Iraq and Afghanistan: DOD, State, and USAID Face Continued Challenges in Tracking Contracts, Assistance Instruments, and Associated Personnel
Published: 2010-10-01T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied extensively on contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements for a wide range of services in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, as GAO previously reported, the agencies have faced challenges in obtaining sufficient information to manage these contracts and assistance instruments. As part of our third review under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, as amended, GAO assessed the implementation of the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) and data reported by the three agencies for Afghanistan and Iraq for FY 2009 and the first half of FY 2010 on the (1) number of contractor and assistance personnel, including those providing security; (2) number of personnel killed or wounded; and (3) number and value of contracts and assistance instruments and extent of competition for new awards. GAO compared agency data to other available sources to assess reliability.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: While the three agencies designated SPOT as their system for tracking statutorily required information in July 2008, SPOT still cannot reliably track information on contracts, assistance instruments, and associated personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result, the agencies relied on sources of data other than SPOT to respond to our requests for information. The agencies' implementation of SPOT has been affected by some practical and technical issues, but their efforts also were undermined by a lack of agreement on how to proceed, particularly on how to track local nationals working under contracts or assistance instruments. The lack of agreement was due in part to agencies not having assessed their respective information needs and how SPOT can be designed to address those needs and statutory requirements. In 2009, GAO reported on many of these issues and recommended that the agencies jointly develop a plan to improve SPOT's implementation. The three agencies reported to GAO that as of March 2010 there were 262,681 contractor and assistance personnel working in Iraq and Afghanistan, 18 percent of whom performed security functions. Due to limitations with agency-reported data, caution should be used in identifying trends or drawing conclusions about the number of personnel in either country. Data limitations are attributable to agency difficulty in determining the number of local nationals, low response rates to agency requests for data, and limited ability to verify the accuracy of reported data. For example, a State office noted that none of its Afghan grant recipients provided requested personnel data. While agency officials acknowledged not all personnel were being counted, they still considered the reported data to be more accurate than SPOT data. Only State and USAID tracked information on the number of contractor and assistance personnel killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan during the review period. State reported 9 contractor and assistance personnel were killed and 68 wounded, while USAID reported 116 killed and 121 wounded. Both agencies noted that some casualties resulted from nonhostile actions. DOD still lacked a system to track similar information and referred GAO to Department of Labor data on cases filed under the Defense Base Act for killed or injured contractors. As GAO previously reported, Labor's data provide insights but are not a good proxy for the number of contractor casualties. DOD, State, and USAID obligated $37.5 billion on 133,951 contracts and assistance instruments with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during FY2009 and the first half of FY2010. DOD had the vast majority of contract obligations. Most of the contracts were awarded during the review period and used competitive procedures. State and USAID relied heavily on grants and cooperative agreements and reported that most were competitively awarded. While DOD and State did not comment on the draft report, USAID commented on the challenges of implementing SPOT and provided revised personnel data that GAO reviewed and included in the report. In response to GAO's 2009 report, DOD, State, and USAID did not agree with the recommendation to develop a plan for implementing SPOT because they felt ongoing coordination efforts were sufficient. GAO continues to believe a plan is needed to correct SPOT's shortcomings and is not making any new recommendations.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State (State), and  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied  extensively on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to provide a wide range  of services, such as security, transportation, and base operations.  Additionally, State and USAID have depended on recipients of grants and  cooperative agreements—two types of assistance instruments—to  implement infrastructure, governance, and economic development  projects in the two countries. Given this reliance, it is critical that agency  officials have reliable information as a starting point to inform decision  making and properly oversee the work being performed under contracts  and assistance instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan. As our prior work has  shown, the agencies’ lack of complete and accurate information may  inhibit planning, increase cost, and introduce unnecessary risk.
Congress has taken a number of actions to increase oversight of contracts  and assistance instruments with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Among these, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008  (NDAA for FY2008) directed DOD, State, and USAID to sign a  memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding contracting in Iraq and  Afghanistan, including maintaining common databases of information on  contracts and contractor personnel. The three agencies signed an initial  MOU in July 2008 that designated the Synchronized Predeployment and  Operational Tracker (SPOT) as their system of record for the statutorily  required information. With the passage of the National Defense  Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (NDAA for FY2010), Congress  expanded the requirement to cover grants, cooperative agreements, and  their associated personnel. In response, the three agencies revised their  MOU in April 2010 to specify that SPOT was also the system of record for  tracking statutorily required information on grants and cooperative  agreements with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan and their associated  personnel.
The NDAA for FY2008, as amended, directed us to review and report  annually on DOD, State, and USAID contracts and assistance instruments  with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In our two prior reports, we  provided analyses of agency-reported data on contracts and contractor  personnel, identified limitations associated with those data, and noted  shortcomings in SPOT’s implementation.
For our third annual report, we are assessing the status of the three  agencies’ efforts to implement SPOT and providing the results of our  analysis of agency-reported data for fiscal year 2009 and the first half of  fiscal year 2010 on (1) the number of personnel, including those  performing security functions, working under DOD, State, and USAID  contracts and assistance instruments with performance in Iraq and  Afghanistan; (2) the number of such personnel who were killed or  wounded; and (3) the number and value of contracts and assistance  instruments that were active or awarded during our 18-month review  period and the extent of competition for new awards.
We used the following methodologies to develop our findings.
To assess SPOT’s implementation, we reviewed DOD, State, and  USAID’s MOUs and the agencies’ guidance and policies regarding  SPOT. We also interviewed officials responsible for implementing  SPOT, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, to determine the  agencies’ criteria and practices for entering information into SPOT and  the system’s current and planned capabilities.
For the number of contractor and assistance personnel, DOD, State,  and USAID provided us with data on U.S., third country, and local  nationals working under contracts and assistance instruments in Iraq  or Afghanistan, including those performing security functions, during  our review period. The agencies primarily obtained these data from  surveys of or reports from their contractors and assistance instrument  recipients. We assessed the reported data by comparing them to other  available sources. Based on these comparisons, we concluded that  caution should be exercised when using the agency-provided data on  contractor and assistance personnel to draw conclusions about either  the actual number in Iraq or Afghanistan for any given time period or  trends over time. However, we are presenting the reported data along  with their limitations as they establish a rough order of magnitude for  the number of personnel working under contracts and assistance  instruments in the two countries during our 18-month review period.
For the number of contractor and assistance personnel killed or  wounded during our review period, we analyzed State and USAID data  that were based on reports submitted by contractors and assistance  instrument recipients. We could not independently verify the  completeness of the numbers State and USAID reported to us, but we  are reporting them as they provide insight into the numbers killed or  wounded during our review period. DOD did not collect and could not  provide these data. In addition, we analyzed Department of Labor data  on Defense Base Act (DBA) cases for incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan  during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010.  Specifically, we reviewed all 213 DBA case files pertaining to  contractor deaths to determine, for example, whether the case was the  result of a hostile incident. We determined the DBA data were  sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report, when presented  with the appropriate caveats, based on our prior reliability  assessments.
For the contracts and assistance instruments, we obtained data from  DOD, State, and USAID on the number of active or awarded contracts,  grants, and cooperative agreements with performance in Iraq and  Afghanistan during our review period; the amount of funds obligated  on those contracts and assistance instruments; and the extent of  competition for new contract and assistance awards. Data were  provided from the government’s system for tracking information on  contracting actions as well as agency-specific databases and manually  compiled lists of contract and assistance actions. Although we found a  small number of errors in some of the datasets, we determined that the  data were sufficiently reliable to identify the minimum number of  active or awarded contracts and assistance instruments and the  associated obligation amounts, as well as the extent of competition,  based on our reliability assessments, interviews with agency officials,  and verification of some reported data.
A more detailed description of our scope and methodology is included in  appendix I. We conducted this performance audit from November 2009  through September 2010 in accordance with generally accepted  government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and  perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a  reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit  objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Section 861 of the NDAA for FY2008 directed the Secretary of Defense, the  Secretary of State, and the USAID Administrator to sign an MOU related to  contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The law specified a number of issues  to be covered in the MOU, including identifying common databases to  serve as repositories of information on contract and contractor personnel.  The NDAA for FY2008 required the databases to track the following, at a  minimum:  for each contract that involves work performed in Iraq or Afghanistan,   a brief description of the contract,   its total value, and    whether it was awarded competitively; and  for contractor personnel working under contracts in Iraq or  Afghanistan,   total number employed,   total number performing security functions, and   total number killed or wounded.
