Carpenters In The Forehead/  Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan

Report of the Majority Staff\Rep. John F. Tierney/ Chair Subcommittee on National Security and  Foreign Affairs/Committee on Oversight and Government Reform/U.S. House of Representatives/June 2010

As mentioned in a recent rambling from my forehead (see "What's A Few Billion Here, A Few Billion There?"), it is eye-opening and flat-out astounding to read this report from Representative John Tierney.  Call it the straw that broke the camel's back, call it an affront to decency, call it a sick feeling in your stomach; call it whatever you choose, but call the troops home.  This reality of the war on the ground is downright schizophrenic and morally corrupt, and it provides more than enough reason for getting out of this catastrophe named Afghanistan.

But first, consider more news today from the Washington Post, amplifying the craziness of our current foreign policy.  (President Obama:  It hurts so much that you continue to cling to a failed mentality.)

“A Saudi American al-Qaeda operative based in Pakistan personally directed a failed plot to bomb New York City's subway last September, federal authorities charged Wednesday”

Notice that murderer-to-be was not from Afghanistan; nor was he based in Afghanistan.

“The court filing comes as President Obama and senior national security aides have increasingly cited recent domestic terrorism cases as justification for the war in Afghanistan, noting that country's border with uncontrolled tribal areas in Pakistan where al-Qaeda is based and from which, U.S. officials say, threats continue to emanate.”

Again, the reality is that the threats most serious to our homeland at the present time come from Pakistan, not Afghanistan, and yet, in some twisting of logic, the continuation of a war in Afghanistan is somehow going to protect us from plots and plotters originating in Pakistan. In fact, we are reminded again and again that these international killers are based in Pakistan, with it widely known that they are hidden in plain sight under the eyes of the Pakistani Intelligence Service.

“Zazi allegedly communicated through an al-Qaeda facilitator in Peshawar, Pakistan”

“U.S. prosecutors said both Zazi and Naseer were directed by two top al-Qaeda leaders -- Saleh al-Somali, al-Qaeda's head of international operations, and Rashid Rauf, a key operative -- before they were killed in U.S. missile strikes.”  (in Pakistan)

“Attacks both in the U.K. and the U.S. are being coordinated and orchestrated by the same al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan,"

Pakistan.  Pakistan.  Pakistan.  al-Qaeda in Pakistan.  In the cities, in the lawless mountainous regions; al-Qaeda runs rampant in Pakistan.

Whoa! Wait a minute.  Maybe we are in the wrong war in the wrong country.  When you read these news articles, how can you come to any conclusion other than the fact that our biggest national security threat comes from Pakistan?

I’m having serious trouble understanding this concept:  the Pakistani government is on our side in the war on terror, so we send them billions of dollars a year to support their efforts.  But somehow a large swath of their country is “lawless,” an area where the government just doesn’t intrude, an area that shelters both the Taliban and Al-qaeda.  The Pakistani government won’t go there, and we are not about to go there; instead, we target terrorists with missiles fired from drones, and then proceed to play this idiotic mind-game of not admitting it publicly.

But enough of my ranting.  Read the report for yourself.  My plan is to publish excerpts of it on appindie, with hopes that it will lift the veil of ignorance from the eyes of our country.

June 22, 2010
To the Members of the Subcommittee:
Today I present to you a report entitled, Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan, which has been prepared by the Majority staff of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. After a six-month investigation, the report exposes the circumstances surrounding the Department of Defense’s outsourcing of security on the supply chain in Afghanistan to questionable providers, including warlords.

The findings of this report range from sobering to shocking. In short, the Department of Defense designed a contract that put responsibility for the security of vital U.S. supplies on contractors and their unaccountable security providers. This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others. Not only does the system run afoul of the Department’s own rules and regulations mandated by Congress, it also appears to risk undermining the U.S. strategy for achieving its goals in Afghanistan.

To be sure, Afghanistan presents an extremely difficult environment for military operations, logistics, and business practices. Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that little attention was given to the cost-benefit analysis of allowing the system to continue in a fashion that injected a good portion of a $2.16 billion contract’s resources into a corruptive environment. The ‘fog of war’ still requires a direct line of sight on contractors.
This report is confined to the facts pertaining to the Host Nation Trucking contracts, and in that limited sphere there are constructive changes that can be made to the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan to improve contracting integrity while mitigating corrupting influences.

