It is More Expensive and Complicates the Tactical Situation!
Congress is about to put the civilian contracting of support services in combat zones under scrutiny. This is something that should have been done several years ago but it is a politically charged issue. There has been some proof that civilian contractors have over charged the Federal Government for the services they performed. We also know many of the contracts were awarded without competition. When the GOP controlled Congress they did not want to shed light on this issue for fear it would uncover embarrassing issues for the Bush Administration. Now the Democrats are in control they want to uncover information that will embarrass Bush. I believe the oversight by Congress is necessary to protect the American taxpayer - Republican, Democrat or independent. The thrust of the Congressional look at these contractors should be to uncover the facts and recover any tax money that civilian contractors were paid that was not justified!
The second issue is the conceptual idea of employing civilian contractors to provide support services in combat zones. This is something that has ballooned during the Bush Administration. Although some of this was employed in the past the amount and type of support services that are being provided by civilians is in another dimension.
This concept was to provide more uniformed members for combat jobs by substituting civilians to drive trucks, cook food, wash clothing etc. This concept has been shown to be ineffective even if the over billing and fraud were eliminated. The problem with using civilian contractors to provide support services in a combat zone fall into two categories.
First, is the cost? In order for contractors to attract civilians to work in a combat zone the salaries go off the scale. Truck drivers were being paid $80,000 plus benefits. Add administrative costs to house and support them in a combat zone plus the company profit, and the total cost to the Federal Government was more then DOUBLE the cost to provide that same truck driver from the uniformed military. The same thing was true for other types of services. Thus, after four years of imperial data is clear that the significantly higher cost to the taxpayers does not justify this practice.
Second, when these contractors come under enemy fire, they must call upon the uniformed military to protect them. If these services were being provided by uniformed military they could better defend them selves and require less support from hard pressed combat troops when they come under attack. Every member of the military, cooks, truck drivers etc are trained in combat first and they are armed.
Thus no matter what the Congressional fraud and over charge investigations produce, the practice of contracting support services to our military in combat zones should end and be returned to the uniformed military.