[Senate Hearing 111-982]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-982
COUNTERNARCOTICS CONTRACTS IN LATIN AMERICA
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HEARING
before the
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING OVERSIGHT
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 20, 2010
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING OVERSIGHT
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
Margaret Daum, Staff Director
Alan Kahn, Counsel
Bill Wright, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator McCaskill............................................ 1
Senator Brown................................................ 3
Senator Pryor................................................ 4
Senator McCain............................................... 17
Prepared statements:
Senator McCaskill............................................ 37
Senator Brown................................................ 39
Senator Pryor................................................ 42
WITNESSES
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Hon. David T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State 4
William F. Wechsler, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Counternarcotics and Global Threats, U.S. Department of Defense 6
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Johnson, Hon. David T.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 43
Wechsler, Willilam F.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 56
APPENDIX
Questions and responses submitted for the Record from:
Mr. Johnson.................................................. 75
Mr. Wechsler................................................. 98
COUNTERNARCOTICS CONTRACTS IN LATIN AMERICA
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THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:33 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Claire
McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators McCaskill, Pryor, Brown, and McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. This hearing will now come to order. The
purpose of this morning's hearing is to examine how the U.S.
Government is using contractors to fight the drug war in Latin
America.
The U.S. Government has been involved in counternarcotics
activities in Latin America for more than 30 years. From 2000
to 2008, the bulk of the counternarcotics assistance to Latin
America was through Plan Colombia, a multi-year assistance
package that was targeting Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. In the
last 2 years, the Merida Initiative, which focuses on
assistance to Mexico, has also increased in importance. Over
the last decade, the U.S. taxpayers have spent billions of
dollars on counternarcotics activities in the region. The
President has asked for an additional $6 billion for
international counternarcotics and drug interdiction in 2011.
I understand that much of this money is currently being
spent under contracts with companies like DynCorp and Lockheed
Martin. Contractors have been hired to spray the drugs under
cultivation. They have been hired to work in government
ministries. They have been hired to help with intelligence for
drug trafficking, help support the local army and police, and
maintain bases where American troops live and work in Latin
America.
Their efforts are crucial to the success of the United
States' mission in Latin America. But there is really almost no
transparency into what these contractors are doing or how much
we are paying them. It appears that there has been insufficient
oversight of these types of contracts. It is very important
that contracts like this have sufficient oversight so that the
contractors are accountable and we are assured that the
taxpayers' money is not being wasted.
This oversight is particularly important right now because
the United States is ramping up counternarcotics activities in
Afghanistan. The same Federal agencies and many of the same
contractors are performing the work in both places. We need to
understand what lessons we need to learn from Latin America so
that we can apply them appropriately in Afghanistan.
That is why at the beginning of this year the Subcommittee
began an investigation into counternarcotics contracts. We
wanted to know the answers to just a few very basic questions:
What are we spending on the contracts? What are the contractors
doing? And are we getting what we paid for? Do we have
performance measures that are in place? And are we tracking
performance measures as to how the contractors are performing
this work and if we are getting any value out of the dollars
that we have spent?
We asked for this information from the State Department and
the Defense Department more than 3 months ago. Despite our
repeated requests, neither Department has been able to answer
our questions as of the date of this hearing.
And just so we are clear on the record, I am perfectly
aware of the strains that hearings like this cause within an
agency. I understand that it is not a day of celebration when
you find out that a hearing like this is going to occur. It
means additional work, additional effort. But because the
requests here are so basic and, frankly, the notion that they
would be so hard to get is part and parcel part of the problem.
Let me just put on the record the basic information that we
wanted to get. We wanted to get the contractor's name, contract
number, the extent of competition, the scope of the work, the
contract ceiling, and the dollar amount obligated.
Now, that is not the sun, the moon, and the stars. That is
Basic Contracting 101.
The second area where we requested information was
evaluations that had been done of the contractors, reports
concerning the contractors, audits that had been done of the
contractors' work, and evaluations of the contractors.
The third area we asked for was some information about the
need for the contract. Why is this something we must contract
out? Why is this not something that we can perform as an
inherently governmental function? The use of contractors, the
scope of their contracts, and the duration of their contracts.
And, finally, the last category was communication and legal
analysis regarding the use of contractors. Four simple areas.
We were not asking for an analysis of how much money you spent
in 2009 versus 2001 in real dollars and how much was
attributable to--we did not ask for the details of any
performance payments you had given to the contractors. This is
pretty basic stuff. And none of these requests have been met in
full. None, after 3\1/2\ months of these requests being made.
Instead, the Subcommittee has received information about
contracts which appears to contradict the Departments' own
regular reports to the congressional Appropriations and Foreign
Relations Committees. I have to congratulate the staff here
because some of the information we got, if they had not gone on
their own and double-checked other places where the Departments
have to report, we would have not realized the extent of how
inadequate the response to this document request was.
The State Department appears to have underreported its
contracts to the Subcommittee by hundreds of millions of
dollars for Colombia alone. And the Subcommittee also learned
that the Defense Department hired a contractor to handle this
hearing. Are you kidding me? Have we gotten to that point that
we have to hire a contractor to prepare for a Subcommittee on
Contracting Oversight hearing? Does anybody else feel that you
are in a hall of mirrors in a fun house? I know that we have
spent $50,000 on contractors to prepare for this hearing at the
Defense Department.
What I asked for, there should be somebody in charge of
contract oversight that could produce the documents easily in
30 days. Instead, we are hiring contractors to do it for us.
Today, I plan to ask these basic questions that the
document request reflected. I plan to listen to the testimony,
and I hope that the witnesses will be able to help the
Subcommittee conduct this important oversight today and in the
future.
What we learn today will inform the Subcommittee whether we
should move to authorize subpoenas for this information. I hope
the State Department and the Defense Department will be able to
provide the information we need. I wish I were more optimistic.
What we have to figure out here is: Is this basic information
unavailable because the Departments are incapable of producing
it or incompetent? Because it is only one of two answers. If
you are incapable of producing it, then we have a serious issue
on contracting oversight. And, obviously, if you are
incompetent and cannot produce it, we have a serious problem in
terms of counternarcotics strategy and how it is being
implemented.
I do not want to use subpoenas. This should be a
cooperative exercise. But I will not hesitate, and I know that
my Ranking Member feels the same way. I know Senator Brown
feels the same way. I will not hesitate to use subpoenas
because this is important, and it is billions and billions of
dollars. And we need to get to a point where the appropriators
say no more money until you are at least capable of showing us
how you have spent what you got.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here, and I look
forward to our discussion today.
Senator Brown.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWN
Senator Brown. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to welcome
everybody again. Madam Chairman, I want to thank you for
holding this hearing. I will offer my opening in the form of a
written statement, which I would ask be accepted, and then I
would just as soon get on with the business.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Brown appears in the Appendix
on page 39.
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Senator McCaskill. Thank you.
Senator Brown. Thank you.
Senator McCaskill. Senator Pryor, thanks for joining us.
Would you like to make any comments for the record before we
begin the witnesses' testimony?
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. Well, thank you. I do have an opening
statement for the record, but I want to thank you for your
leadership on this because we owe it to the American taxpayer
to make sure that people know where their Federal tax dollars
are going, and I think there is a pervasive problem with
contracting around the Federal Government, and I just
appreciate your leadership on this.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator
Pryor.
Let me introduce the witnesses today. David Johnson has
served as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the
State Department since October 2007. In addition to numerous
other distinguished posts within the Federal Government, Mr.
Johnson served as Afghan Coordinator for the United States from
May 2002 to July 2003.
William Wechsler is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats. In that
capacity he leads the Department's counternarcotics policies
and operations around the world. Mr. Wechsler has previously
served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury and
on the staff of the National Security Council.