In July 2008, DOD, State, and USAID signed an MOU in which they agreed  SPOT would be the system of record for the statutorily required contract  and personnel information. SPOT is a Web-based system initially  developed by the U.S. Army to track detailed information on a limited  number of contractor personnel deployed with U.S. forces. The MOU  specified that SPOT would include information on DOD, State, and USAID  contracts with more than 14 days of performance in Iraq or Afghanistan or  valued at more than $100,000, as well as information on the personnel  working under those contracts. Each agency further agreed to ensure that  data elements related to contractor personnel, such as the number of  personnel employed on each contract in Iraq or Afghanistan, are entered  into SPOT accurately. Although the law only directs the agencies to track  aggregate data, SPOT is currently configured in a manner that tracks  individuals by name and records information such as the contracts they  are working under, deployment dates, blood type, and next of kin. The  agencies agreed that contract-related information, such as value and  extent of competition, are to be imported into SPOT from the Federal  Procurement Data System – Next Generation (FPDS-NG), the federal  government’s system for tracking information on contracting actions. Also,  per the MOU, DOD is responsible for all maintenance and upgrades to the  system, but the agencies agreed to negotiate funding arrangements for any  agency-unique requirements.
Since the signing of the July 2008 MOU, the requirements of section 861  have been amended. The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization  Act for Fiscal Year 2009 specified additional matters to be covered in the  agencies’ MOU to address criminal offenses committed by or against  contractor personnel. Additionally, the NDAA for FY2010 amended the  original requirements by redefining “contract in Iraq and Afghanistan” to  include grants and cooperative agreements and redefining “contractor” for  these purposes to include grantees and cooperative agreement  recipients. The NDAA for FY2010 also revised the minimum threshold for  tracking contracts, task and delivery orders, grants, and cooperative  agreements from 14 days of performance in Iraq or Afghanistan to 30 days.  In April 2010, the three agencies signed a new MOU to incorporate these  statutory changes.
DOD, State, and USAID have phased in their implementation of SPOT,  with each developing its own policies and procedures governing the use of  SPOT.
DOD designated SPOT in January 2007 as its primary system for  collecting data on contractor personnel deployed with U.S. forces. At  that time, it directed contractor firms to enter by name all U.S., third  country, and local nationals working under its contracts in Iraq or  Afghanistan into SPOT. DOD officials informed us that they have not  issued a policy directing that personnel working under assistance  instruments be entered into SPOT because the department has made  very limited use of these instruments in Iraq or Afghanistan.
State issued a policy in March 2008 requiring contractors to enter data  on their personnel working in Iraq and Afghanistan into SPOT. An  additional directive was issued in January 2009 to expand this  requirement to personnel working under assistance instruments in the  two countries.
USAID issued a directive in April 2009 requiring contractors and  assistance recipients in Iraq to begin entering personnel data into  SPOT. In July 2010, USAID issued a directive that expanded that  requirement to contractors and assistance recipients in Afghanistan.
section_title: SPOT Still Cannot Be Relied on to Track Statutorily Required Data
paragraphs: DOD, State, and USAID have encountered several practical and technical  challenges that undermined SPOT’s ability to accurately and reliably track  personnel, as well as contracts and assistance instruments, as agreed in  the MOUs. Although DOD, State, and USAID revised their MOU in  April 2010 to incorporate changes pertaining to the use of SPOT, they  lacked agreement on how to proceed with its implementation. This lack of  agreement existed partly because the agencies have not assessed their  respective agency information needs for managing contracts and  assistance instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan and how SPOT should be  designed to meet these needs.
subsections: section_title: SPOT Falls Short of Tracking All Required Information
paragraphs: SPOT’s implementation to date falls short of tracking information as  agreed to in the MOUs. Specifically, agency policies and other challenges  have limited which personnel have been entered into the system and  tracked, including those performing security functions. Furthermore,  while SPOT has the capability to record when personnel have been killed  or wounded, such information has not been regularly updated. Finally,  SPOT does not have the capability to track the contract and assistance  instrument data elements as agreed to in the MOUs.
subsections: section_title: Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: For personnel working under contracts and assistance instruments, we  identified at least three challenges the agencies faced in ensuring that  SPOT contained complete and accurate information. Specifically:    USAID and State policies limited the extent that local national  personnel were entered into SPOT. Following the passage of the  NDAA for FY2008, USAID and State developed agency-specific policies  regarding SPOT’s implementation. However, in some instances these  policies limited the extent to which local nationals were required to be  entered into the system. USAID’s April 2009 contract and assistance  policy specified only that contractor and assistance personnel  deployed to Iraq must be registered in SPOT. The policy explicitly  excluded Iraqi entities and nationals from being entered into SPOT,  until a classified system is established. It was not until July 2010 that  USAID directed that its contractor and assistance personnel working  in Afghanistan be accounted for in SPOT. The policy notes that  procedures will be provided separately for entering information on  Afghan nationals into SPOT, but as of September 2010, such  procedures have not been developed. As a result of these policies,  information on local nationals working under USAID contracts and  assistance instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan is still not being  tracked in SPOT. State’s assistance policy directs that U.S. and third  country nationals working under grants must be entered into SPOT.  While the policy specifies that local nationals should be entered into  the system, State officials told us that agency staff can use their  discretion to determine whether local national personnel working  under grants are entered into SPOT. In contrast, State requires all U.S.  citizens, third country, and local nationals working under its contracts  to be entered into SPOT. In explaining why their policies make  exceptions for local nationals, officials from USAID and State cited  security concerns. USAID officials told us that they held off entering  Iraqi or Afghan nationals into SPOT because identifying local nationals  who work with the U.S. government by name could place those  individuals in danger should the system be compromised. Similarly,  State officials cited concern for the safety of these individuals should  SPOT, with its detailed personnel information, be compromised.
Practical limitations hindered the agencies’ ability to track  local national personnel. Even when local national personnel are  required to be entered into SPOT, agency officials have explained that  such personnel are particularly difficult to track, especially in  Afghanistan, and as a result, their numbers in SPOT are not a close  representation of their actual numbers. This is primarily due to  practical limitations the agencies encountered, including:    Many local nationals working under contracts and assistance  instruments are at remote locations and their numbers can  fluctuate daily. DOD officials in Iraq and Afghanistan explained  that this is especially true for construction projects, where the  stage of construction and season can affect the total number of  personnel working on a project. For example, DOD officials in  Afghanistan told us that at one project site the number of local  national personnel working fluctuated anywhere from 600 to 2,100.  Further, DOD contracting officials told us in some instances it  could be weeks before they are notified that local national  personnel are no longer working on a particular project. This has  limited the ability to track, in real time, the status of these  personnel in SPOT. Also, for personnel working at remote  locations, the ability of U.S. government officials to verify the  completeness of information in SPOT is hindered by security  conditions that make it difficult for them to visit regularly, and they  cannot use their limited time on site to verify personnel  information.
Local nationals working under DOD, State, or USAID contracts and  assistance instruments rarely need SPOT-generated letters of  authorization (LOAs) because they are not accessing U.S. facilities  or using U.S. government services. In contrast, U.S. and third  country nationals typically need a SPOT-generated LOA, for  example to even enter Iraq or Afghanistan, and, therefore, are more  likely to be entered into SPOT. As we have previously reported, the  need for a SPOT-generated LOA has served as the primary factor  and incentive for ensuring that personnel have been entered into  the system.
Information necessary for entering personnel into SPOT may not  be available. DOD, State, and USAID officials told us some local  national contractors are hesitant or simply refuse to submit  information on their personnel because of safety concerns.  Additionally, some information required for SPOT data fields, such  as first and last names and date of birth, may not exist or be  known. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, where it is common  for local nationals to have only one name and know only their  approximate year of birth.
Limited access to reliable internet connections in Iraq and  Afghanistan inhibit local firms’ ability to enter personnel  information into SPOT. Since SPOT is a Web-based system that  requires internet access for extended periods of time to input  detailed personnel information, agency officials noted that this is a  major impediment to the widespread use of SPOT in both  countries.
