Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Hollow Forces Adv. – I/L – Supply Chain

PMC control of the supply chain is a major source of Taliban funding
Supply Chain Standard 10 (25 June Europe’s strategic supply chain management publication http://www.supplychainstandard.com/Home/Default.aspx TBC 6/25/10)

In his introduction to the report John Tierney, chair of the House of Representatives sub-committee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, says: “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 US supplies on contractors and their unaccountable security providers. “This arrangement has fuelled 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 US strategy for achieving its goals in Afghanistan,” says Tierney. The report focuses on the principal contract supporting the US supply chain in Afghanistan, which is called Host Nation Trucking – a £1.5billion ($2.16bn) 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 per cent of the total goods and materiel distributed to US 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. Under the HNT contract, the prime contractors are responsible for the security of the cargo that they carry. Most of the prime contractors and their trucking sub-contractors hire local Afghan security providers for armed protection of the trucking convoys. The report points out that 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.” “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,” the report says. The congressional report points out that during the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan from1979-1989 its army devoted a substantial portion of its total force structure to defending its supply chain and the HNT contract allows the United States to dedicate a greater proportion of its troops to other counterinsurgency priorities instead of logistics. However, in a key conclusion the report says: “ 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 US objectives in Afghanistan.” And it accuses the Department of Defense of being “largely blind to the potential strategic consequences of its supply chain contingency contracting”.
PMC control of the supply chain funds the Taliban
Weigant 10 (Chris, June 23, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/were-emallem-terrorist-su_b_623500.html TBC 6/25/10)

If they even notice, that is. Case in point, we are already paying off the Taliban. We're paying them (through their warlord fellow-travelers) a lot of money not to shoot at our convoys. Tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars. This story broke late last year, and then promptly sank in the American media without making much of a ripple. It did spur Congress to investigate, however, and they just released a report (ominously titled "Warlord, Inc.") which confirmed and expanded upon what was known about the practice. The American military contracts out its supply lines these days. What this means is that the Pentagon pays private companies to truck their supplies around Afghanistan. The only problem with this is that the security for the convoys is up to the private company, and not the Pentagon. And Afghanistan's roads (what little of them exist at all) are controlled by various warlords. The private contractors, in what surely must be a bottom-line type of decision, have decided that it is easier and cheaper to pay protection money to the warlords, so they won't shoot at the trucks. Some of these warlords are middlemen who funnel American money to the Taliban (again, so the Taliban won't shoot at the trucks).

Hollow Forces Adv. – I/L – Supply Chain

PMC control of the supply chain undermines Afghan government stability
FILKINS 10 (DEXTER June 21http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/asia/22contractors.html TBC 6/25/10

The 79-page report, entitled “Warlord Inc.,” paints an anarchic picture of contemporary Afghanistan, with the country’s major highways being controlled by groups of freelance gunmen who answer to no one — and who are being paid for by the United States. Afghanistan, the investigation found, plays host to hundreds of unregistered private security companies employing as many as 70,000 largely unsupervised gunmen. “The principal private security subcontractors,” the report said, “are warlords, strongmen, commanders and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority. “The warlords thrive in a vacuum of government authority, and their interests are in fundamental conflict with U.S. aims to build a strong Afghan government,” the report said. At the heart of the problem, the investigation found, is that the American military pays trucking companies to move its supplies across Afghanistan — and leaves it up to the trucking companies to protect themselves. The trucking companies in turn pay warlords and commanders to provide security. These subcontracts, the investigation found, are handed out without any oversight from the Department of Defense, despite clear instructions from Congress that the department provide such oversight. The report states that military officers in Kabul had little idea whom the trucking companies were paying to provide security or how much they spent for it, and had rarely if ever inspected a convoy to find out.

Contractors higher locals to secure the supply line transportation

Tierney 10 (John, Chair of National Security of foreign affairs in US House of reps, US Congress, june 10, P.1) ET

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).