilians is clarified for those who are uncertain how 

pre-existing UCMJ/MCM punishments would apply, and clarifies that punishments 

by courts-martial would follow a similar construct as faces civilians in civilian 

courts: for example, a penalty that is a combination of imprisonment (confinement) 

and/or a fine. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your opinion, what is the appropriate vehicle to coordinate contracting activities across the interagency in future potential contingency settings? Is 

there room to improve interagency cooperation, and if so, what do you propose? 

Mr. MOTSEK. Based upon the groundwork we have laid and the working relationships we have developed in response to the current contingency operations, we believe that Memoranda of Understanding and Agreement are sufficient vehicles. To 

include all agencies operating in the contingency area, we would need specific legislative authority to mandate the scope of coordination to other federal agencies and 

to enforce more standardized procedures. With the increasing recognition by administration and congressional leadership regarding the coordinated application of all 

U.S. resources and the use of ‘‘soft power,’’ we believe the interagency process will 

be reinvigorated and will provide the proper senior level oversight and coordination 

for future contingencies. 

Dr. SNYDER. In order for a program to become a truly enduring capacity within 

the Department, it must be included in the base budget. Is funding for your office’s 

programs included in the POM? If not, is there a plan to migrate this funding away 

from the supplementals? 

Mr. MOTSEK. Congress has mandated several programs for which funding currently is not in the POM due to either the POM cycle and/or the determination of 

the Executive Agency. They presently compete for consideration and inclusion in 

base budget funding. These programs include: 

(1) The Synchronization Pre-deployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) system—the system of record for accountability and visibility of contractors operating 

in a contingency operation. Section 862 of the National Defense Authorization Act 

of Fiscal Year 2008 required the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and 

the Administrator of the Agency for International Development to enter into a 

Memorandum of Understanding that, among other things, must address the identi-
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fication of common databases as the repositories of information on contracts in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. The three agencies have agreed to use SPOT as the common database. OSD has partially funded this program in the FYDP. Additional unplanned 

requirements have caused a current Unfunded Requirement (UFR) of $4.0M for 

FY09. 

(2) The Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT)—a stand alone badging system used 

to allow physical access to U.S. facilities in Afghanistan is an add-on requirement 

which integrates into SPOT in isolated localities. This is not funded in the current 

FYDP and has a current shortfall of $2.0M for FY 09. 

(3) Two Joint Operational Contract Support Planners at each of the Combatant 

Commands (COCOM) are authorized to act as subject matter experts on Operational 

Contract Support and provide the COCOMs with planning guidance for contractor 

personnel within their AOR. This effort is partially funded with internal resources 

and currently requires $3.5M to fully execute this FY. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you see a need for a comprehensive reevaluation of our use of 

contractors in contingency operations? 

Mr. MOTSEK. The Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff, as directed by the Secretary of 

Defense, is already conducting a thorough examination of the use of Department of 

Defense contractors in support of current military operations as well as a review of 

the range and depth of contractor capabilities necessary to support the Joint Force 

of the future. 

The Department of Defense is improving contractor oversight and management 

through several regulatory mechanisms both internal to the DOD and in conjunction 

with other government agencies. These efforts include development of new DOD Directives and Instructions and updates to existing regulations. The Department is 

working very closely with DOS and USAID. Several Memorandums of Agreement 

and Memoranda of Understanding are in place and efforts to develop enterprise solutions to broader acquisition issues are ongoing. 

Dr. SNYDER. How can we verify the accuracy of SPOT? How do we move away 

from manual census? 

Mr. MOSER. We are improving data quality by using SPOT ad hoc reports to 

verify accuracy of all deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan each fiscal quarter. 

SPOT released new functionality in January 2009 and now collects additional 

data requirements for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 861, 

such as categories of contractor’s personnel, competitive or non-competitive awards, 

and personnel incidents. Concern still exists about security of inputting Iraqi Nationals into the unclassified SPOT database. Therefore, this information is likely to 

be incomplete until DOD has completed its classified SPOT database. 