Contractors and assistance recipients have not kept SPOT  updated. Although the agencies have increasingly required their  contractors and assistance recipients to enter personnel information  into the system, there has been little emphasis placed on ensuring that  the information entered into SPOT is up to date. Specifically,  contractors and assistance recipients have not consistently closed the  accounts of their personnel once they have left Iraq or Afghanistan. As  a result, SPOT does not accurately reflect the number of contract and  assistance personnel in either country, and in some cases the numbers  may be overstated. SPOT program officials told us that in March 2010  they began periodically reviewing SPOT to close out the accounts of  any personnel who either did not actually travel to Iraq or Afghanistan  or whose estimated deployment ending date was 14 days overdue.  Based on this review, in April 2010 alone, they identified and closed  the accounts of over 56,000 such personnel who had been listed in  SPOT as still being deployed.
section_title: Personnel Performing Security Functions
paragraphs: Although SPOT was designated as a system for tracking the number of  personnel performing security functions, it cannot be used to reliably  distinguish personnel performing security functions from other  contractors. SPOT program officials explained that the number of security  personnel working under contracts and assistance instruments for the  three agencies can be identified using multiple methods, all of which have  limitations and yield different results, as shown in table 1. However, in  acknowledging the limitations of these methods, the officials noted that  they are developing guidance that better explains the different methods  and the results they yield. The three methods used to count security  contractors include:    The common industry classification system identifies the types of  goods and services the firm provided under the contract. However,  by using this contract classification system to calculate the number of  security contractors, other personnel working on the security contract  but not performing security functions, such as administrative and  support staff, would be included in the count.
Job titles are to be entered into SPOT by employers for each  individual. SPOT program officials identified five job titles that they  include in counts of security personnel. These officials acknowledged  there is a risk that an employee providing security services may have a  job title other than one of those five and, therefore, would not be  included in the count.
The weapon authorization data field in SPOT identifies personnel  who have been authorized to carry a firearm. Employers of armed  security contractors are required to enter this information into SPOT  as part of DOD’s process to register and account for such personnel in  each country. However, USAID officials in Iraq explained that  security personnel working under the agency’s contracts and  assistance instruments receive authorization to carry firearms from the  Iraqi government, not DOD, and are not identified in SPOT as having a  weapons authorization. Further, some contractors performing security  functions are not authorized to carry weapons and would, therefore,  not be included in a count using this method. Conversely, some  personnel who are not performing security functions have been  authorized to carry weapons for personal protection and would be  included in the count.
Regardless of the method employed to identify personnel in SPOT, it  appears that not all personnel performing security functions are being  captured in the system. For example, based on an analysis of SPOT data,  no more than 4,309 contractor personnel were performing security  functions for DOD in Afghanistan during the second quarter of fiscal year  2010. In contrast, DOD officials overseeing armed contractors in  Afghanistan estimated the total number of DOD security contractors in  Afghanistan for the same time period was closer to 17,500.
section_title: Personnel Killed or Wounded
paragraphs: With regard to tracking personnel who were killed or wounded while  working on contracts and assistance instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan,  SPOT was upgraded in January 2009 so that contractors could update the  status of their personnel in the system, including whether they were killed  or wounded. However, officials from the three agencies informed us they  do not rely on SPOT for such information because contractors and  assistance recipients generally have not recorded in SPOT whether  personnel have been killed or wounded. This is evidenced by the fact that  when we compared information in SPOT to DBA insurance case data  provided by Labor on 213 contractors who had been killed in Iraq or  Afghanistan during our review period, only 78 of the contractors were in  SPOT and, of these, only 9 were listed as having been killed. SPOT  program officials explained that SPOT users may not be aware of the  requirement to update the system with such information and they are  working to develop new guidance that clarifies the requirement.
section_title: Contracts and Assistance Instruments
paragraphs: SPOT currently cannot be used to track information on contracts and  assistance instruments as agreed to in the MOUs. For example, SPOT still  cannot import contract dollar values directly from FPDS-NG. SPOT  program officials told us that the system has been reconfigured to import  data from FPDS-NG, but the direct link between the two systems will not  occur in 2010 as previously estimated. The officials explained that they are  coordinating with FPDS-NG officials to determine when the link can be  established. Further, while the MOU was updated in April 2010 to cover  assistance instruments, the revised MOU did not address how assistance  instrument information, such as value and competition, would be entered  into SPOT as such information is not available through FPDS-NG. USAID  and State officials informed us they do not plan to directly link SPOT and  the systems that currently track their respective assistance instruments.  They explained that this is due in part to the fact that both agencies are  implementing new tracking systems. Without such links the agencies will  have to manually enter assistance information into SPOT. In addition,  although SPOT was upgraded in 2009 to allow users to include information  on whether the contract or assistance instrument was awarded using  competitive procedures, the system is not a reliable source for this  information as it is generally not being entered. For example, we found  that competition information had only been entered for 45 percent of the  contracts in SPOT with performance during our review period.
section_title: Lack of Interagency Agreement Has Hindered SPOT’s Implementation
paragraphs: There has been a lack of agreement among, and in some instances within,  DOD, State, and USAID about how to proceed with SPOT’s  implementation. At a March 2010 congressional hearing, officials from the  three agencies testified that they would modify how SPOT tracked  personnel. Specifically, they explained the system would be modified to  allow users to enter the aggregate number of personnel working on a  particular contract or assistance instrument, as opposed to requiring each  individual to be entered by name. The proposed modification was  primarily in response to USAID’s concerns that the cost and resources  needed to enter all of the currently required data outweigh the benefits of  having detailed information as well as to alleviate security concerns over  entering personal information on local nationals into SPOT. However, as  of September 2010, SPOT still does not allow users to enter aggregate  personnel data, as the agencies have disagreed on who will pay for the  modification and what approach to take. DOD estimated that it would cost  as much as $1.1 million to reconfigure the system to allow aggregate data  to be entered and stored. Since the modification would be made to address  USAID’s concerns, DOD officials noted that in accordance with the MOU,  USAID should cover the cost. However, USAID officials informed us that  the modification would not solely benefit USAID as State and even DOD  components have expressed interest in having SPOT track aggregate  personnel information. State began conducting preliminary tests on an  approach that would upload into SPOT groups of unique records assigned  to each local national instead of individual names and associated personal  data. In August 2010, DOD and State officials indicated that they had  successfully uploaded the first batch of records into SPOT using this  method. Although USAID’s preferred approach would have users directly  enter the total number of U.S., third country, and local nationals working  under each contract or assistance instrument, USAID officials recently  indicated the agency would begin testing State’s approach as a low-cost  solution.
The lack of agreement on how to proceed with SPOT’s development and  implementation can be partly attributed to the fact that the agencies  designated it as their system of record for meeting statutory requirements  without first identifying their information needs. SPOT program officials  acknowledged that they were unaware of the informational needs of the  contracting commands—required users of SPOT—or whether the  commands had any uses for the detailed data contained in the system.  Further, the agencies do not have a shared understanding of the value of  tracking detailed data, particularly since the level of detail required for all  contractor and assistance personnel in SPOT is greater than what is  statutorily required. For example, senior USAID contracting and  assistance officials told us the agency had no plans to use the detailed  information tracked in SPOT as a tool for managing and overseeing its  contracts and assistance instruments. They further noted SPOT is being  implemented only because the agency is statutorily required to have a  system for tracking such information. Even within agencies there is not  consensus on the need for detailed information on all contractor and  assistance personnel. For example, while DOD policy requires all  contractor personnel to be individually entered into SPOT, several senior  DOD officials we met with in Iraq and Afghanistan stated that they do not  see the benefit of collecting detailed information on all individuals,  especially local nationals working at remote locations, given the  challenges associated with collecting such information and the likelihood  of it being incomplete or inaccurate. However, SPOT program officials we  met with explained that while they recognize that the benefits of the  information collected through SPOT will vary throughout organizations,  they are working to identify other potential users of SPOT data. For  example, they noted that some users find detailed personnel information  valuable, such as base commanders who could use the system to obtain  insight as to who is on their installations. Senior officials from DOD, State,  and USAID agreed that the agencies should obtain an understanding of  their respective informational needs and ensure that a system is in place to  collect that information at the appropriate level of detail. Without such an  understanding, they noted that the agencies risk expending resources  unnecessarily in difficult environments trying to collect and verify detailed  data that may be of limited utility.
section_title: Previous GAO Recommendation Regarding SPOT Not Implemented
paragraphs: Last year, we reported on the challenges associated with the agencies’  implementation of SPOT. To address the shortcomings identified in our  2009 report, we recommended that the Secretaries of Defense and State  and the USAID Administrator jointly develop and execute a plan with  associated time frames for the continued implementation of the NDAA for  FY2008 requirements, including:  ensuring the agencies’ criteria for entering contracts and contractor  personnel into SPOT are consistent with the NDAA for FY2008 and  with the agencies’ respective information needs for overseeing  contracts and contractor personnel,  revising SPOT’s reporting capabilities to ensure they fulfill statutory  requirements and agency information needs, and  establishing uniform requirements on how contract numbers are to be  entered into SPOT so that contract information can be pulled from  FPDS-NG.