It is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in all
witnesses that appear before us, so if you do not mind, I would
ask you to stand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give
before this Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Johnson. I do.
Mr. Wechsler. I do.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you very much. Let the record
reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
We would ask that you try to keep your oral testimony to
around 5 minutes, and your written testimony will obviously be
printed in the record in its entirety. Thank you very much. Mr.
Johnson.
TESTIMONY HON. DAVID T. JOHNSON,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member
Brown, and Senator Pryor, thank you for the opportunity you are
giving us today to testify on the United States'
counternarcotics efforts in Latin America.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 43.
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Anyone looking at news south of our border knows that drug-
related violence is spiraling. Drug-trafficking organizations
have shown time and again that they have no decency or respect
for the law or human life, and the increasing violence
currently that we are seeing in Mexico is emblematic of these
cartels' disregard for anything but profit.
It is hard to overstate the impact that this kind of
violence and crime can have. The individual tragedies we hear
about on a daily basis, such as innocent lives lost in cartel
cross fire, rip at the fabric of families and communities. This
undermines public security, weakens government institutions,
and, if left unchecked, provides a breeding ground for
narcotraffickers and other threats to our own national
security.
As the State Department's Assistant Secretary for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), much
of the work that I do involves foreign assistance programs to
isolate and minimize drug-trafficking organizations. Each of
our programs in Latin America is unique to the country it
supports. They are built hand-in-hand with our partners to
strengthen their own capacity for law enforcement and the rule
of law, creating strong systems of governance that empower
communities and seek to suffocate narcotics enterprises.
While each program is unique, there are some important
common features, including our on-the-ground contract oversight
elements. We operate narcotics affairs sections within the U.S.
embassies of our largest program countries, including both
Colombia and Mexico. These offices, which include Foreign
Service officers, civil service officers, and locally engaged
staff, work with host nation representatives to develop the
scope of our assistance projects and draft the requirements
needed to achieve these goals.
Approximately one out of every eight people who work for us
in Central and South America directly in our offices or in the
field has received training as a contracting officer's
representative, a knowledge set that empowers our program staff
to be efficient and effective stewards of the taxpayers'
dollars dedicated to the foreign assistance programs they
support. Our single largest allotment of contracting officer's
representatives trained staff, 43 in total, help to oversee
INL's Colombia programs.
After more than 10 years supporting Colombians in their
quest to provide greater security in their country, the
Government of Colombia has taken steps to self-administer the
counternarcotics eradication and alternative development
programs that the United States helped to introduce. Colombia
President Uribe's consolidation plan is to nationalize our
joint programs, and that is now Colombian Government and U.S.
Government policy.
As a result, our programs in Colombia have been able to
reduce their footprint considerably, scaling back our contract
personnel implementers on the ground from 1,200 in 2006 to
fewer than 600 in 2010.
We see similar program cooperation from our Mexican
counterparts who are equally engaged in leading the Merida
Initiative planning and implementation process. In fact,
bilateral meetings are held on a monthly basis to discuss
progress on each of the 46 Merida projects which are
extensively negotiated each fiscal year. In order effectively
to oversee this program, INL has enlarged our officer in Mexico
from 21 people in 2008 to 77 slots this year, more than 60 of
which are already filled. Twenty-eight of the personnel
currently in Mexico have received contracting officer's
representative training. We have taken the additional step of
assigning three full-time contracting officer's representatives
to the staffing pattern in Mexico City, in addition to the 28
personnel trained in contract management.
Our business approach toward implementation of assistance
programs throughout Latin America is to seek the most effective
and efficient implementer to achieve our program goals. As a
matter of practice, we choose implementation vehicles after
conducting analysis of the program type, past performance,
cost, availability, and the political and security environment
in which we operate. The implementing mechanisms include
contracts with companies of all sizes, program agreements with
interagency partners, grants to nongovernmental organizations
and educational institutions, and contribution letters to
multilateral organizations.
Our approach to management allows the Department to plan
for effective transitions and build-up and drawdown program
management and oversight staff as circumstances dictate.
Procurements to support our programs are made by the embassies'
contracting officers, the Department's Regional Procurement
Support Office in Fort Lauderdale and the Department's Office
of Acquisition, or directly by INL.
Factors such as the complexity, type of acquisition, scope
of work, the involvement of other agencies or requirements such
required sources of supply and whether other agencies have
existing contract vehicles are considered as factors in the
analysis of the procurement. Once procured, a variety of
management controls are essential to monitor and oversee these
programs.
All government-procured commodities and construction are
subject to INL's end-use monitoring and reporting to track
their use and consistency with agreed foreign assistance use.
The Department remains committed to building and
maintaining the necessary capacity to address citizen safety,
rule of law, and transnational crime in Latin America for two
compelling reasons: First, to assist our international
partners; and, second, to diminish the impact transnational
crime has on America's own citizens.
Madam Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to illustrate
some of our counternarcotics assistance programs and our
contracting vehicles. I will do my best to answer your
questions.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you. Mr. Wechsler.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM F. WECHSLER,\1\ DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
FOR COUNTERNARCOTICS AND GLOBAL THREATS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Mr. Wechsler. Thank you very much, Chairman McCaskill,
Senator Brown, and Senator Pryor. Thank you for the opportunity
to discuss the Department of Defense's use and oversight of
counternarcotics contracts in the Western Hemisphere. Before
describing what I consider to be a significant return on our
investments over the years in counternarcotics funds, I would
like to start by addressing some of the specific concerns that
you raised in your most recent letter and in your opening
statement.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wechsler appears in the Appendix
on page 56.
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The Counternarcotics and Global Threats Office that I lead
was established by Congress some decades ago to be the single
focal point for all of DOD's counternarcotics activities and to
ensure a focused counternarcotics program with clear priorities
and measured results. You can be sure that this Administration
recognizes the importance of the counter-drug mission to our
national security and the Department's critical role in this
effort.
When I came into this office just about a year ago, I
recognized that we need to do a better job in evaluating our
programs and using performance data to maximize return on
dollars that we invest in counternarcotics. This is an
especially important subject for me. In between the time that
you mentioned previously where I was in the government, I was a
management consultant working on these issues in the private
sector. This has been one of my top priorities since I have
been on this job.
To that end, both the Counternarcotics Technology Program
Office (CNTPO) and Southern Command have taken other positive
steps to improve contract oversight, and I have initiated an
internal management review that will be well underway by the
early summer. I would be happy to discuss these measures in
greater detail in the question-and-answer session.
At the Department level, in December 2009, the Defense
Science Board launched a task force on improving DOD
acquisition and procurement policies and practices. Just on May
10 of this year, Under Secretary Carter issued department-wide
instructions to collect and report on all services contracts as
required in the authorization bill. The common reporting
requirement will help provide the greater transparency and will
help the Department make more informed decisions about whether
to contract out certain functions.
We very much welcome the Subcommittee's interest in our
oversight efforts. You noted that you felt that we perceived
your oversight as a strain on us. I want to assure you that it
is not a strain at all on us. It is your appropriate function,
and we very much welcome it and appreciate it because we are
driving towards the exact same end.
We understand our data submission thus far has been
incomplete. Please rest assured that we will continue to work
to provide all the information that you requested. I expect
that we will be able to complete this effort by the end of
July.
My staff and I will continue to work with the Subcommittee
after that point as it continues to analyze the enormous amount
of information we have already provided and we will be
continuing to provide. This was, of course, an especially large
and extensive request going back across touching three
different Administrations, across almost an entire hemisphere,
but that is not an excuse. We need to be able to get this
information better and faster than we have. It shows the
challenges inherent in overseeing a $1 billion global program
implemented by numerous services, combatant commands, and
agencies in the Department of Defense.