The move from manual counts to using SPOT will be closely monitored by our 

contracting/grants officers to verify company/grantee accuracy of data. 

Dr. SNYDER. While DOD is the system owner, SPOT became an interagency system with the signing of the MOU. How is the Department of State ensuring that 

SPOT meets your needs in terms of inputting and accessing information that can 

be used for contractor management and oversight? 

Mr. MOSER. The level of cooperation between the Departments in implementing 

the MOU and establishing the SPOT database is excellent. The DOS is in regular 

contact with DOD and USAID. DOS, DOD, and USAID meet monthly and on an 

ad hoc basis to address systems and policy implementation issues. 

The MOU requires the parties use the DOD-managed SPOT database. The DOD 

Program manager is always available to answer questions, provide information 

about future system capabilities, assist with custom reports, and share ways to use 

SPOT more efficiently. Section VII of the July 2008 MOU defines DOD’s responsibility for system maintenance. DOD is open to system improvements and customized reports for contractor management issues. The January 2009 upgrade of 

SPOT provided the ability to assign a uniform description of contract services enabling sorting data by major categories, including the number of personnel performing security functions. This upgrade also enabled the user the ability to report 

a competitive or non-competitive award, incidents of wounded in action (WIA) or 

killed in action (KIA), and other reasons for ending a deployment. 

The DOS Contracting/Grants Officers and the commercial/federal assistance partners will use these new functionalities for all future contractors and grantees input 

in SPOT to fulfill requirements of Section 861 reporting and to manage more effectively. SPOT is also being used as a message board for the interagency community 

to post information needed by the contracting and grants community to do business 

in Iraq. 

The DOS’s Diplomatic Security (DS) recently negotiated with DOD to purchase 20 

SPOT Joint Asset Movement Management System (JAMMS) scanners for installation at strategic locations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This will enable program man-
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agers to monitor billable services and daily contractor activity. DS also established 

a new position at Embassy Baghdad, the Coordinator of Armed Contractor Oversight, which will report to the Regional Security Officer. This also will help ensure 

compliance with NDAA requirements. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you support the extension of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) to private security contractors of all federal agencies? 

Mr. MOSER. As Secretary Clinton has said, the Department of State needs to take 

a hard look at the issue of security contractors abroad and how they are used and 

held accountable, while at the same time recognizing that we need to provide security for our diplomats if they are to perform their vital mission in Iraq and other 

dangerous places. I will continue to work with the Office of the Legal Adviser to 

ensure that the Department’s use of private security contractors remains on solid 

legal footing and to determine whether additional legislation might be beneficial. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you believe the language of the Memorandum of Understanding 

(MOU) meets the spirit and intent of Section 861? 

Mr. MOSER. The MOU meets the spirit and intent of the legislation. DOD, USAID, 

and DOS have begun using a common database, SPOT, for all contracts/grants in 

Iraq and Afghanistan to comply with the reporting requirements of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 861. 

SPOT released new functionality in January 2009 and now collects additional 

data requirements for the NDAA Section 861, such as categories of contractor’s personnel, competitive or non-competitive awards, personnel incidents, company weapons authorization categories, security checks categories, and identification of weapons categories. This specifically supports the legislation’s intent to coordinate better 

on rules of force for contractors in area of combat operations. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your opinion, what is the appropriate vehicle to coordinate contracting activities across the interagency in future contingency settings? Is there 

room to improve interagency cooperation, and if so, what do you propose? 

Mr. MOSER. It would be ideal to say that a vehicle such as the National Defense 

Authorization Act (NDAA) 2008–9, Section 861 should never be needed to coordinate 

activities across agencies. However, it did prove that this kind of cooperation is essential and can prove efficient. Many times, in contingency settings, agencies can 

be reactive versus proactive because of the unpredictable circumstance. However, 

NDAA 861 implementation will realize lessons learned that will be leveraged to 

build a contingency team among agencies beyond the July 2008 MOU. For example, 

the SPOT database could be used beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to bring agencies 

together to meet other world wide challenges through sharing contract information 

in such places as Africa. 