This report offers some realistic recommendations to serve as a catalyst for what appears to be a much-needed reconsideration of policy.

However, the Department, the Administration, and Congress will have to determine if the information presented here, along with other information and developments, will require reconsideration of the overall strategic approach to our mission in Afghanistan. The critical new information contained in the report will inform the Subcommittee and Congress as a whole as it formulates and oversees an Afghanistan policy that must serve vital U.S. interests. In turn, the Department of Defense would be well served to take a hard look at this report and initiate prompt remedial action.
Sincerely,
John F. Tierney
Chairman

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

We have to do a better job in the international side to coordinate our aid, to get more accountability for what we spend in Afghanistan. But much of the corruption is fueled by money that has poured into that country over the last eight years. And it is corruption at every step along the way, not just in Kabul.

You know, when we are so dependent upon long supply lines, as in Afghanistan, where everything has to be imported, it’s much more difficult than it was in Iraq, where we had Kuwait as a staging ground to go into Iraq. You offload a ship in Karachi and by the time whatever it is – you know, muffins for our soldiers’ breakfasts or anti-IED equipment – gets to where we’re headed, it goes through a lot of hands. And one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money.

– Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

December 3, 2009

In Afghanistan, the U.S. military faces one of the most complicated and difficult supply chains in the history of warfare. The task of feeding, fueling, and arming American troops at over 200 forward operating bases and combat outposts sprinkled across a difficult and hostile terrain with only minimal road infrastructure is nothing short of herculean. In order to accomplish this mission, the Department of Defense employs a hitherto unprecedented logistics model: responsibility for the supply chain is almost entirely outsourced to local truckers and Afghan private security providers.

The principal contract supporting the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan is called Host Nation Trucking, a $2.16 billion contract split among eight Afghan, American, and Middle Eastern companies. Although there are other supply chain contracts, the HNT contract provides trucking for over 70 percent of the total goods and materiel distributed to U.S. troops in the field, roughly 6,000 to 8,000 truck missions per month. The trucks carry food, supplies, fuel, ammunition, and even Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs).

The crucial component of the HNT contract is that the prime contractors are responsible for the security of the cargo that they carry. Most of the prime contractors and their trucking subcontractors hire local Afghan security providers for armed protection of the trucking convoys. Transporting valuable and sensitive supplies in highly remote and insecure locations requires extraordinary levels of security. A typical convoy of 300 supply trucks going from Kabul to Kandahar, for example, will travel with 400 to 500 guards in dozens of trucks armed with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

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Warlord, Inc.

Executive Summary

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The private security companies that protect the convoys are frequently involved in armed conflict with alleged insurgents, rival security providers, and other criminal elements. The security providers report having lost hundreds of men over the course of the last year alone, though the veracity of these reports is difficult to judge. Many of the firefights purportedly last for hours and involve significant firepower and frequent civilian casualties. Indeed, in an interview with the Subcommittee staff, the leading convoy security commander in Afghanistan said that he spent $1.5 million on ammunition per month.

From one perspective, the HNT contract works quite well: the HNT providers supply almost all U.S. forward operating bases and combat outposts across a difficult and hostile terrain while only rarely needing the assistance of U.S. troops. Nearly all of the risk on the supply chain is borne by contractors, their local Afghan truck drivers, and the private security companies that defend them. During the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989), by contrast, its army devoted a substantial portion of its total force structure to defending its supply chain. The HNT contract allows the United States to dedicate a greater proportion of its troops to other counterinsurgency priorities instead of logistics.

But outsourcing the supply chain in Afghanistan to contractors has also had significant unintended consequences. The HNT contract fuels warlordism, extortion, and corruption, and it may be a significant source of funding for insurgents. In other words, the logistics contract has an outsized strategic impact on U.S. objectives in Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense has been largely blind to the potential strategic consequences of its supply chain contingency contracting. U.S. military logisticians have little visibility into what happens to their trucks on the road and virtually no understanding of how security is actually provided. When HNT contractors self-reported to the military that they were being extorted by warlords for protection payments for safe passage and that these payments were “funding the insurgency,” they were largely met with indifference and inaction.