For instance, in compiling the requested information, we
found inconsistent records management among the various
contracting entities, that the volume of procurement actions
overwhelms staff capacity in some instances, that many of the
acquisition steps are manual processes that are both time-
consuming and error prone. Also, because the Combatant Command
(COCOMS) define and drive the mission support requirements, but
the services provide the acquisition vehicles, contract
performance monitoring has at times often been ambiguous and
inconsistent, especially as we look back over the years, over
the decades. I look forward to a continuing dialogue on these
and other issues.
Ensuring proper oversight and contract management is
absolutely essential to achieving our strategic
counternarcotics objectives. The transnational illicit drug
trade is a multi-faceted national security concern for the
United States, which my colleague David Johnson has just talked
about. It weakens the rule of law. It reduces government's
ability to address other transnational threats such as
terrorism, insurgency, organized crime, weapons and human
trafficking, money laundering, and piracy.
Many of us here recall the drug trafficking and lawlessness
of the 1980s that made ``Miami Vice'' a hit television series
during that time, going through the Caribbean into Florida. The
counternarcotics mission at that time was not a principal
mission of the Department of Defense, but the Congress
recognized that DOD's surveillance capabilities and command and
control structure was unique suited for the detection and
monitoring of illicit drug shipments bound for the United
States. DOD programs primarily implemented by U.S. Southern
Command and its Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF) have
made a tremendous impact on the drug flow directly into Florida
and to the mainland. The problem is different today as a
result.
The counternarcotics mission was once slow to be embraced
by some of our defense policymakers, it is true, but today the
Department is widely recognized as a critical component of the
National Drug Control Strategy, and JIATF-South is viewed as
really the model for regional engagement and interagency
coordination.
During the late 1990s, the Department of Defense played a
vital role in the development and implementation of Plan
Colombia. The State Department's lead by providing equipment,
information sharing, and capacity building to the Colombian
armed forces. These programs, again coordinated very closely
with the Department of State's leadership, with DEA, and USAID,
has helped the Government of Colombia increase its presence
throughout the country, reduce levels of violence, disrupt drug
production and trafficking, and dismantle drug-trafficking
organizations. These achievements have contributed to the
reductions we have seen in cocaine purity and availability in
the United States.
In Mexico, our programs are supporting President Calderon's
continuing campaign to confront rising violence fueled by drug
trafficking and other organized crime. Our support to Mexico is
implemented primarily through Northern Command and includes
training, equipment, and information sharing as well as
indirect support.
While outside the scope of the Merida Initiative that you
mentioned, the foreign assistance funding, our support
complements Merida and is closely coordinated with our
interagency partners at post and in Washington.
As the Department continues to confront extraordinarily
complex counternarcotics challenges around the world, very much
particularly in Afghanistan, it is important--it is, in fact,
critical that we apply all of the lessons that we have learned
from the efforts in the Western Hemisphere to the work that we
are doing now in our major war effort abroad.
Afghanistan presents unique challenges that are different
from what we have seen in many respects from Colombia and
elsewhere, but there are many lessons, including the
appropriate use and oversight of contractors, that must be
taken into consideration.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and
I look forward to your questions.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Mr. Wechsler.
What we are going to do, if we would go ahead and let us
just do 7-minute rounds, if we could put the clock to 7
minutes, that would be great, because I want to make sure that
everybody gets a chance to offer questions, and we can do as
many rounds as people would like.
Let me just start with a few basics. Do you know, Mr.
Johnson, how much the State Department spent on
counternarcotics contracts last year?
Mr. Johnson. The data that I have gathered in front of me
is for the period from 2000 to 2009, but we cannot disaggregate
it by year.
Senator McCaskill. Well, do you have a figure for what you
have spent over the last 10 years?
Mr. Johnson. By the principal countries in question, yes.
Bolivia, $770 million; Colombia, $4.2 billion; Peru, $900
million; Ecuador, $191 million; Guatemala, $23 million; Mexico,
$727 million; Dominican Republic, $6.9 million; Haiti, $10.7
million. Those are appropriated funds amounts.
Senator McCaskill. OK. And how much of that has been spent
on contracts?
Mr. Johnson. In the case of Colombia, $3.89 billion;
Bolivia, $726 million; Peru, $831 million.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Let me stop you here. Is there a
reason that you have this information today and that you could
not produce it for the Subcommittee so we could prepare for the
hearing?
Mr. Johnson. In the course of the work that we have done
with your staff, we initially reached out for documents that we
could provide, supporting documentation for--that was name
retrievable, and we have built up since then additional
numerals, and we are seeking the supporting document for that
as well.
Senator McCaskill. OK. So you have the numbers that you are
confident are correct for how much the State Department has
spent on counternarcotics contracts for an aggregate over 10
years, and you could easily extrapolate an annual number out of
each one of those?
Mr. Johnson. I would not extrapolate it, but I would
disaggregate it down to that.
Senator McCaskill. OK, sorry. Wrong term. And I am
wondering why you did not talk about that in your opening
statement instead of--I mean, we got to page 11 of your opening
statement before you mentioned the word ``contract.''
Mr. Johnson. I sought to put in some context the policy
objectives that we are pursuing.
Senator McCaskill. Well, let me remind you, we are here on
contracting oversight.
Mr. Johnson. I understand.
Senator McCaskill. We are not here to argue about whether
or not it is a good thing or a bad thing, although I am trying
to figure out why it is so--why we have two, and how much--I
mean, that is not the job of this Subcommittee. This
Subcommittee is about contracting oversight.
Now, do you know how many contractors you now have
currently working in Colombia? Do you know what the size of
your contracting----
Mr. Johnson. It is 598.
Senator McCaskill. Do you know the total number of
contractors you have working for State in counternarcotics?
Mr. Johnson. I could get that figure for you by country,
but I do not have it at my fingertips right now. I happen to
know the Colombia figure because it is our most mature program,
it is the one we worked hardest on to reformulate and to
nationalize with our Colombian partners, and part of that
nationalization is reducing the contractor footprint on the
ground and turning over as much as possible, as much as
appropriate, to the Colombians in a coordinated fashion.
Senator McCaskill. OK. And since now for the first time we
are getting real numbers from you as to an annual contracting
amount and how many contractors, do you have any contractor
evaluations that you can share with us today?
Mr. Johnson. I do not have any at my fingertips here, but
we are gathering that data for you.
Senator McCaskill. And why is it so hard to gather it?
Mr. Johnson. Well, as you pointed out in your opening
statement, this requires time, and we have put in time to
gather the documents and to clear the documents that we
provided you at the end of last week, some several thousand
pages that backed up the initial dollar amount, which was a
relatively small percentage of this, I recognize that. But we
were striving to provide you data that we could back up with
paper, and we are moving to the second phase of that, bringing
in, as you recognized in the letter that you sent me, the
global programs, particularly those that are administered by
our air wing at Patrick Air Force Base. And we will endeavor to
gather in all of the information that is in many different
places at our embassies abroad as well as here in order to back
up the efforts that we have underway. We feel like we have done
a good job. We know we could do a better job, and we look
forward to your helping us do that.
Senator McCaskill. Well, the bottom line is that it does
not appear--are you confident that you have evaluations on all
these contractors and that there are audits that have been done
on any of the contractors?
Mr. Johnson. I am confident that we have evaluations. I am
not going to tell you that we have audits because I do not know
that off the top of my head. I would be speculative there, and
I do not want to do that.
Senator McCaskill. Who is the person that is at the top of
the food chain on contracts that you all are doing? Or is the
problem that you--is each individual embassy entitled to
contract and there is nobody that is looking at all these
contracts to see if we are getting the performance out of these
contractors that we would hope with this kind of expenditure of
Federal funds?
Mr. Johnson. Well, the buck stops with me, but we do
authorize our embassies to engage in contracting for varying
amounts, and we have other officials that are responsible for
the implementation of the contracts that are in locations
outside of Washington that manage their contracts not on a
state-by-state basis but in a global or regional support
context. And so gathering the data, as you have requested it,
is a process that takes some time.
