Alarming Rise of Roadside Bomb Attacks in Afghanistan Prompts JIEDDO Contracting Reforms

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3/12/2010

An alarming increase in roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan has prompted a review of contracting practices at the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

The problem with current contracting methods at JIEDDO is that they slow down the deployment of new counter-IED technology, said the agency’s director, Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates.

Shortly after taking over the reins at JIEDDO earlier this year, Oates ordered a comprehensive review of the agency’s contracting operations, he told reporters last week during a bloggers’ roundtable. The review was conducted by a team of government contracting experts who had never been associated with JIEDDO, Oates said. He specifically asked for outside critics because he wanted the evaluation to be unbiased.

Oates already received a report from the review team and soon expects to launch contracting reforms. The most significant one would be to boost in-house expertise, said Oates. The goal will be to make the technology-buying process “speedier and more effective,” he said.

“Speed in contracting is key,” said Oates. The traditional process is intrinsically slow because it emphasizes due diligence and oversight. But JIEDDO cannot afford lengthy procurement cycles at a time when U.S. troops are being killed and maimed on a daily basis. While IED attacks have dropped off in Iraq, in Afghanistan they have doubled during the past year, said Oates.

The Pentagon requested nearly $3.5 billion for JIEDDO in fiscal year 2011. That is a considerable jump from its 2010 budget of $2.3 billion.

The review team was made up of “government personnel with great resumes,” Oates said. “They’ve given us some great advice.” Oates’ predecessor, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, said in a December farewell speech that JIEDDO’s mission is being impaired in many ways by its contracting practices. “I leave General Oates with some challenges that I have failed to solve. A very important one has to do with contracting,” said Metz. “Since 9/11, I have seen this war from seven flag-officer positions. I have seen billions of our nation’s treasure expended, often not in ways that provide the biggest bang for the buck or even for the fight we are currently in.

"JIEDDO’s establishment was a mandate to bring us to the reality of the enemy we currently face," Metz said. "JIEDDO has embraced a transparent set of analytically driven processes to make sure we properly manage the funds allocated to us. But if we add more and more layers of bureaucracy, and thus time, to get things done we relinquish the initiative to the enemy.”

The Defense Department could “significantly help JIEDDO with its mission by bringing a contracting capability inside the organization thus streamlining the processes while being prudent with our citizens’ money," Metz said.

Oates, meanwhile, is facing more immediate troubles: How to expedite the deployment of sensors and other ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) systems to Afghanistan to help troops catch insurgents as they’re burying bombs. The explosive devices that U.S. troops fear the most there are fertilizer bombs that are easy to build and to conceal along unimproved dirt roads. The Pentagon’s IED detectors that were successfully used in Iraq don’t work in Afghanistan because they were designed to identify metals. Non-metallic IEDs are a huge problem, said Oates. The only way to defeat them is to catch insurgents in the act of burying them, which requires a huge presence of aerial sensors. “Persistent ISR” is today’s best defense against IEDs, he said.

As if combating IEDs weren’t hard enough, Oates also must contend with the transportation bottlenecks that are hindering the deployment of ISR systems. The military’s transportation system is overtaxed, so JIEDDO’s equipment must compete with “other tonnage and personnel that has to be moved into Afghanistan to support the surge,” said Oates. The infrastructure in Afghanistan -- with limited ports of entry and lines of communication -- is making life difficult for JIEDDO. “We face quite a bit of a transportation challenge,” Oates said.

Additional reporting on JIEDDO can be found in the April issue of National Defense.

Posted at 4:27 PM by Sandra Erwin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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3/12/2010

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