Dr. SNYDER. How can we verify the accuracy of SPOT? How do we move away 

from the manual census? 

Ms. SHAUKET. USAID, like our Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of 

State (DOS) colleagues, must rely upon USAID contractors/grantees to enter the 

majority of data contained within SPOT. While USAID manually enters primeaward information, the USAID contractor/grantee is responsible for updating the 

necessary data fields for all sub-awards. (Under USAID and federal regulations/ 

guidance, USAID prime contractors/grantees maintain the direct business relations 

between themselves and sub-awardees; USAID maintains the direct business relationship with the prime contractor/grantee.) 

Currently, USAID verifies accuracy of SPOT entries associated with letters of authorization (LOAs). For the majority of USAID implementing partners who are not 

issued LOAs, however, verification of data can present a challenge. Two major data 

sets require verification for accuracy: 1) award-related information; and 2) actual 

contractor/grantee personnel information. The personnel information in the system 

can be complex given the scope and type of information that SPOT requires. As well, 

concerns about listing local personnel in the system raise verification challenges, 

such as: 1) the U.S. standard of first, middle, and last names is not the same in 

the Middle East, and 2) a reluctance to provide personal data that could compromise 

the safety of local personnel and their families. 

USAID does not currently have a system that contains the same information as 

SPOT; therefore it is difficult to develop an approach that does not involve some 

level of ‘‘manual census.’’ A less cumbersome method for verifying the accuracy of 

the large data sets requested in SPOT could be to conduct random sampling. This 

randomly sampled data then could be used to formulate an ‘‘accuracy’’ score, for example. 

At this time, USAID must rely on verification of information from our prime contractors. If USAID were to take on the responsibility for this, a team of dedicated, 

full-time staff with the necessary related resources would be required. 
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Dr. SNYDER. Do you support the extension of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) to private security contractors of all federal agencies? 

Ms. SHAUKET. USAID does not object to the extension of MEJA to cover private 

security contractors employed by civilian agencies abroad, provided sufficient resources are appropriately allotted to effectively implement any extension. If MEJA 

is extended to private security contractors of all federal agencies, USAID hopes to 

address key concerns about coordination of MEJA enforcement in foreign countries. 

Dr. SNYDER. While DOD is the system owner, SPOT became an interagency system with the signing of the MOU. How is USAID ensuring that SPOT meets your 

needs in terms of inputting and accessing information that can be used for contractor management and oversight? 

Ms. SHAUKET. Since signing the MOU, USAID has worked with interagency colleagues to adapt SPOT to meet agency business needs. We continue to work through 

technical challenges posed by the current system, including terminology mismatches 

between agencies (which limits data quality) and a continuing lack of interagency 

HSPD–12 support (which slows capabilities). While the agency actively engages 

SPOT, especially in Iraq, we continue to address these issues in an interagency 

forum and with the system developer at DOD, in order to more fully realize the capabilities of the new system. 

Tracking of contracting/grantee personnel under SPOT is being done at a level 

that is unprecedented for this agency. For this reason, USAID is analyzing the 

functionalities and the activity tracks of SPOT for effective use—first in Iraq and 

then in Afghanistan. Once fully realized, SPOT functionality will allow USAID to 

meet the oversight needs as outlined in the MOU and Section 861. SPOT 

functionality for USAID will provide a capability to report to combatant commanders, interagency partners, Congress, and others regarding number of contracting personnel in contingency situations and other appropriate information. 