Senator McCaskill. Well, it does not--I guess the thing
that is worrisome to me is a request for contractor name,
contract number, extent of competition, scope of work, which
should be a pretty easy document to get because every contract
should have a scope of work.
Mr. Johnson. They do.
Senator McCaskill. It is not a contract if you do not have
a scope of work. The contract ceiling and the dollar amount
obligated. We have six spread sheets--no, excuse me. We have
one spread sheet with a tab for each of the last 10 fiscal
years. We did not get the right number, and we were not even
told that it was an incomplete number when it was given to us.
We had to point out to you that it was an incomplete number
based on other research we had done. In fact, the number we
got, somebody on my staff could have gotten in an hour in a
Google data search. Any member of the public could have gotten
it.
So, I guess what I am most concerned about is that no one
appears to be worried about value as it relates to these
contractors. It appears that these have been siloed and no one
has taken responsibility to say, hey, how are the contractors
doing? Should we be renewing these contracts? You do not have
that many. How many contractors do you have, by and large, that
are doing the bulk of the work? Isn't it like four or five?
Mr. Johnson. The bulk of the work is done by, yes, four or
five.
Senator McCaskill. OK. So, if you would have come to us and
said, hey, here is the bulk of the work done by four or five
contractors, it is going to take more time and may not be as
efficient as we would want it to be to get you every single
small contract for some kind of logistic support or whatever,
but for the five big ones, should it be this hard to get this
information?
Mr. Johnson. While there are five big contractors, as you
pointed out, there are individual statements of work and task
orders that execute the individual efforts that we have in
different countries at different times. So it is not a matter
of going to one single contractor and gathering all the data
for every single task order and every single statement of work.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Well, my time is up, but I have more
questions, and I just think, with all due respect, for you to
come and give an opening statement that is all about the policy
of counternarcotics strategy and even mentions Haiti--which has
nothing to do with what we are talking about today. We are
talking about contracting and whether or not somebody is
minding the store on contracting. And we are going to continue
to bore down until we get the answers on contracting, because I
have an uneasy feeling that if we get all the information,
there is going to be a lot more work that needs to be done on
contracting oversight at the State Department. And, Mr.
Wechsler, I have questions for you on the next round.
Senator Brown.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
It is interesting, Madam Chairman, when I first heard that
I was going to be on this Subcommittee, I said, ``Oh, gosh,
contracting. That is pretty boring.'' But with all due respect,
it is getting more and more interesting because of the things
that we have been learning about the money that is being spent
and how it is being spent and why it is being spent and how
much money is owed or we owe various contracting entities. So I
am actually very excited to be on this Subcommittee.
I am wondering, Mr. Johnson, are there any overpayments of
contracts that are outstanding with any of the four or five
major groups? Do we owe them any monies or do they owe us any
monies from any overpayments or anything like that?
Mr. Johnson. Well, I know that outside of this region there
are overpayments that we have in the provisional payment
program that we have in Afghanistan, for example. I am unaware
of any overpayments that we have calculated that are currently
outstanding. I am certain that there are bills that are pending
that we are----
Senator Brown. In the ordinary course?
Mr. Johnson. Yes.
Senator Brown. And how about any breaches of contracts from
any of these four or five entities? Are they performing all the
terms of their contracts, to the best of your knowledge?
Mr. Johnson. To the best of my knowledge, yes.
Senator Brown. And are there any outstanding terms that you
are aware of, any performance issues that we need to be
concerned about with these contracts?
Mr. Johnson. There is constant oversight of these
contracts, and there is constant work with the contractors to
address issues on a daily basis. So I am sure that there are
some things that are being done every day, but----
Senator Brown. Nothing major that would warrant us learning
more about it?
Mr. Johnson. I am sure that some of these would be of
interest, but they are at the individual embassy level.
Senator Brown. OK. One of my concerns is I just want to
make sure we are spending our money properly, that it is
properly accounted for, etc. And I know in our April 15 hearing
on the Afghan National Police, that contract administered by
the State Department which you just referenced a little bit, we
inquired into the lack of oversight made possible by the
inadequate number of In-country Contracting Officer
Representatives the (ICOR) who are responsible for monitoring
and inspecting the contractors' performance on the ground. Can
you reassure this Subcommittee that the problems in contract
administration are not occurring in other regions like Latin
America and in the Caribbean?
Mr. Johnson. The contracting work that we are doing in
Latin America is much more mature, and it operates in a much
more benign environment than we have had in Iraq and
Afghanistan. So we have been able to build in contracting
oversight as we built up these programs. We have a number of
our people who are trained that are administering the
contracting contract oversight as well as quality assurance
managers that are individually assigned to the major countries,
for example, six in Colombia, three in Bolivia. We have two
Contracting Officer Representatives (COR) in Mexico and one
contracting officer in order to provide direct oversight there.
Senator Brown. And are you able to delineate for the
Subcommittee the number of ICORs or personnel on the ground in-
country responsible for contract surveillance, for example, in
Colombia and in Mexico?
Mr. Johnson. Yes. The individual--the numerals that I just
cited for you, that is their responsibility.
Senator Brown. OK, great. The Administration's fiscal year
2011 budget request includes $36 billion less for contractors,
which, as you noted, is a 5-percent decline for the current
year. Based on this reduction, is the Department of State and
DOD realigning the strategies or are you going to be able to
fit within that framework?
Mr. Johnson. In certain of the programs for which I am
responsible, for example, Colombia, which has had a large
dollar amount dedicated to contracting over time, the
appropriation itself is declining as Colombia has engaged in a
nationalization program with us. So within that, we are able to
reduce.
Likewise, in Mexico, the appropriations which have been
provided over the last three appropriation cycles have been
dedicated in significant measure to large acquisitions for
aircraft, data processing equipment, things of that nature;
whereas, as we look into the out-years, we are looking more at
capacity-building efforts which will not require the same sums
of money and in significant measure will be implemented through
interagency agreements by our partners who are providing direct
training.
Senator Brown. Great. And this is obviously for you, Mr.
Wechsler, this next question. What is the status of the
transition of the U.S. support programs to the Colombian
Government? And, in turn, I would like maybe both of you to
comment, and then I will turn it over to the next Senator to
speak. And what lessons learned have we learned, what lessons
learned have we gained through our experience in Colombia and
with transitioning a U.S. function to the host country that may
be applied to our new situation in Afghanistan?
Mr. Wechsler. Thank you very much. It is an exceedingly
important question. There are a great number of functions that
are being transferred, that have been transferred to the
Government of Colombia and are being transferred to the
Government of Colombia and still some capacity that the
Government of Colombia needs to build in and of itself. But the
fascinating thing for me compared to the last time I was in
government at the end of the Clinton Administration when Plan
Colombia was beginning--this statistic will always stick in my
mind--is that two-thirds of the Colombian people at the time
thought that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC)
was going to take Bogota. Now the FARC is a shadow of what it
was. The effort is not over. But the end result is that
Colombia is now an exporter of security and helps us regionally
and even outside the region to export security based on the
capacities that they have built in part with our assistance and
that we have transferred to them.
Amongst the lessons that are critical to learn from a
policy perspective is that this takes a long period of time. We
cannot think in terms of years. We cannot think in terms of
certainly news cycles. But we have to think in terms of a
decade, quite often, to have this kind of impact for the full
range of transition of the services from building them in the
beginning to them being an exporter of security, which means we
need steady, consistent efforts in these areas.
Another thing that I would suggest where we have had the
most success is where we have a whole-of-government effort on
our side, and Colombia is probably one of our better examples
of that whole-of-government approach to these issues.