DOD and State disagreed with the need for the agencies to develop and  execute a plan to address the issues we identified. They cited ongoing  coordination efforts and planned upgrades to SPOT as sufficient. While  USAID did not address our recommendation, it noted plans to continue  meeting with DOD and State regarding SPOT. At that time, we cautioned  that continued coordination without additional actions would not be  sufficient and that a plan would help the agencies identify the concrete  steps needed to help ensure that the data in SPOT are sufficiently reliable  to fulfill statutory requirements and their respective agencies needs. As  our current work demonstrates, many of the issues with the agencies’  implementation of SPOT that our recommendation was intended to  address have not been resolved. In particular, the agencies have not  assessed their respective informational needs or determined how SPOT  could be best implemented to meet those needs. Further, the system still  cannot be relied on to reliably track statutorily required data.
section_title: DOD, State, and USAID Data on Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan Are Incomplete
paragraphs: DOD, State, and USAID reported to us that as of March 2010 there were  262,681 contractor and assistance personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan,  18 percent of whom were performing security functions. DOD reported  207,553 contractor personnel, while State and USAID reported 19,360 and  35,768 contractor and assistance personnel, respectively. Of the personnel  reported by the three agencies, 88 percent were contractors and the  remaining 12 percent worked under assistance instruments. Due to  limitations with SPOT, the reported data were obtained primarily through  periodic agency surveys and reports from contractors and assistance  recipients. We determined that caution should be exercised when  identifying trends or drawing conclusions about the number of contractor  and assistance personnel in either country based on the data the agencies  reported to us. Several factors, many of which are similar to the challenges  with SPOT, hindered the agencies’ ability to collect accurate and reliable  personnel data, including difficulty obtaining information on the number  of local nationals, low response rates to agency surveys, and limited ability  to verify the accuracy or completeness of the personnel data reported.  Despite such limitations, the officials characterized the data reported to  them and provided to us as the best data available on the number of  contractor and assistance personnel in the two countries.
DOD Contractor Personnel  As of the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, DOD reported to us that there  were 95,461 contractor personnel in Iraq and 112,092 contractor personnel  in Afghanistan (see table 2 and also app. II for additional DOD contractor  personnel data). Of that total, approximately 14 percent were reported to  be performing security functions. DOD reported that it had no personnel  working under grants or cooperative agreements in either country during  our review period. The contractor personnel numbers were obtained  through the U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) quarterly census.  CENTCOM initiated its quarterly census of contractor personnel in  June 2007 as an interim measure until SPOT was fully implemented, and  for our reporting period, DOD continued to use the census to count the  number of DOD contractor personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The census  is dependent on contractor firms reporting their personnel data to DOD  components, which then compile the data and report them to CENTCOM  at the end of each quarter.
According to DOD officials, the quarterly census remains the most reliable  source of contractor personnel data. However, DOD officials overseeing  the census acknowledged that the census numbers represent a rough  approximation of the actual number of contractor personnel who worked  in either country. These officials told us that because of how the data were  collected and reported by the various DOD components, it was difficult to  compile and obtain a more precise count of contractor personnel.  Specifically, there are several factors that hindered DOD’s ability to collect  accurate and reliable data, including difficulty in counting local nationals  and an inability to validate the data. As military operations increase in  Afghanistan, efforts to obtain an accurate count of the contractor  workforce may be more complicated than in Iraq, because DOD’s  contractor workforce in Afghanistan consists of more local nationals than  in Iraq, and data on local nationals are more difficult to obtain than data  on U.S. citizens and third country nationals. The reasons cited— fluctuating numbers and work at remote locations—are similar to those  cited for why it is challenging to ensure that local nationals are entered  into SPOT. DOD officials in both Iraq and Afghanistan explained that  security conditions limit their ability to conduct site visits to remote  locations and added that while at sites their focus is primarily on assessing  the status of a project, as opposed to checking on the number of personnel  working.
Moreover, the challenges associated with CENTCOM’s quarterly census  were heightened by the transition to an automated census. In the second  quarter of fiscal year 2010, DOD began to transition from the manually  compiled CENTCOM census to eventual reliance on SPOT. In doing so,  DOD used a SPOT-populated census template—called SPOT-Plus—as an  interim step. Although the DOD official responsible for the SPOT program  has stated that CENTCOM’s manual census was cumbersome, resource  intensive, and provided only a snapshot in time, DOD officials  implementing SPOT-Plus stated that it was even more cumbersome and  resource intensive. In particular, the SPOT-Plus process required reporting  units to manually provide data on contracts and contractor personnel—as  was the case with the manual census—but the number of census data  fields increased from 18 to over 50.
Although DOD issued instructions to facilitate the initial transition from  the quarterly census to SPOT-Plus, the process did not go as well as  anticipated. CENTCOM officials told us that in some cases reporting units  responded to the second quarter census by using an older census  spreadsheet that was not populated with SPOT data or did not respond at  all. DOD officials stated that in some instances there was confusion as to  who should compile and verify the contract and contractor personnel data  and the task was mistakenly delegated to DOD organizations that were not  privy to or responsible for that information. Furthermore, since the second  quarter SPOT-Plus template did not provide a way to differentiate the  numbers of private security contractors from the total, CENTCOM had to  subsequently request that reporting units provide this information in a  separate section of the SPOT-Plus template. CENTCOM and SPOT  program officials stated that many of the challenges experienced with the  second quarter SPOT-Plus census have since been addressed. SPOT  program officials now estimate that the transition from the census to  SPOT will be completed no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011.
There continue to be considerable discrepancies between the contractor  counts obtained through the census and SPOT (see table 3). In some  instances, DOD contractor personnel numbers in SPOT may be  overreported, and in others, underreported. For example, in comparing  SPOT-reported data to census data at the end of the second quarter of  fiscal year 2010, we found that SPOT included almost 18,000 more  personnel working in Iraq than the census. Conversely, SPOT did not  include more than 70,000 personnel working in Afghanistan who were  included in the census. Further, DOD officials from one service  component in Afghanistan told us SPOT contained data on  4,200 contractor personnel who worked on their contracts, but their  census submission to CENTCOM showed there were over  40,000 personnel working on their contracts for the same period.
subsections: section_title: State and USAID Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: As of the end of the fiscal year 2010 second quarter, State reported  11,236 personnel working under contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan and an  additional 8,074 working under assistance instruments, while USAID  reported 12,229 contractor personnel and 23,539 assistance personnel in  the two countries. Table 4 depicts the total number of State- and USAID- reported contractor and assistance personnel in the two countries, while  appendix II provides additional State and USAID contractor and assistance  personnel data.
Of the total number of contractor and assistance personnel working in Iraq  and Afghanistan at the end of the second quarter in fiscal year 2010, State  reported that about 35 percent were performing security functions. USAID  reported that about 32 percent of the total number of contractors and  assistance personnel working in Iraq and Afghanistan were performing  security functions. Table 5 depicts the numbers State and USAID reported  to us regarding personnel performing security functions under contracts  and assistance instruments. In some instances, State has contracted  directly for personnel to perform security services, for example, to guard  the embassies in Baghdad and Kabul. Additionally, State and USAID  contractors and assistance recipients have subcontracted for security  services to protect their personnel and facilities.