The continued and active use of SPOT (inputting and accessing of information), 

however, must be met with committed resources to hire or re-assign full-time staff 

within USAID to help manage the system. USAID does not require SPOT capabilities for overall contractor management and oversight purposes; the agency requires 

it to provide information for our interagency colleagues and meet the MOU and legislative requirements. As SPOT is an unfunded mandate for USAID, additional 

funding would be required to maintain agency capabilities. Additional funding also 

will be required within the budget plans for contract and/or grant awardees in order 

to support the SPOT administrator function for each partner. Without the regular 

information and updates provided by partners within SPOT, the functionality of the 

system would be compromised. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you believe the language in the Memorandum of Understanding 

meets the spirit and intent of the Section 861 legislation? 

Ms. SHAUKET. Yes. The MOU meets the overall spirit and intent of Section 861. 

It should be noted, however, that the MOU reaches beyond Section 861 to extend 

the provision to assistance awards/grantees as well. 

Dr. SNYDER. For Iraq and Afghanistan, do you believe you have a sufficient number of contracting officers and other contracting personnel in-country? If not, what 

plan do you have to increase this number? What resources will you require to do 

so? 

Ms. SHAUKET. Even with the inclusion of related support personnel, including contracting specialists and Contracting Officer’s Technical Representatives, USAID remains greatly understaffed with contracting and agreement officers to ensure the 

due diligence, best value, and transparency necessary to safeguard U.S. taxpayer 

funds spent in these contingency countries. For Iraq, the agency will have two U.S. 

direct hire Contracting Officers (COs) as of summer 2009. While the agency has 

more than 20 awards in Iraq, staffing needs are still being reviewed based on procurement plans. For Afghanistan, the agency currently has five U.S. direct hires to 

manage, oversee, and deliver on procurement needs in-country. A back-up office in 

Thailand provides support with two additional U.S. direct hire COs. Workforce 

plans for Afghanistan include increasing the number of U.S. direct hires in Kabul 

within the next six months to a total of eight U.S. direct hires. As well, the Office 

of Acquisition and Assistance plans on one additional CO in Thailand for support 

purposes. 

As the agency rebuilds its staffing levels, we continue to supplement our contracting officer needs in Afghanistan and Iraq with short- and long-term TDY support. With a need for experienced individuals in these positions, we will seek to recruit mid-level COs through the Development Leadership Initiative (DLI), and 

evaluate whether we will be able to place some of these individuals in our contingency countries, including Afghanistan. 
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The resources necessary to staff up USAID COs in these countries involve sustained funding for foreign service positions (such as the DLI program) as well as 

committed funds to staffing up the USAID Office of Acquisition and Assistance. Another issue not addressed by adding resources to hire more COs, however, is the 

need to better manage the retention rates for our most experienced, senior foreign 

service contracting officers. This remains a concern as new hires via DLI must be 

well trained and gain extensive USAID contracting experience prior to deployment 

to contingency countries in most cases. 

USAID continues to review how to build its capacity to manage CO needs in these 

contingency situations with today’s resource levels. Under this review, we will examine adopting business models currently followed by our DOD and DOS colleagues 

regarding fee for service or establishment of a working fund. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your opinion, what is the appropriate vehicle to coordinate contracting activities across the interagency in future potential contingency settings? Is 

there room to improve interagency cooperation, and if so, what do you propose? 

Ms. SHAUKET. Strong and sustained interagency coordination in a contingency situation is critical to achieving USG goals. For this reason, room for improvement always exists. 

As an agency, we are committed to coordinating activities in a consistent manner. 

A core working group of equal-rank colleagues, for example, and/or the formation 

of an office dedicated to coordinating contracting activities for a particular country/ 

region may be viable options for future contingency situations. For best coordination, of course, providing immediate action at the onset of the situation and sustaining it through the process with all parties present or accounted for are important considerations. As well, selecting coordinating representatives who can remain 

committed and open to the process associated with reconstruction/development planning should be considered. 