And then I think that there are also, again, back to the
purpose of this Subcommittee especially--and, again, I am more
than happy, in fact, very eager to talk about matters of
policy, but I know that this Subcommittee is talking about
contracting. I do believe that there are lessons to be learned
from contracting during this whole effort from this era as we
look back. And, again, as we have begun looking back even
before this Subcommittee hearing, but especially in conjunction
with the task required for this Subcommittee and our work that
I look forward to doing and continuing with this Subcommittee,
there are lessons to be learned, lessons to be drawn about the
requirement for very clear and concise requirements give by the
COCOMs and oversight by the services, by the contracting
offices, providing the necessary oversight that is required. In
some cases, this worked well. In some cases, this did not seem
to work as well as it should. And what we want to do is make
sure that we have those lessons and we apply them to
Afghanistan where we are doing the reviews of these programs as
well there, and we find also some things are working very well,
some things are not, and we want to make sure that the things
that are not working well are working better. And I am happy to
talk to you about some of the things that we have done in that
area as well.
I hope I have answered your question.
[Pause.]
Senator Brown. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator McCaskill. Senator Pryor.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mr. Johnson, I am going to put you back in the hot seat
here for just a minute. Could you give the Subcommittee just a
very brief, 30-second overview of what we are talking about in
the contracting world? What do you contract for? And who do you
contract with?
Mr. Johnson. We contract significantly for civilian police
services, a global contract, which is a delivery indefinite,
quantity contract.
Senator Pryor. Is that a private security firm you are
talking about?
Mr. Johnson. There are three current qualified bidders
under this for task orders under this contract: Civilian Police
International, a division of L3; Pacific Architects and
Engineers, which was acquired, I believe, about a year ago by
Lockheed Martin, was formerly an independent company; and
DynCorp International. We have other contracting relationships
as well. That is by far the largest dollar amount because, in
addition to that, DynCorp is a successful bidder on our global
aviation contract.
Senator Pryor. OK. You mentioned before that there are
maybe four or five companies that do the bulk of the work. Are
these competitive bids?
Mr. Johnson. The Civilian Police contract that I mentioned
is a competitive bid. That contract has been extended several
times, but there is an request for proposal (RFP) on the street
right now. Bids are due June 1. It is my hope and it has been
my ambition since I took this job to broaden the pool of
contractors that we could work with. I think that three is too
few, if you will, and would like to enhance our ability to
compete them against one another.
Senator Pryor. You mentioned three companies. What are the
other one or two or three that also do the bulk of the work?
Mr. Johnson. A small amount of the work but an important
amount is done by an Alaska Native company that provides some
individual services for us, and Lockheed Martin has provided
some services as well.
In addition, one of the more successful efforts we have had
during the period of time we are talking about is currently
using the contracting capability of the Department of the Army
and reaching to its eight contractors, I think, that it can
work with on our behalf for some acquisition of goods.
Senator Pryor. And, Mr. Wechsler, is it true with the
contracting you do that you usually work with four or five or
six contractors?
Mr. Wechsler. Yes. We work with a great number, but there
is a group that receives the majority of the resources.
Senator Pryor. Is it the same group that the State
Department uses?
Mr. Wechsler. Well, for instance, in South and Central
America, looking back at this period over the last decade,
according to the data that we have collected thus far--and I
always want to stress that because, as I said in my opening
statement, we are continuing to work on this. We have collected
an awful lot of the data, but there is more for us to collect.
But according to the data that we have collected thus far, the
top ones are DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, ITT,
and King Aerospace.
Senator Pryor. OK. We have seen problems in Latin America
with corruption in government--in fact, we are, unfortunately,
starting to see corruption even in our government with border
security personnel because of the Mexican drug cartels, which
is very disturbing. But how do you know that these contractors
are not corrupted? Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. The way that we have worked with them in order
to guard against that is to have an active conversation with
them about their own internal control procedures, and as we
discover challenges to that, to bring them to their attention
and to seek improvements. All three of the ones that we are
working with currently are public companies so that they are
required to have the accounting procedures under Sarbanes-
Oxley, which is a safeguard that we think is important. And it
is a constant effort to work with them on this issue.
I think that the use of contractors that are this size
gives us some internal controls that are important, but this is
not something that you fire and forget, if you will. I work
actively and have an ongoing conversation with senior
management with these companies whenever any problem is drawn
to my attention.
Senator Pryor. Let me just say this on behalf of the
Subcommittee. I do not want to speak for any individual, but I
think there is an institutional concern here, and that is,
Senator McCaskill talked about how you have not been
forthcoming with a lot of documentation, and apparently the
Chairman has been determined to try to get as much information
from you as possible, and that has not really been forthcoming.
And what that does, at least in my mind, is it raises a
question about how on top of this you really are.
You talk about how you have these procedures in place and
this, that, and the other, but if you cannot provide us with
the documentation and the numbers and the details of some of
the contracts and some of the requests that the Subcommittee
has made, it raises a question, in my mind, about how much you
really are overseeing these contracts. So that is another
reason why I hope you will get us the documentation very
quickly.
I also want to follow up on Senator Brown's question about
whether these companies are fulfilling their contracts. Your
testimony a few moments ago was that they are fulfilling the
terms of the contract, they are not breaching the contracts?
Mr. Johnson. I do not have any evidence that they are
breaching the terms of the contract, but we work with them
constantly to make sure that they are fulfilling the
requirements of the individual task orders under these
contracts. I think that is where my attention goes.
Senator Pryor. I know that one of the things that Senator
McCain has spent a lot of his time on since he has been in the
Senate is contracting and making sure that the terms of the
contracts are fulfilled. In his work on the Armed Services
Committee and through other places we have learned that there
are many examples of government contracts where the low bidder
wins, but then once you get into the contract, they either
cannot comply with all the terms or they seek more money or a
longer amount of time to do the work that they originally
bargained for.
Do you find that is occurring in these contracts as well?
Mr. Johnson. I know of instances where under individual
task orders we have not been, shall we say, completely
satisfied that the company has provided the individuals that we
needed to perform in a training mission, but that is something
that we address with them as aggressively as we possibly can.
Senator Pryor. And I know that one of the things--again,
not to take Senator McCain's thunder because he has been a
leader on this for a long time, but just the overall cost
overruns of contracts are a great concern to us, where you may
get into some sort of military procurement of a weapons system
or whatever it may be, and you think you are going to spend X,
and by the end of the contract, you are really spending maybe
double or triple that.
Do you see those large cost overruns in these contracts?
Mr. Johnson. I think that we face, if you will, a slightly
different kind of problem because we do not tend to be buying
equipment which is in the new design phase, right at the
cutting edge, where there is more of an opportunity and a
challenge on that.
Where we do have a problem is having allocated funds for a
particular service, does it really achieve the objective we are
trying to achieve? And that is where I think we can be properly
attentive to knowing whether the way the program is designed,
the people that have been brought on board are actually doing
what we need to have done.
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Senator Pryor. Senator
McCain, welcome. We are glad to see you here.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you
for holding this hearing and for your continued zealous work on
behalf of the taxpayers of this country. I am very grateful.
Mr. Wechsler, I was struck by a comment that you made in
your written statement. I think it really authenticates the
reasoning for this hearing. You said in your written statement,
``In compiling the information requested by the Subcommittee
for this hearing, my office found inconsistent records
management among the various contracting entities, found that
the volume of procurement actions overwhelms staff capacity in
some instances, and found that many of the acquisition steps
are manual processes that are both time-consuming and error
prone.''
What would have happened if we had not called for this
hearing? Would those practices have simply continued?
Mr. Wechsler. The answer is no, Senator. This hearing, as I
said in my opening oral statement, is quite timely and quite
helpful because it dovetails completely with efforts that I
have made since I came into office over the last year. These
things that we have discovered in the course of this review
have mirrored things that we have discovered in the course of
our own reviews that have been going on, again, since I took
office.
