{"id":59132,"date":"2021-09-13T17:51:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T17:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/13\/study-criticizes-post-911-reliance-on-war-zone-contractors\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T11:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:01:00","slug":"study-criticizes-post-911-reliance-on-war-zone-contractors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2021\/09\/13\/study-criticizes-post-911-reliance-on-war-zone-contractors\/","title":{"rendered":"Study criticizes post-9\/11 reliance on war-zone contractors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9\/11 went to for-profit defense contractors<\/a>, a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the post-9\/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like training and equipping Afghan security forces \u2014 security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within weeks, and before the U.S. military had even completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban easily routed an Afghan government and military that Americans had spent 20 years and billions of dollars to stand up. President Joe Biden placed blame squarely on the Afghans themselves. \u201cWe gave them every chance,\u201d he said last month. \u201cWhat we could not provide them was the will to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But William Hartung, the author of Monday\u2019s study <\/a>by Brown University\u2019s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy, and others say it\u2019s essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9\/11 wars. In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few but U.S. contractors knew how to maintain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Civilian Contractors with the Joint IED Members from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization observe a squad of Iraqi Security Force Personnel as they clear simulated IEDs from the entrance of a building of during an urban combat and tactics course, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve\u2019s Building Partner Capacity mission at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, May 10, 2015. The BPC mission aims to increase the military proficiency of Iraqi Security Forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant through four to six-week periods of instruction at five different sites in Iraq. Training focuses on marksmanship skills, air-ground integration, and small unit leadership and tactics. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Cpl. Cansin P. Hardyegritag)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it were only the money, that would be outrageous enough,\u201d Hartung, the director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said of instances where the Pentagon\u2019s reliance on contractors backfired. \u201cBut the fact it undermined the mission and put troops at risk is even more outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of this year, before Biden began the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were far more contractors in Afghanistan and also in Iraq than U.S. troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9\/11 conflicts, but nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks embraced private contractors as an essential part of the U.S. military response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton received more than $30 billion to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says. Cheney and defense contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer U.S. military, and be more efficient and cost effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2010, Pentagon spending had surged by more than one-third, as the U.S. fought dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a post-9\/11 American, politicians vied to show support for the military in a country grown far more security conscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny member of Congress who doesn\u2019t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November,\u201d the study notes Harry Stonecipher, then the vice president of Boeing, telling The Wall Street Journal the month after the attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And up to a third of the Pentagon contracts went to just five weapons suppliers. Last fiscal year, for example, the money Lockheed Martin alone got from Pentagon contracts was one and a half times the entire budgets of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t