State and USAID took similar approaches to provide us with the numbers  of contractor and assistance personnel for fiscal year 2009 and the first  half of 2010. Although State now requires contract personnel and some  grant personnel to be entered into SPOT, to respond to our request, State’s  bureaus generally relied on manually compiled surveys—with at least one  bureau supplementing its response with SPOT data. Similarly, USAID  relied on a combination of periodic surveys and data obtained through  quarterly reports submitted by the agency’s contractors and assistance  recipients. However, State officials informed us that their contractors  and assistance recipients are not required to provide such reports a nd,  therefore, response rates to requests for personnel numbers are low. For  example, officials with one State office noted that none of its Afghan grant  recipients provided personnel numbers. In contrast, USAID officials in Iraq  indicated that they regularly receive personnel numbers from all of their  contractors and assistance recipients, while USAID officials in Afghanistan  we spoke with stated they generally receive responses from about  70 percent of their contractors and assistance recipients. We identified  several contracts and assistance instruments for which personnel  information was not provided. For example, we identified a State contract  to design and build offices and housing in Afghanistan with obligations  totaling $234 million for which personnel numbers were not reported. In  another example, we identified four USAID cooperative agreements for a  program promoting food security in Afghanistan with total obligations of  $144 million for which information on the number of personnel working  on the agreement was not provided.
Agency officials acknowledged several additional challenges in providing  us with complete data on their contract and assistance personnel in Iraq  and Afghanistan. First, not all local nationals working on State and USAID  contracts and assistance instruments were included in the numbers they  provided to us. As with SPOT, local nationals were not always captured in  personnel counts because it was either not feasible or too difficult to  obtain accurate information. In addition, State and USAID officials stated  that they have limited ability to verify the accuracy or completeness of the  personnel data provided. State officials in Iraq and Afghanistan informed  us that they have no visibility into the extent to which contractors use  subcontracted employees and generally are not able to track the numbers  of subcontract personnel. However, USAID officials in Iraq explained that  they have instituted measures to review the reported data to improve  accuracy.
Although agency officials acknowledged that not all contractor and  assistance personnel were being tracked over the course of our review  period, they still considered the data provided to our requests for  personnel information to be more accurate than SPOT. Reflective of their  policies regarding SPOT’s use and challenges associated with collecting  data through SPOT, there are significant discrepancies—both in terms of  under- and overreporting—between the numbers in SPOT and what was  reported to us by State and USAID. For example, as of the end of the  second quarter of fiscal year 2010, there were 7,077 fewer State contractor  and assistance personnel in SPOT than were reported to us. In fact, SPOT  did not include any of the 5,741 personnel working under assistance  instruments in Afghanistan that State reported to us. The discrepancies for  USAID were also notable, given that during our review period USAID did  not require the use of SPOT in Afghanistan or for Iraqi nationals. For  USAID, there were only 579 personnel in SPOT as of end of the second  quarter of fiscal year 2010–35,189 fewer than what the agency reported to  us.
section_title: Only State and USAID Reported Data on Killed and Wounded Contractors and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: Although DOD, State, and USAID are required to track the number of  personnel killed or wounded while working on contracts and assistance  instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan, only State and USAID tracked this  information during our review period. State reported to us that 9 of its  contractor and assistance personnel were killed and 68 were wounded  during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. For the same  period, USAID reported to us that 116 contractor and assistance personnel  were killed and 121 were wounded (see table 6). Both agencies noted  For  that some of the reported casualties resulted from nonhostile actions.  example, USAID reported that 3 contractors sustained injuries in a traffic  accident. These data were based on reports submitted to State and USAID  by contractors and assistance recipients. Without alternative sources of  data, we could not verify whether State’s and USAID’s data were complete.  However, a recent report from the USAID Inspector General suggested  that not all security contractors in Afghanistan are reporting incidents that  result in personnel being injured or killed.
USAID, Audit of USAID/Afghanistan’s Oversight of Private Security Contractors in  Afghanistan, Audit Report Number 5-306-10-009-P (May 21, 2010).
DOD officials informed us they eventually intend to track the number of  killed and wounded contractor personnel through SPOT. DOD reported  that it has other systems that collect information on contractor casualties,  but they have limitations. For example, the Defense Casualty Information  Processing System contains information on American citizens who were  killed or wounded while working as contractors or civilian employees.  However, the system does not differentiate between direct-hire  government civilians and contractors and does not include data on local or  third country nationals. Additionally, some individual components within  the department receive reports on killed or wounded contractor  personnel, but such reports are not consistently tracked in a readily  accessible or comprehensive manner. For example, contracting officials in  Afghanistan explained that they receive serious incident reports, which  include information on incidents in which personnel were killed or  wounded, submitted by their private security contractors. A DOD official  in Afghanistan knowledgeable on the matter cautioned though that the  reports most likely understate the actual number of contractor casualties,  as not all contractors submit reports as required.
Absent a reliable system for tracking killed or wounded contractor  personnel, DOD officials referred us to Labor for data on cases filed under  DBA for killed or injured contractors—as they have for our prior reports.  However, as we previously reported, Labor’s DBA case data do not  provide an appropriate basis for determining the number of contractor  personnel killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the NDAA for  FY2008, as amended, Labor—unlike DOD, State, and USAID—has no  responsibility for tracking killed or wounded contractor personnel, and as  such its data were not designed to do so. Labor officials also explained  that not all deaths and injuries reported under DBA would be regarded as  contractors killed or wounded within the context of the NDAA for FY2008.  They further explained that injuries to local and third country contractors,  in particular, may be underreported.
subsections: section_title: Labor DBA Data Provide Insight on Contractor Casualties
paragraphs: While Labor’s DBA data do not serve as a proxy for fulfilling the NDAA for  FY2008 requirements, Labor’s DBA case data provide insights into  contractor deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to data  provided by Labor, there were 10,597 DBA cases, including 213 cases  reporting contractor deaths, that resulted from incidents in Iraq and  Afghanistan during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010.  As shown in table 7, the number of deaths and injuries in Iraq has declined  since 2007. In Afghanistan, the number of contractor deaths has increased  since 2007, while the number of injury cases has fluctuated from over  1,100 to almost 2,000. However, Labor’s DBA data cannot provide insight  into the number of personnel working under assistance instruments who  have been killed or injured in Iraq or Afghanistan as such instruments are  not subject to DBA. See appendix III for additional data regarding DBA  cases for contractor deaths occurring during our review period.
Based on our analysis of all 213 DBA cases for contractor personnel killed  in Iraq and Afghanistan during our review period, we determined that  49 percent of deaths resulted from hostile incidents. When comparing  deaths in Afghanistan to those in Iraq, we found that 62 percent of the  reported fatalities in Afghanistan were caused by hostile incidents,  whereas in Iraq, 26 percent were the result of hostile actions, as shown in  figure 1. In both countries, improvised explosive devices were a primary  cause of death for incidents involving hostile actions. In one incident, a  vehicle carrying a group of engineers to a project site hit such a device,  resulting in eight fatalities. For both countries, nonhostile deaths resulted  from various types of accidents or health issues. For example, we found  that at least 31 percent of the nonhostile fatalities were the result of health  conditions or illnesses, such as cardiac arrest.
section_title: Agencies Obligated Tens of Billions of Dollars on Contracts and Assistance Instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan
paragraphs: DOD, State, and USAID collectively obligated $35.7 billion on  133,283 contracts, and $1.8 billion on 668 assistance instruments with  performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during fiscal year 2009 and the first  half of fiscal year 2010. DOD accounted for the vast majority of all contract  obligations, while State and USAID accounted for all of the reported  obligations on grants and cooperative agreements. The fundamental  reason as to why agencies choose a contract instead of an assistance  instrument is dependant upon whom the agency determines to be the  primary beneficiary. With contracts, the goods or services obtained are for  the direct benefit or use by the U.S. government, whereas the primary  purpose of assistance instruments is to further a public purpose. Most  contracts and associated obligations reported to us by the agencies were  awarded during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010, with  the agencies generally using competitive procedures to award their  contracts. State and USAID relied heavily on assistance instruments to  achieve their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and used different types of  assistance instruments depending on the purpose for the funding.  Additionally, State and USAID officials indicated that consistent with their  policies, they used competitive procedures whenever practical in awarding  assistance instruments. The agencies were unable to provide information  on subcontracts and subgrantees, which we were required to report. See  appendix IV for detailed information on each agency’s Iraq and  Afghanistan contracts, assistance instruments, and associated obligations  during our review period.