We have discovered a number of areas in which processes can
be improved, a number of times where things have worked exactly
the way you want them to work, but there have been far too many
times when information that I want I have not been able to
receive as rapidly as I need to receive it; when I look into
the contracts, I do not get the clarity that I need to see or I
do not get the After Action Report that I need to see; and I do
not want to be one of these appointees that only looks at
things from their moment on, but I want to look at what
happened before me so that I can get the lessons that are
learned for what we are doing now.
I will give just one example, sir, one that I know is very
dear to your heart. My first trip abroad when I took this job
was to Afghanistan, of course. One of the things that we do
there is a significant amount of work with the Drug Enforcement
Administration to train up the Afghans, special vetted units of
the Afghan counternarcotics police in order to work alongside
the U.S. military in the campaigns that we are doing today. And
those programs, by the way, do involve a number of U.S.
Government personnel, but also involve some contracting
personnel, and those programs are working quite well, by and
large. However, when I turn to the contracts and the efforts
that were done to train the wider counternarcotics police,
these were not nearly as effective.
And I would say, Senator Pryor, with your question earlier,
when you were asking about do contractors execute what is asked
of them, I think that is an excellent question. Of course,
there are lot of laws and processes that are designed to get
that, but that is not the only question about did they check
the boxes and do everything. Are they effective at the end of
the day? And the efforts to train the counternarcotics police,
the wider counternarcotics police, were not nearly as
effective.
One of the things that I discover when I was there was that
Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) did
not have an individual development cell designed for the
counternarcotics police, which is a different effort, of
course, than the wider police.
I talked with the leadership there. Now they have a cell.
We relooked at the program, including the contracting program,
changed some elements of it. I was just out there a few weeks
ago, and I was impressed at the path that they are on.
So that is the kind of approach that I am taking both in
conjunction with the efforts driven by this Subcommittee, but
also outside of that, preceding that, and continuing after
this.
Senator McCain. All right. Well, let me just say that in
your written statement, Contract Oversight Issues/Way Forward,
you highlighted many of the problems that you have found, but
there is very little, frankly, in your written statement as to
what actions you have taken to cure these problems. Could you
submit for the record the steps that you have taken to cure
these problems, because I think you have correctly identified
them, but I do not see specific steps that are being taken.
Perhaps I missed them. But maybe you could provide them in a
succinct fashion for the benefit of the Subcommittee.
Mr. Wechsler, in your written testimony, you made an
interesting statement that many people may not fully comprehend
or may not be as aware of as they should be, ``Terrorists
associated with Islamic Radical Groups (IRGs) . . . as well as
narcoterrorist groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), operate sophisticated networks designed to
move not only weapons, drugs, and other materials, but people
as well. A wealth of intelligence reporting has linked many IRG
members to both drug trafficking and alien smuggling. . . .
Such trafficking, in which terrorists with transnational reach
commonly engage, is a present and growing danger to the
security of the United States, our forces abroad, and our
allies.''
That is a very strong statement, Mr. Wechsler. Do you
believe that the IRG or FARC are working with the Mexican drug
cartels or foreign governments such as Venezuela?
Mr. Wechsler. It is an excellent question. The first thing
that I would state is that there is far too much for my level
of comfort that we do not know about all these questions.
The second thing I would say is that what we----
Senator McCain. Mr. Wechsler, I do not have a lot of time.
I would like a direct answer. Do you believe that IRG or FARC
are working with the Mexican drug cartels or foreign
governments such as Venezuela?
Mr. Wechsler. Just yesterday, I believe, in Spain, there
was a judge that produced information that was quite
fascinating about Venezuela's role----
Senator McCain. With ETA, yes.
Mr. Wechsler. Exactly. The connections between these
entities are often quite larger than we appreciate.
Senator McCain. Mr. Wechsler, for the third time, I am
going to ask you, do you believe--I would like a yes or no
answer and then you may elaborate, OK?
Mr. Wechsler. The answer is no to your entire question
because you said Mexico. I do not see the connection between
the IRGs and Mexico.
Senator McCain. I said Mexican drug cartels or foreign
governments.
Mr. Wechsler. Or foreign governments, yes. Venezuela, as I
just referenced--it was the Mexican one that I do not have the
evidence in front of me at present.
Senator McCain. And that means that Islamic radical groups
could be coming across our southern border if the drug cartels
and human smugglers are working with them?
Mr. Wechsler. Again, there is a lot that we do not know
about these problems, but you are absolutely right to be asking
these questions because there is an awful lot that we do not
know about these issues. I have not seen, again, the
connections between the Islamic terrorists and the IRGC and the
Mexican drug cartels. That is the area that I have not seen
evidence for. But it does not mean that it does not exist. It
means that we need to investigate it.
Senator McCain. And if you say that it is a ``present and
growing danger to the security of the United States''--I am
quoting from your statement--does that influence your opinion
as to whether the National Guard should be deployed to secure
the border?
Mr. Wechsler. What we do on the border--it does influence
my opinion. It does influence my opinion about what needs to be
done on the border. Whether the National Guard is the right
tool to be used is a question that comes from--that is a
separate question. But it does indeed influence the decision
about how we need to approach our border, indeed.
Senator McCain. Mr. Wechsler, I have been around here a
long time, and I would like straight answers. In other words,
do you believe that we need the National Guard on the border or
not in light of a present and growing danger?
Mr. Wechsler. I personally think that the National Guard is
not the right tool for a lot of reasons on the border. I think
that there are elements of the National Guard that play an
especially important role in what we do on the border that my
office funds. My office funds an awful lot of the deployments
of the National Guard to the border. Those elements of the
border, of what we do on the border, I support wholeheartedly.
There are other proposals for what the National Guard might do
on the border that I think would be not the appropriate use of
the National Guard on the border.
Senator McCain. If I may interpret your answer, some
elements of the National Guard on the border would be helpful.
Mr. Wechsler. We already do that. Yes, sir. I pay for it
out of my budget. There are deployments that we go down to do
that on a regular basis, and those are quite valuable, indeed.
Senator McCain. Thank you. Do you believe that the UAVs
have been beneficial and perhaps more use of them would help in
our effectiveness?
Mr. Wechsler. I think we cannot get enough UAVs around the
world, indeed.
Senator McCain. Do you think that the Mexican Government in
its struggle with the drug cartels--and I realize this one is a
tough question--is winning or losing that struggle?
Mr. Wechsler. It is a tough question. I believe that it
is--and, again, I know you more than others appreciate how
challenging that question is. And I do not mean to be evasive
on this.
Senator McCain. I understand this is a tough question.
Mr. Wechsler. But I do want to say that when I look at
whether you are winning or losing, the first question that I
ask is: Do they have the right policy and approach? The next
questions is: Do they have the right structure? Do they have
the right people? Do they have the right resources? But the
first question is: Do they have the right policy and approach?
And President Calderon has the right policy and approach. He
has brought the fight to the drug-trafficking organizations in
a way that we have not seen before in Mexico. And he has
brought some tools to this fight in a way that we have never
seen before in Mexico.
Senator McCain. And we have increased the Plan Merida and
all of those things.
Mr. Wechsler. Right.
Senator McCain. What do you think the outcome has been so
far?
Mr. Wechsler. So far we have not seen an outcome yet. We
have seen some tactical evidence of success from time to time,
but it is not the case that they have solved this problem or
are even in a place where we see it in the immediate horizon. I
compare this much more closely to the earlier stages of Plan
Colombia, and I think that--and perhaps this is where you are
going with this, and I had mentioned this a little bit in my
opening statement. One of the challenges for the United States
more generally is that we have very short time horizons for
problem sets that have very long time horizons. This is a
problem set that has a long time horizon and requires as much
longer time horizon that, in fact, I think we have given it
previously. And it requires consistent--and only at the end of
that long horizon are we going to be able to say that we have
won.
