Since 2002 wartime contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued with problems; the Commission on Wartime Contracting has estimated that the U.S. has squandered a perceptible amount of the $177 billion for these contracts due to lack of oversight. Today, the commission held a hearing to weigh the effectiveness of the government to hold contractors accountable when
Defense officials and other witnesses testified on the tools and procedures used to keep track of the more than 200,000 contractor employees working in the two countries. They faced questions on the competition involved in choosing companies and the sustainability of the projects after the U.S. withdraws from the region.
The commission’s final report to Congress, which is due in July 2011, will identify lessons learned from the past two years of hearings, and include recommendations over a broad range of matters to improve future dealings with contractors in U.S. wartime operations.