subsections: section_title: DOD Had Significantly More Contract Obligations than State or USAID
paragraphs: DOD accounted for the vast majority of all contracts and obligations made  by the three agencies during our review period. Of the reported  $35.7 billion obligated by the three agencies on contracts with  performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, 88 percent of obligations were for  DOD contracts, as shown in figure 2. Task orders made up the largest  number of contracts and the majority of obligations for DOD, State, and  USAID. For example, DOD had over 98,000 active task orders with  obligations totaling $24.7 billion—of which almost $6.3 billion was for one  task order that provides food, housing, and other services for U.S. military  personnel. Similarly, State reported that 68 percent of its contracts were  purchase orders, which accounted for only 1 percent of its total  obligations. In contrast, task orders accounted for over 76 percent of  State’s total contract obligations but only 17 percent of its contracts. While  USAID task orders accounted for only 8 percent of its total number of  contracts, obligations on these task orders amounted to 51 percent of the  agency’s total contract obligations. Approximately half of DOD and State’s  contracts and obligations were for performance in Iraq during our 18- month review period. In contrast, almost 85 percent of USAID’s contract  obligations were for contracts with performance in Afghanistan.
Some contracts also included work in both countries. For example, DOD  provided us with data on seven active task orders under a construction  contract with total obligations of approximately $152 million and indicated  that there was performance in both Iraq and Afghanistan. However, in  such cases, it was not possible based on the data reported to us to isolate  which portion of the total obligations was specific to Iraq or Afghanistan.
As a result, we counted contracts, and their associated obligations, with  performance in both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as contracts where the  agency indicated that performance was in Iraq or Afghanistan but did not  specify which country, as “other.” Further, we counted contracts with  performance in multiple countries and their associated obligations with  the Iraq contracts if the agency identified the place of performance as  including Iraq, but not Afghanistan. Similarly, we counted contracts and  their associated obligations with the Afghanistan contracts if the place of  performance included Afghanistan but not Iraq.
subsections: section_title: Agencies Competed Majority of New Contract Awards
paragraphs: Of the over 133,000 contracts, including task and delivery orders active  during our review period, 98 percent were new contracts and orders  awarded by the three agencies during fiscal 2009 and the first half of fiscal  year 2010. Similarly, 83 percent of the total funds obligated were on  contracts awarded during this same period. There were some variations  between agencies, as shown in figure 3. For example, for both State and  USAID, about 84 percent of their obligations were on contracts awarded  prior to fiscal year 2009, whereas the vast majority of obligations for DOD  were on contracts awarded during our review period.
The three agencies reported that they generally used competitive  procedures when awarding their contracts. Out of a total of  32,876 contracts, excluding task and delivery orders, awarded in the  period of our review, 92 percent were reported as awarded using  competitive procedures. These competitively awarded contracts also  accounted for about 92 percent of the obligations made on contracts  awarded during our review period, as depicted in figure 4. Generally,  contracts should be awarded on the basis of full and open competition.  The agencies reported that most of their new contracts were awarded  using full and open competition, but in some instances the agencies  reported a contract as being competed but did not indicate whether full  and open or other than full and open competition was used. For about  5 percent of the contracts awarded during our review period, the agencies  s  did not report competition information.  did not report competition information.
Most of the 801 contracts reported to us by the three agencies as not  competed had relatively small obligations during our review period.
Approximately 78 percent of these contracts had obligations less than  $25,000. In contrast, only 13 of the 801 contracts had over $1 million in  obligations, accounting for 63 percent of obligations for the noncompeted  contracts.
Competition requirements generally do not apply to the issuance of task  orders. However, where there are multiple awardees under the  underlying contract, the FAR requires the contracting officer in most  instances to provide each awardee a fair opportunity to be considered for  each order exceeding $3,000. The agencies reported that 99 percent of the  task and delivery orders issued during our review period were competed— either the underlying contract was awarded competitively or multiple  awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for each order.
section_title: State and USAID Relied Heavily on Grants and Cooperative Agreements in Iraq and Afghanistan
paragraphs: State and USAID reported obligations of $1.8 billion on 668 grants and  cooperative agreements with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. Conversely, DOD  reported that it did not have any grants or cooperative agreements with  obligations during our review period. Of the total number of active State  and USAID assistance instruments in the two countries, 88 percent were  grants. However, grants accounted for only 42 percent of the total  assistant instrument obligations. Cooperative agreements, although  smaller in number, accounted for the majority of the total amounts  obligated on assistance instruments during our review period. According  to State and USAID policy, the type of assistance instrument used is  determined based on a variety of factors. Among the factors to be  considered is the level of involvement the agency anticipates will be  needed to effectively administer the agreement.
State and USAID generally relied on different types of assistance  instruments during our review period depending on the purpose for the  funding. Of State’s active assistance instruments, 84 percent of its  assistance obligations were for grants, whereas 63 percent of USAID’s  assistance obligations were for cooperative agreements as shown in  figure 5. The principal purpose of State’s grants in Iraq and Afghanistan  varied by bureau and covered a wide range of activities such as teaching  computer skills to women and adolescents, covering the travel costs for  subject matter experts to attend conferences, and funding explosive  ordnance and mine clearance efforts. In contrast, USAID used cooperative  agreements generally to implement development programs in sectors such  as banking, education, health, and road construction in the two countries.  Each agency has implemented programs designed to provide grants to  local national organizations and individuals to develop the Iraqi and  Afghan economies. During our review period, State reported that its local  grants program provided $15.3 million in funding to over 280 Iraqi grant  recipients, with 84 percent of the awards being $25,000 or less. USAID  has similar programs, but as we recently reported, in some instances the  agency also relied on contractors to award and administer such grants. In  these instances, the contract data we received contained the cumulative  value of the obligations made under both the base contracts and the grants  being managed under those contracts.
State and USAID policies require the use of competitive procedures when  awarding assistance instruments unless an authorized exception to the use  of competition applies. State and USAID officials informed us that they  used competitive procedures for assistance awards in Iraq and  Afghanistan whenever practical. Based on our review of 52 randomly  sampled State assistance instruments active during fiscal year 2009, we  found that 79 percent were awarded competitively. Similarly, in our review  of 36 randomly sampled USAID assistance agreements in Iraq and  Afghanistan that were active in fiscal year 2009, we found that 50 percent  were competed.
section_title: Information on Subcontracts and Subgrants Not Readily Available
paragraphs: The NDAA for FY2008, as amended, mandated that we identify the total  number and value of all contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements,  which include prime contracts, task or delivery orders, as well as  subawards at any tier. While we were able to obtain data on the number of  and amount obligated on prime contracts and orders as well as grants and  cooperative agreements, the agencies were unable to provide comparable  data on subcontracts and subgrants. As we have reported in the past,  contract and assistance instrument files may contain information on  subcontracts and subgrants but none of the agencies systematically  tracked this information in a readily retrievable manner. The value of  subawards would be included in the total value of the prime contract or  assistance instrument, but the agencies could not readily distinguish the  amount that went to the prime contractor, grantee, or cooperative  agreement recipients from the amount that went to subcontracts or  subgrants for all contracts and assistance instruments.
section_title: Concluding Observations
paragraphs: Over the past 2 years, DOD, State, and USAID have made some progress in  implementing SPOT. While that progress has been hindered by practical  and technical limitations, a continued lack of interagency agreement on  how to address issues, particularly those related to tracking local  nationals, has been an impediment toward moving forward. Tracking Iraqi  and Afghan nationals who work under contracts and assistance  instruments presents unique challenges, not only in terms of obtaining  aggregate numbers, but especially in terms of obtaining the detailed  information currently required by SPOT. The still unresolved issue of how  local nationals will be tracked reliably in SPOT reflects a lack of  consensus among and even within the agencies about the value and use of  such data beyond fulfilling a statutory requirement.