Senator McCain. I am way over time and I apologize, Madam
Chairman, but let me just say that if you gauge success or lack
of success in the number of Mexican citizens killed in this
struggle with the drug cartels, you can certainly reach the
conclusion that they are not winning. Would you agree with
that?
Mr. Wechsler. By that judgment, there is absolutely no
question. You are correct, sir.
Senator McCain. I thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Mr. Wechsler, in the 10-year period, you say, between 1999
and 2009, the Defense Department spent $5.3 billion in
counternarcotics programs, and then, I am quoting, ``. . . it
is estimated that 18 percent . . . was expended towards
contractor support.'' I am concerned that you have to estimate
that figure.
Mr. Wechsler. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. And I am even more concerned that you
had to hire a contractor to help you estimate that figure.
Mr. Wechsler. Yes.
Senator McCaskill. So, first, I want to point out that we
do not know for sure because you are estimating. That needs to
go to the top of the list problem. And walk me through the
decisionmaking process. You get a notice from this Subcommittee
that we are going to look into contracting in counternarcotics
work in this hemisphere, and walk me through the process where
somebody says, ``Hire a contractor to do it.'' Is this common?
Does the Defense Department hire contractors to prepare them
for hearings all the time?
I think you understand the line of questioning. The reason
this hearing is important is because, as you candidly admitted
in your testimony, as Senator McCain pointed out--and I admire
you for your candor--in fact, this hearing helped you realize
that you have a problem.
Now, if in fact, people at the Pentagon are hiring
contractors to take care of hearings, how do we ever get
through to that maze of a bureaucracy that they have a
management problem? Should we pass something in the defense
authorization this year that says you cannot hire contractors
to help you prepare for oversight hearings?
Mr. Wechsler. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me get to
all your questions because your questions are, of course,
critically important to us.
It is an estimate, first and foremost, and the reason why
it is an estimate--and I want to be clear about what we have
done for you and what we have not done for you yet--is we have
not received all of the information. There are some elements--
again, we are going back 10 years, 15 acquisition and
contracting components, Outside the Continental United States
(OCONUS), COCOMs, services, defense agencies, National Guard
Bureaus, all their contracting offices, we have done over 2,000
independent actions thus far going across, again, three
Administrations. This is in no way to excuse this situation.
This is merely an explanation of the scope and what we are
doing.
As you know, we went back immediately, when we got your
letter, to seek some clarity about narrowing or focusing or
trying to understand how we could best help it. You said you
wanted the entire thing. We said, great, we will do it. We then
went through the process and tried to figure out how we could
best go forward and provide this information to you. And,
frankly, this gets to your next question. And just from a
personal perspective, the last time I was in the Department of
Defense was in 1995 when I served directly for General
Shalikashvili. When I came back into the Department of Defense,
there were a lot of things that were different, and a lot of
things for the better. But, frankly, one of the things that
struck me immediately was the increased reliance on contractors
compared to what I had seen personally from my previous
experience, including in my own office as it was presented to
me.
One thing that was presented to me, just for example, was
that the person who was responsible for legislative affairs in
my office was a contractor. This I thought was entirely
inappropriate. That person is no longer with my office. But it
is important to understand where we have been and where we are
going.
When I arrived over a year ago--and I want to get
immediately to your question, but this is----
Senator McCaskill. Do it quickly.
Mr. Wechsler. We recognized the need for a more permanent
workforce. What had happened under previous leadership, under
the last Administration, and, frankly, under the first half to
6 years of the last Administration, whenever a vacancy had
occurred in my office that does oversight over contracts and
budgets, the billet was almost always taken and reallocated to
other organizations. It was backfilled by detailees and some
contractors. This is not an appropriate way to be overseeing
these kinds of efforts, and my office has shrunk as a result.
As I said before, we are conducting an oversight review. I
have already gotten approval from Under Secretary Flournoy, who
shares completely my concerns about this area, about a new
process to, as rapidly as possible, build out my office,
focusing it first and foremost on my budget program and
evaluation area, where the evaluation side of this, as I look
back in history, was not done nearly as effectively as I would
like, and to build out that staff.
Quite frankly, we are not there yet. I saw when Secretary
Gates publicly complained that it took so many four-star
reviews before he could send a small team out to somebody. I am
on the other side of that, and it takes an awful lot through
the Pentagon bureaucracy for me to build out the staff that I
need.
But we are pushing as rapidly as possible in doing that and
to build up the staff, and I have a new legislative affairs
person, and we are working quickly to convert people from
contractors to permanent government staff in that regard.
But when we started this in February, we simply did not
have the staff.
Senator McCaskill. OK.
Mr. Wechsler. And so that is why we went the direction that
we did.
Senator McCaskill. Answer this question, if you can.
Believe me, we now know you have been there--you were there in
1995--you have to try to not talk quite so long because I have
got a lot of questions. You are going to be here a long time if
you keep talking so long.
Mr. Wechsler. Sure, OK.
Senator McCaskill. It is just going to prolong the pain,
because I am not going anywhere until I get all these questions
answered.
Mr. Wechsler. Senator, I am here as long as you want me to
be.
Senator McCaskill. We do not need to hear again that you
were there in 1995 and you are back and things have changed.
You can just try to hone in. Let me hone in on the question
here.
Is it common--and I have a feeling you are the kind of guy
that knows this, and I am asking you for your impression. Is it
common for people in the Pentagon to hire contractors to help
them prepare for oversight hearings? Is that common?
Mr. Wechsler. I have never hired a contractor to prepare
for oversight hearings before.
Senator McCaskill. Are you aware of others that are hiring
contractors to----
Mr. Wechsler. I am not aware myself of anybody doing it,
but probably legislative affairs would be helpful for you.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you. I am going to try to do one
more question before I turn it over to Senator Brown.
Let me ask you about the Alaska Native Corporation (ANC).
As you may or may not know, I am focused on ANCs and the
ridiculous stature they have in contracting in the Federal
Government, the notion they can be as big as they want, they do
not have to compete, and they can front is offensive to me. I
know that an ANC received over $16 million in contracts from
the State Department 2005 to 2008. Olgoonik, an ANC. Let me ask
you first--and I think I know the answer to it. I am willing to
bet these contracts were not competed.
Mr. Johnson. That is correct.
Senator McCaskill. OK. And why would it be necessary to not
compete these contracts? Were they not competed because you do
not have to because they are ANCs or because there was a
legitimate reason for them not to be competed?
Mr. Johnson. We were looking rapidly for the service to be
provided, and we consulted with our acquisitions personnel, and
they advised us that this would be an appropriate way to pursue
rapidly to acquire these services.
Senator McCaskill. And this is the ironic part about this.
Last month, the State Department officials told the
Subcommittee staff that the Department paid Olgoonik, the
Alaska Native corporation, to provide local Colombian employees
to various Colombian ministries. So we are hiring an Alaska
Native corporation to go to Colombia to identify Colombian
employees for the Colombian Government to hire, and for that
reason we do not need to compete a contract?
Mr. Johnson. We were looking for something that we could
rapidly deploy, and this was----
Senator McCaskill. What would happen if ANCs did not have
this vaunted status of not ever having to compete for a
contract?
Could you have legitimized this as a sole-source were it
not for the fact that an ANC got the contract?
Mr. Johnson. I do not know.
Senator McCaskill. I would like to know the answer to that
question.
Mr. Johnson. I will give you an answer to that. I do not
want to speculate.
Senator McCaskill. Because I am determined to ferret out
every opportunity I can to point out that ANCs are getting non-
compete contracts across the Federal Government for no good
reason, and the vast majority of those or the vast majority of
people doing the work have nothing to do with the Alaska Native
corporation. And so I would appreciate a followup on that.
Senator Brown.
Senator Brown. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
When you say rapidly deploy, what is the time frame we are
talking about?
