State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Dan Zak,
The State Department is racing against an end-of-year deadline to take over Iraq operations from the U.S. military, throwing up buildings and marshalling contractors in its biggest overseas operation since the effort to rebuild Europe after World War II.
While attention in Washington and Baghdad has centered on the number of U.S. troops that may remain in Iraq, they will be dwarfed by an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador — the size of an Army division.
The scale of the operation has raised concerns among lawmakers and government watchdogs, who fear the State Department will be overwhelmed by overseeing so many people, about 80 percent of them contractors. There is a risk, they say, of millions of dollars in waste and limited supervision of bodyguards.
“We’re very, very worried,” said Christopher H. Shays, a former Republican member of Congress who served on the Commission on Wartime Contracting, at a House hearing on Tuesday. “I don’t know how they’re going to do it.”
State Department officials say they are working flat-out to finish their preparations, adding contracting professionals to prevent fraud and focusing on ensuring U.S. personnel will be protected.
“We’ve spent too much money and lost too many kids’ lives, not to do this thing right,” said Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides.
But officials acknowledge they have never done anything quite like this. “Make no mistake, this is hard,” said Nides.
There are currently 43,000 U.S. servicemembers in Iraq. Under an agreement negotiated by the George W. Bush administration, they are to leave by the end of 2011.
Iraqi leaders Tuesday said they wanted a small contingent of U.S. military trainers to remain, but without immunity from local prosecution, a condition the Obama administration has said it cannot accept. The administration has been planning to keep 3,000 to 5,000 military trainers if the two sides can hammer out an agreement.
The list of responsibilities the State Department will pick up from the military is daunting. It will have to provide security for the roughly 1,750 traditional embassy personnel — diplomats, aid workers, Treasury employees and so on — in a country that is still rocked by daily bombings and assassinations.
To do so, State is contracting a security force of about 5,000. They will not only protect the Baghdad embassy but two consulates, a pair of support sites at Iraqi airports and three police-training facilities.
The State Department will operate its own air service — the 46-aircraft Embassy Air Iraq — and its own hospitals, functions the U.S. military has been performing. About 4,600 contractors, mostly non-American, will provide cooking, cleaning, medical care and other services. Rounding out the civilian presence are about 4,600 people scattered over 10 or 11 sites where Iraqis will be instructed on how to use U.S. military equipment they’ve purchased.
“This is not what State Department people train for, to run an operation of this size. Ever since 2003, they’ve been heavily reliant on U.S. military support,” said Max Boot, a national security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In its final report issued last month, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting said that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars had been squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and charged that the State Department hadn’t made the necessary reforms in its contracting operation.
“Therefore, significant additional waste — and mission degradation to the point of failure — can be expected as State continues with the daunting task of transition in Iraq,” it warned.
State Department officials dispute that conclusion, saying they have hired dozens of extra contracting personnel and have gained experience in managing contractors in Iraq.
Shays said he also worried that the State Department’s small security force will be stretched too thin to supervise armed contractors. He told the hearing he feared a repeat of the 2007 incident in which guards from the security firm then known as Blackwater opened fire at a Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 Iraqi civilians.
Stuart Bowen, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in an interview that the transition would have other costs. Without the military protection, U.S. government personnel will have limited reach throughout Iraq, he said. Already, the 1,200 personnel in the consulate in the southern city of Basra can’t adequately move around that region, he said.
“In between this area and Baghdad, there will be a void” of diplomatic coverage, Bowen said.
Nides emphasized that the State Department wasn’t trying to duplicate the military mission.
“That’s not what the Iraqis want. Frankly that’s not what was agreed to” with the government in Baghdad, he said. Instead, the department was trying to transition to a diplomatic presence, he said.
While the Iraq operation will be huge by State Department standards, it will still represent a significant scaling down from the military-led mission, which currently involves 50,000 defense contractors. And State Department officials say their use of contractors is expected to drop sharply over the next three years, as security improves in Iraq.
Nides noted that the State Department planned to spend less than $6 billion in Iraq in 2012, compared to an outlay of about $50 billion by the military this year.
“That’s a pretty good transition dividend,” he said.
The State Department had originally planned a more ambitious network of consulates and police training sites, but cut back after failing to get enough funding from Congress.
Its smaller footprint will be evident in the police training program, which will be run out of three locations in Iraq. In contrast, the U.S. military had training programs in every one of the country’s 18 provinces, said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, chief spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq.
“We had a partnership at a much lower level but I think [State will] bring a very needed expertise at a higher level, a more strategic level,” he said.
The department’s inspector-general reported in May that there was a risk that some of the new embassy facilities — such as hospitals and housing — wouldn’t be ready by year’s end.
A State Department official acknowledged housing construction will probably extend into 2012. But at least temporary accommodations will be ready by year’s end for 10,000 people at the Baghdad embassy, said the official, who was not authorized to comment on the record. There will be no need — as initially feared — to make people use beds in shifts.
“We will have the basics for everyone,” he said.
Zak reported from Baghdad.