With SPOT not yet fully implemented, the agencies have relied on other  methods of collecting data that have their own shortcomings to respond to  our requests for required information, and in some cases, data were not  provided. Last year, we recommended that the agencies develop a joint  plan with associated time frames to address SPOT’s limitations, but  agency officials believed that a plan was not needed and their ongoing  coordination efforts were sufficient. However, our work since then  demonstrates that their ongoing efforts alone were not sufficient to ensure  that statutory requirements are met. Over the past year, SPOT’s  implementation has continued to be undermined by a lack of agreement  among the agencies on how to proceed and how best to meet their  respective data needs to fulfill statutory requirements and improve  oversight and management of contracts and assistance instruments. Until  the agencies individually assess their own data needs given the relative  challenges and benefits of tracking detailed information on contracts,  assistance instruments, and associated personnel and collectively agree on  how to best address those needs while meeting statutory requirements, as  we have previously recommended, they are not in a position to determine  how best to move forward. By working with potential users of the data to  better understand their information needs, each agency can help ensure  the information tracked in SPOT is sufficient to meet statutory  requirements as well as help facilitate agency oversight of contracts,  grants, and cooperative agreements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once the  agencies have agreed on how to proceed, having a plan with defined roles  and responsibilities and associated time frames can help hold the agencies  accountable and ensure timely implementation. Otherwise,  implementation of SPOT will continue to languish, with the agencies not  collecting reliable information required by Congress and risking collection  of other information they will not use. Therefore, we believe the  recommendation in our 2009 report still applies, and we are not making  any new recommendations.
section_title: Agency Comments
paragraphs: We requested comments on a draft of this report from DOD, State, and  USAID. DOD and State informed us they had no comments on the draft’s  findings or concluding observations. In its written comments, USAID  described the extent to which it intends to use SPOT in Iraq and  Afghanistan in a manner that would satisfy statutory requirements while  meeting the agency’s needs (see app. V for USAID’s written comments).  Additionally, after receiving the draft report USAID provided us with  revised data on contractor and assistance personnel working in  Afghanistan during the first half of fiscal year 2010.  After reviewing and  analyzing these data, we incorporated the results of our analysis into the  final report as appropriate.
We also provided a draft of this report to Labor for its review, but the  department did not have any comments.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, the  Secretary of State, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International  Development, the Secretary of Labor, and interested congressional  committees. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s  Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please  contact me at (202) 512-4841. Contact points for our Offices of  Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page  of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are  listed in appendix VI.
section_title: Appendix I: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: Section 863 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,  as amended, directs GAO to review and report on matters relating to  Department of Defense (DOD), Department of State (State), and U.S.  Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts in Iraq and  Afghanistan. In response to this mandate, we are assessing the status of  the three agencies’ efforts to implement the Synchronized Predeployment  and Operational Tracker (SPOT) and providing the results of our analysis  of agency-reported data for fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year  2010 on (1) the number of personnel, including those performing security  functions, working under DOD, State, and USAID contracts and assistance  instruments with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) the number of  such personnel who were killed or wounded; and (3) the number and  value of contracts and assistance instruments that were active or awarded  during our 18-month review period and the extent of competition for new  awards.
subsections: section_title: Implementation of SPOT
paragraphs: To address our first objective, we reviewed DOD, State, and USAID’s  July 2008 and April 2010 Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that  addressed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 and  the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 requirements.  We compared SPOT’s capabilities to the MOU requirements to determine  the extent to which SPOT fulfilled the terms of the MOUs. In addition, we  reviewed each agency’s policies and guidance governing the use and  implementation of SPOT. We interviewed officials from the three agencies  responsible for implementing SPOT to determine the criteria and practices  for entering information into SPOT and the system’s current and planned  capabilities. We also met with DOD, State, and USAID officials, including  those in Iraq and Afghanistan, to obtain insight into the extent to which  SPOT was being used by each agency and the obstacles they were  encountering. In addition, we met with the contractor responsible for  SPOT’s development to discuss the continued development of the system.
We reviewed DOD’s internal controls governing SPOT and interviewed  SPOT program and contractor officials to assess the processes used to  ensure the data elements contained in the system are complete and  accurate. We also obtained SPOT data from DOD on behalf of each agency  for contractor and assistance personnel with deployments during our  period of review and compared them to other sources such as the  personnel and contract data we received for our other objectives. Because  the data from other sources had limitations, we did not have a means to  determine the full extent to which SPOT was incomplete or inaccurate for  our review period. However, based on the data we obtained from other  sources and our review of the internal controls, we determined that there  were significant discrepancies associated with the SPOT data that  undermined their reliability.
section_title: Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: To address our second objective, we requested that the three agencies  provide us with contractor and assistance personnel data covering fiscal  year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. DOD, State, and USAID  provided the number of U.S., third country, and local nationals working  under contracts and assistance instruments with performance in Iraq or  Afghanistan in fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. The  data provided were generally obtained by the agencies through surveys  and periodic reports submitted by contractors and assistance recipients.  These data included individuals reported to be performing security  functions.
To assess the completeness of the reported personnel data, we compared  the data to the list of contracts and assistance instruments we compiled to  address our objective on the number and value of contracts and assistance  instruments. Furthermore, we interviewed agency officials regarding their  methods for collecting data on the number of contractor and assistance  personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Based on our analyses and discussions  with agency officials, we determined that caution should be exercised  when using the agency-provided data on contractor and assistance  personnel to draw conclusions about either the actual number in Iraq or  Afghanistan for any given time period or trends over time. However, we  are presenting the reported data along with their limitations as they  establish a rough order of magnitude for the number of contractor and  assistance personnel during our period of review.
section_title: Killed or Wounded Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: To address our third objective, we analyzed USAID and State data on the  number of contract and assistance personnel killed or wounded in Iraq  and Afghanistan during the period of our review. Due to the lack of other  available and reliable data sources, we could not independently verify  whether USAID’s and State’s data were accurate. Nevertheless, we are  providing them as they provide insight into the number of contractor and  assistance personnel who were killed or wounded during our period of  review. DOD did not collect and could not provide such data. After  informing us that they did not have a reliable system for tracking killed or  wounded personnel, DOD officials referred us to use the Department of  Labor’s (Labor) Defense Base Act (DBA) case data.
We analyzed data from Labor on DBA cases arising from incidents that  occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal year 2009 and the first half of  fiscal year 2010. We obtained similar DBA data from Labor for our  previous reports, for which we determined that the data were sufficiently  reliable for our purposes, when presented with appropriate caveats. We  reported in 2009 that DBA data are not a good proxy for determining the  number of contractor and assistance instruments personnel who were  killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they do provide insights  into the number killed or wounded, common causes of death, and whether  claimants died from hostile or nonhostile actions. We reviewed the entire  population of fatality case data reported by Labor that occurred during our  review period, which totaled 213, to determine information such as the  circumstances of the incident resulting in death and the nationality of the  individual killed.
section_title: Contracts and Assistance Instruments
paragraphs: To address our fourth objective, we obtained data from DOD, State, and  USAID on the number of active or awarded contracts, grants, and  cooperative agreements with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010, the amount of funds  obligated on those contracts and assistance instruments during our review  period, and the extent to which new contracts, grants, and cooperative  agreements were competitively awarded. We also interviewed agency  officials to discuss the reported data. The agencies provided data from  FPDS-NG, agency-specific databases, and manually compiled lists of  obligations and deobligations. We determined that the data each agency  reported were sufficiently reliable to determine the minimum number of  active or awarded contracts and obligation amounts, as well as the extent  of competition, based on prior reliability assessments, interviews with  agency officials, and verification of some reported data to information in  contract files.
We took steps to standardize the agency-reported data. This included  removing duplicates and contracts and assistance instruments that did not  have obligations or deobligations during our review period. DOD provided  us with 36 separate data sets, State provided 11, and USAID provided 12.  The reported data included multiple contract numbering conventions for  each agency. We reformatted each data set and combined them to create a  single, uniform list of contracts, orders, assistance instruments, and  modifications for each agency. We excluded the base contracts under  which orders were issued. This was done, in part, because such contracts  do not have obligations associated with them as the obligations are  incurred with the issuance of each order. We also excluded other contract  vehicles such as leases, sales contracts, and notices of intent to purchase,  as these instruments do not include performance by contractor personnel  in Iraq or Afghanistan. In addition, we also excluded voluntary  contributions, property grants, and participating agency service  agreements from our assistance data, as these types of instruments do not  include performance by assistance personnel in either country. For all  contracts and assistance instruments within our scope, we summed the  reported obligations for each contract, order, and assistance instrument  for fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. Some contracts  and assistance instruments had obligations in both fiscal year 2009 and the  first half of fiscal year 2010, so the number of active contracts, grants, and  cooperative agreements for the entire 18-month period was lower than the  combined number of contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements that  were active in each fiscal year.
