Washington pulse

September 2007

By Sandra I. Erwin

Civilians Not Keen on Working at AFRICOM

The Defense Department’s new Africa Command — to be headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany — will initially be staffed by 540 military personnel but only by 12 representatives from civilian government agencies.

Such minimal “interagency” participation is a major disappointment to AFRICOM planners at the Pentagon, who had hoped to emphasize non-military diplomatic efforts in the new command. Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, told Congress that AFRICOM “will include a significant number of representatives from other U.S. agencies, including officers from the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development.”

But that may be wishful thinking. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, head of the U.S. European Command, said earlier this year that he would like to see 25 percent interagency participation in AFRICOM, but predicted it would be a tough sell. “The fact of the matter is it will be difficult to get subscription and participation by the interagency.”

Artillery Chiefs Refuse to Become Irrelevant

Army officials have worried for some time that many of the troops fighting the insurgency in Iraq are losing their edge in conventional warfare areas such as artillery. A large number of the Army’s artillery units have been retrained as military police and truck drivers, so their skills have atrophied. Maj. Gen. David C. Ralston, commander of the Army Field Artillery Center, is said to be alarmed by the fact that artillery units haven’t fired a weapon in three years. In an attempt to try to make artillery relevant again, Ralston convened a group of senior officers this month in Fort Worth, Texas, to discuss how to fix the training gap, and how to preempt potentially devastating funding cuts to artillery programs in upcoming budget drills at the Pentagon.

Defense ‘Acquisition’ Not What It Used to Be

There’s been no shortage of members of Congress fretting about the wasteful ways of defense contracting. “Everyone is trying to fix the acquisition system,” laments one industry insider. Maybe not everything in defense procurement needs fixing, but there is one area that lawmakers will watch closely — the striking rise in the share of defense dollars that goes into “professional services.” Last year, more than half of the Pentagon’s $300 billion worth of contracts went to services, not hardware. So the industry is following the money. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the number of firms in the professional services industry soared by 115 percent to 96,000 during the past five years.

There’s Something Special About Night Vision

State Department officials in charge of enforcing export controls of military technology were particularly miffed by a recent case of unlawful foreign transfers of night vision equipment.

Ruth Jackson, who works at State’s trade control licensing office, said she and her coworkers are big fans of night vision goggles, and were deeply bothered to find out that a U.S. company — ITT Corp. — had illegally shared sensitive technology with foreign nationals. The case was settled this summer, when ITT agreed to pay $100 million in penalties.

“Everyone in the office really loves all the night vision devices that come through,” Jackson said. “It really hurts me when a company gets into trouble … because the technology is just that special.”

In the wake of the ITT case, the State Department’s directorate of defense trade controls will ask all vendors of night vision technology to keep track of every piece of gear after it leaves U.S. shores. Companies will have to keep detailed records of the inventory and report back to the directorate every six months, said Jackson.

Please email your comments to SErwin@ndia.org

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