In particular to SPOT, one recommendation for continuity would be to appoint at 

least one DOD civil service employee to manage the interagency coordination of all 

SPOT activities. (Military personnel may often move through assignments in oneto two-year periods.) As well, DOS and USAID would need to appoint full-time staff 

dedicated to the multi-year effort. The appropriate resources, of course, would need 

to be determined to meet this need. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you believe the language in the Memorandum of Understanding 

meets the spirit and intent of the Section 861 legislation? 

Mr. HUTTON. The report language accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008 does not provide an indication of congressional intent for determining whether the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) meets the spirit and intent of Section 861. However, the text of the July 2008 MOU signed by the Departments of Defense and State and the U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID) meets the common database requirements and addresses the other matters 

specified as a minimum in Section 861. In meeting the requirement to identify a 

common database to serve as a repository of information on contracts and contractors personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MOU established the simplified acquisition threshold as a criterion for a contract’s inclusion in the Synchronized Pre-Deployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT), which was designated by the three agencies as the system of record for the required contract and contractor personnel information. The simplified acquisition threshold is $100,000 except for contracts awarded and performed overseas in support of a contingency operation, in which case the 

threshold is $1 million. Since Section 861 did not specify a minimum dollar value 

threshold regarding which contracts should appear in SPOT, the database could exclude a significant number of lower dollar value contracts and, therefore, the personnel working on them even though they meet the criteria specified in Section 861. 

The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 

amended section 861 by specifying additional administrative matters regarding offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Military Extraterritorial 

Jurisdiction Act to be included in the MOU. The Act further required the agencies 

to modify their existing MOU to address these additional matters by February 11, 

2009. However, according to State and USAID officials as of May 17, 2009 the required modifications to the MOU are still pending final approval. 

Dr. SNYDER. In your opinion, what is the appropriate vehicle to coordinate contracting activities across the interagency in future potential contingency settings? 

Mr. HUTTON. GAO has not assessed what the appropriate vehicles would be for 

coordinating contingency contracting activities across agencies. However, before the 

agencies can effectively coordinate their contingency contracting activities, they 

need to ensure that their respective decision makers have accurate, complete, and 

timely information on contracts and contractor personnel. They would then need to 

collectively determine what information should be shared, as well as when and how 
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that information should be shared—all of which should be clearly specified so that 

each agency understands what has been agreed to and what its responsibilities are. 

Ideally, such an arrangement, which may need to be tailored to fit the circumstances of each contingency operation, would be in place before the start of an 

operation or soon after its start to ensure that coordination and communication are 

as effective as possible as soon as possible. 

Dr. SNYDER. Your statement identified a number of management and oversight 

challenges related to using contractors in contingency operations. To what extent 

will SPOT help address some of those challenges? 

Mr. HUTTON. SPOT has the potential to help address some of the contract management and oversight challenges GAO has previously identified. Specifically, once 

fully implemented and populated, SPOT could provide civilian and military officials 

with centralized, standardized data on the extent to which they rely on contractors, 

the tasks contractors are performing, and costs—all of which could inform and assist 

in planning efforts, account for costs, and mitigate risks. However, it is too soon to 

determine how useful SPOT will be as a management and oversight tool for Defense, State, and USAID. First, not all contracts and contractor personnel are being 

entered into SPOT. Foreign nationals, particularly in Afghanistan, are underrepresented in SPOT and the agencies only recently began entering some data elements. Second, it is not clear how the agencies will use the SPOT data that has 

been and will be entered. The agencies’ focus to date has been on putting information into the system rather than pulling information out for management purposes. 

Further, the agencies have varying views on the level of detail and types of information that need to be captured in SPOT and the usefulness of such data to better 

plan for and oversee the use of contractors. As noted in GAO’s statement, Defense, 

State, and USAID need to continue to work together to develop and implement a 

database that is flexible enough to be applicable across agencies while still providing 

detailed information to better manage and oversee contractors. 

Æ