We reviewed 52 State and 36 USAID assistance files as part of our data  reliability assessment of agency-specific databases. From State’s Grant  Database and Management System, we randomly selected 68 assistance  files that were active during fiscal year 2009 and reviewed 52 of these files  to ensure the accuracy of basic information—such as the assistance  agreement number, the amount obligated, and date of action, among  others—that the agency provided in response to our requests for  information. From USAID’s Electronic Procurement and Information  Collection System, we randomly selected 39 assistance files that were  active during fiscal year 2009 and reviewed 36 of these files in either Iraq  or Afghanistan. Although we found a small number of errors when  comparing the data contained in State and USAID’s databases to the  assistance agreement documents, we determined that the errors were  inconsequential and that the data were sufficiently reliable for the  purposes of this report.
We conducted this performance audit from November 2009 through  September 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the  audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable  basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We  believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
section_title: Appendix II: DOD, State, and USAID Contractor and Assistance Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan
subsections: section_title: DOD Contractor Personnel
paragraphs: Table 8 shows the total number of Department of Defense (DOD)  contractor personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan, as reported by the U.S.  Central Command’s (CENTCOM) census, for each quarter in fiscal year  2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. The data depict an overall  decrease in personnel in Iraq and an overall increase in personnel in  Afghanistan during our review period. DOD did not report having any  personnel working under assistance instruments in either country during  our review period.
Table 9 provides a breakdown of the total number of DOD contractor  personnel by nationality working in the two countries at the end of fiscal  year 2009 and the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2010. The  number of Afghan personnel working on DOD contracts was significantly  larger than the number of U.S. or third country national personnel working  on DOD contracts in Afghanistan, while in Iraq a smaller percentage of  DOD’s contractor workforce consisted of Iraqi nationals.
section_title: State Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: Table 10 shows the number of Department of State (State) contractor and  assistance instrument personnel, by nationality, as reported to us based on  State surveys of contractors and assistance instrument recipients.
section_title: USAID Contractor and Assistance Personnel
paragraphs: Table 11 shows the number of U.S. Agency for International Development  (USAID) contractor and assistance instrument personnel, by nationality,  as reported to us based on USAID surveys and reports from its contractors  and assistance instrument recipients. During our review period, the  number of local national personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan working  under USAID contracts or assistance instruments was significantly larger  than the number of U.S. or third country national personnel.
section_title: Appendix III: Contractors Killed in Iraq and Afghanistan
paragraphs: Figure 6 provides information on the number Defense Base Act (DBA)  cases by nationality for contractors killed in Iraq or Afghanistan during  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. In Iraq, the total  number of fatality cases resulting from incidents during our review period  was 80. By comparison, the total number of fatality cases during the same  period in Afghanistan was 133. In Iraq, death cases were fairly evenly  distributed among U.S., local, and third country nationals, but in  Afghanistan the majority of death cases involved local nationals.
Table 12 shows, by occupation, the number of DBA fatality cases for  incidents that occurred during our review period. The security contractor  occupation category had the highest number of fatalities with 68 cases for  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010.
section_title: Appendix IV: DOD, State, and USAID Contracts and Assistance Instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan
subsections: section_title: DOD Contracts
paragraphs: Table 13 shows all Department of Defense (DOD) contracts, along with the  associated obligations, reported to us as active in Iraq, Afghanistan, or  both during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. For last  year’s review, DOD reported obligating $26,981.6 million on  46,645 contracts for fiscal year 2008. DOD did not report any obligations  for assistance instruments with performance in either country during  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010.
Table 14 provides information on the number of contracts awarded by  DOD and associated obligations made during our review period. The  majority of DOD’s active contracts were awarded during our review  period, while 92 percent of the DOD’s obligations were made on the new  contract awards.
Table 15 shows competition information for the DOD contracts (excluding  task and delivery orders) that were awarded during our review period.  DOD reported that 29,440 (93 percent) contracts were competed, including  26,544 contracts that were awarded using full and open competition. For  1,528 contracts, DOD either provided no competition information or  provided insufficient information for us to determine whether the contract  was competed.
As shown in table 16, most of the DOD contracts reported as awarded  without competition had relatively small obligations during our review  period.
section_title: State Contracts and Assistance Instruments
paragraphs: Table 17 shows all Department of State (State) contracts, along with the  associated obligations, reported to us as active in Iraq, Afghanistan, or  both during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. For last  year’s review, State reported obligating $1,475.7 million on 846 contracts  for fiscal year 2008.
Table 18 provides information on the number of contracts awarded and  associated obligations made during our review period. The majority of  State’s active contracts were awarded during our review period but only  16 percent of State’s obligations were made on the new contract awards.
Table 19 shows competition information for the State contracts (excluding  task and delivery orders) that were awarded during our review period.  State reported that 76 percent of its contracts were competed, including  489 (40 percent) that were awarded using full and open competition. For  72 contracts, State either provided no competition information or provided  insufficient information for us to determine whether the contract was  competed.
As shown in table 20, most of the State contracts reported as awarded  without competition had relatively small obligations during our review  period.
Table 21 shows all active State assistance instruments along with the  associated obligations reported to us as active in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both  during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010.
Table 22 provides information on the number of assistance instruments  awarded and associated obligations made during our review period.  Nearly all of State’s active assistance instruments were awarded during  our review period.
Table 23 shows State’s assistance instruments active in Iraq and  Afghanistan and associated obligations by type—grants, including those  made using Quick Response Funds, and cooperative agreements. During  our review period, grants accounted for 97 percent of State’s active  assistance instruments and 84 percent of assistance obligations.
section_title: USAID Contracts and Assistance Instruments
paragraphs: Table 24 shows all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)  contracts, along with the associated obligations, reported to us as active in  Iraq or Afghanistan during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year  2010. For last year’s review, USAID reported obligating $1,656.7 million on  277 contracts for fiscal year 2008.
Table 25 provides information on the number of contracts awarded and  associated obligations made during our review period. Fifty-two percent of  USAID’s active contracts were awarded prior to our review period and  these contracts accounted for nearly 84 percent of USAID’s obligations.
Table 26 shows competition information for the USAID contracts  (excluding task and delivery orders) that were awarded during our review  period. USAID reported to us that 107 contracts (48 percent) were  competed, including 98 contracts that were awarded using full and open  competition. For 93 contracts, USAID either provided no competition  information or what was provided was not sufficient to determine whether  the contract was competed.
As shown in table 27, there were only 21 contracts that USAID reported as  awarded without competition, 4 of which had obligations greater than  $1 million during our review period.
Table 28 shows all USAID assistance instruments along with the  associated obligations, reported to us as active in Iraq, Afghanistan, or  both during fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. During  the first half of fiscal year 2010, USAID deobligated funds from one  cooperative agreement with performance in Iraq, which resulted in its  total assistance obligations showing negative $15.8 million for that time  period.
Table 29 provides information on the number of assistance instruments  awarded and associated obligations made during our review period. The  majority of USAID’s active assistance instruments were awarded before  our review period and 84 percent of USAID’s obligations were made on the  existing assistance awards.
Table 30 shows USAID’s assistance instruments active in Iraq and  Afghanistan and associated obligations by type—grants and cooperative  agreements. During our review period, cooperative agreements accounted  for 76 percent of USAID’s active assistance instruments and 63 percent of  assistance obligations.
section_title: Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: John P. Hutton (202) 512-4841 or huttonj@gao.gov.
subsections: section_title: Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the contact above, Johana R. Ayers, Assistant Director; Noah  B. Bleicher; John C. Bumgarner; Burns D. Chamberlain; Morgan Delaney- Ramaker; Timothy J. DiNapoli; Justin Fisher; Cynthia Grant; David Greyer;  Justin M. Jaynes; Christopher Kunitz; Jean McSween; Heather B. Miller;  Jamilah Moon; Roxanna T. Sun; and Jeff Tessin made key contributions to  this report.