How U.S. Troop Constraints In Afghanistan Is Resulting In A Massive Increase In The Use Of Contractors

Crews from a Black Hawk helicopter and an Apache attack helicopter from the Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, stop at a Forward Arming and Refueling Point in northern Iraq on Nov. 5, 2008. (Spec. Jason Dangel)

Washington Post: How Obama’s Afghanistan plan is forcing the Army to replace soldiers with contractors

Current restrictions on U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan and a heavy reliance on civilian contractors are eroding the skills and cohesion of units deployed to the country, according to information from the Army given to the House Armed Services Committee and provided to The Washington Post.

According to an Army document, the use of civilian labor in one of the Army’s combat aviation brigades, or CABs, in Afghanistan has had negative side effects because the contractors are being used in lieu of the brigade’s maintenance soldiers. Those soldiers should be deploying with their units, but are not because of the “constrained troop level environment” in Afghanistan, the document says.

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WNU Editor: Because of troop limitations there are currently 9,800 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan .... but .... as of April, there are 26,000 Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan, about half of whom are assigned to logistics and maintenance duties, according to publicly available reports. So in reality .... if it was not for the political decision to limit the deployment of U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan .... the true number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would be around 25,000.