Mr. Johnson. Senator, I would need to get you that data,
but in order to carry out a full, fair, and open competition,
it is a multi-month process, and we were looking to, I am told,
address an issue where we were unable appropriately and rapidly
to bring these services on board locally, and this was a
vehicle through which we could do it.
Senator Brown. Right, because I am sharing the Chairman's
concern, the failure to compete, and everything is always in a
rush around here. We have got to rush, rush, rush. Everyone is
an emergency. And then you say, well, you had to rapidly deploy
in order to deal with the concern. Well, what is rapidly
deploy? Is it a month? Is it 6 months? Is it a year? So I would
like to have an idea of what typical scenarios would be about
rapid deployment, because it seems that if it is a rapid
deployment situation, then we need to go this way versus
another way. So if you could zero in on that and get back to
us.
Mr. Johnson. I shall.
Senator Brown. And this is for both of you. Beginning in
2000, Congress placed ceilings, as you know, on military and
U.S. citizen contractors who can be in Colombia in support of
Plan Colombia. I was wondering, does this cap on those
contractors in Colombia hinder the performance to achieve your
mission objectives, or did it hinder your performance
objectives? Flip a coin.
Mr. Johnson. Since I have already pressed the button, I
will take the coin and be brief.
It is possible. I do not know whether that had an impact in
the early period of time, but I know now we are working quickly
to nationalize those programs, particularly with the Colombian
military, and not with the objective of staying under that
ceiling. It has had the collateral benefit of that, but in
order to take account of the fact that Colombia has made
extraordinary strides and that the continuing level of support
that we have provided in the early part of Plan Colombia for
the Colombian military is not really needed or appropriate now,
and we need to turn those items and those responsibilities over
to the Colombians.
Mr. Wechsler. Yes, I am going to have to defer. I am happy
to look into the tactical questions about in 2001 and 2002,
whether there was an impact on a tactical basis. I can say from
my own personal perspective, from a strategic level, the limits
that the Congress put in working with then Under Secretary Tom
Pickering collaboratively on our efforts in Colombia I
personally think worked out for the better and helped focus the
strategic thinking at the initial stages of Plan Colombia. That
was the part that I am personally familiar with. I thought it
was a positive effort.
Senator Brown. Do you think the caps will have any effect
on the ability to accomplish the objectives in Afghanistan?
Either one.
Mr. Johnson. It has not affected the work that I am
responsible for doing at this point.
Senator Brown. OK.
Mr. Johnson. I think anything into the future is really
speculative as the situation there evolves.
Senator Brown. Yes. As you know, I just got back, and I
wanted to see if putting a ceiling would have an effect on that
mission.
Let me just shift gears for a minute. As the Chairman
mentioned in her opening statement, I was wondering, there is a
fundamental question that must be asked by our program managers
prior to any decision to initiate a procurement action, is
identifying the objectives of the acquisition and the program
in determining how to successfully measure the progress towards
that objective. I am wondering, what are some key patent reform
measures that we in Congress can track towards determining if
counternarcotic strategies are being successful? That would be
for both of you.
Mr. Johnson. For my part, I think it is important to look
at the objectives beyond the contract itself. For example, in
Colombia, for reasons which I am sure made a great deal of
sense at the time, the original objective was focused on the
amount of coca under production and cocaine exiting Colombia.
Strides have been made in that area, but the original objective
which was set, which was cutting it by 50 percent by a year
certain, was not met.
On the other hand, if you look at the strategic objective
that we had of changing Colombia from a state under threat to
one which is an exporter of security, we have done extremely
well there. And I think that by any measure the efforts that
have been made through these contracting mechanisms have made a
fundamental contribution to that, particularly by providing the
ability of the Colombian state to reach into areas which it was
previously not able to and were ungoverned.
Senator Brown. Do you have a comment on that at all?
Mr. Wechsler. Yes, this is a topic very near to my heart.
As Ambassador Johnson said, there are strategic-level
approaches to this, but on each and every contract and each and
every program, we need to have specific program metrics that do
not just measure inputs but measure outputs. In some cases
these exist, but in many cases these do not.
We have just recently issued standard operating procedures
for our new CN performance metric system to our COCOMs, and we
are working with each and every COCOM to develop individual
metrics, some of which will be global in nature because of
their nature, but many of which will be specifically designed
for a given program or even for a given country.
Just last week, I had my Program Objectives Memorandum
(POM) reviews for the fiscal year 2012 budget process where I
worked with every one of the combat-and-commands, and we had a
special session exactly on these metrics and how we were going
to develop them for each program going forward. So this is a
critical question that you raise.
Senator Brown. Thanks. Did you really spend $50,000 to get
ready for this hearing?
Mr. Wechsler. I want to be clear about this. It is not to
get ready for this hearing. It is to get the information that
you asked for.
Senator Brown. To get ready for the hearing.
Mr. Wechsler. Yes. I mean, my staff can brief me for the
hearing, but to pull over 10 years of data from 15 different
Department of Defense agencies across three Administrations
with thousands and thousands of different contracts, given the
state of the offices I described, we absolutely--I did not have
two extra people that could work on this. I had to bring in two
extra people. I cannot hire them immediately, so all I could do
is hire them in as contractors.
Senator Brown. So basically 25 grand for a month, so
somebody made 25 grand for the month to do this?
Mr. Wechsler. Two and a half people did.
Senator Brown. Two and a half people. If I may just ask one
more question?
Senator McCaskill. Sure.
Senator Brown. Thanks. Contracting and budgeting as it
comes to eradication--in Colombia, there was a lot of work,
time, and money spent to help eradicate drugs, cocaine, and
everything in Colombia. Is there a plan, a contracting or
budgeting plan, Mr. Johnson, regarding the eradication of
poppies in Afghanistan? Because I can tell you, I was there,
and from here to the Russell Building outside the Forward
Operating Base (FOB) there were poppy fields in full bloom. Is
there a contracting or budgeting plan for that you are aware
of?
Mr. Johnson. The critical distinction is that the
Colombians welcomed and asked for and facilitated our work to
provide an eradication effort, and they thought and continue to
think it plays a significant role in their ability to extend
the governance over their country.
For historical reasons, we do not have any support in
Afghanistan for the use of herbicides delivered in any way,
shape, or form, and so we are working toward dealing with this
problem through other means, principally through providing
alternative livelihoods for individuals who might be there, as
well as having a massive interdiction program. The Drug
Enforcement Administration has its largest contingent of people
anywhere abroad now in Afghanistan.
Senator Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Senator Brown.
Let me follow up a little bit on the metrics, and let me
follow up with some of the things that you just said, Mr.
Johnson, about Colombia. You indicated that the original
performance metric of decreasing production by 50 percent at a
time certain was not accomplished. In fact, I think that in
October 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found
that from 2000 to 2006, Colombian cultivation of coca actually
increased during that period of time, and that cocaine
production also increased. And I understand that. What you
basically said is the rule of law and the strengthening of the
Colombia Government as it relates to rule of law has been a
success, cocaine production and amount of cocaine production
not so much?
Mr. Johnson. I think the amount of cocaine and the amount
of cocaine production and the area under cultivation and the
yields have, in fact, declined, and the decline has been
significant. But it has not by any means been what was
originally projected or sought as a goal.
It has played, according to our evaluation and according to
the Colombians, a significant role in allowing them to extend
the rule of law and to deprive the FARC of a means of
livelihood and sustenance.
Senator McCaskill. OK. As you look at that, have there been
ongoing attempts over the last decade since the strengthening
of the rule of law has worked well, maybe not as well as the
original plans to diminish the amount of production, were
resources shifted from eradication and trafficking work to rule
of law?
Mr. Johnson. I would broaden it beyond ``rule of law,'' and
I think it has to do with really the extension of the ability
of the Colombian state to govern, to provide governing
services, not just----
Senator McCaskill. Governance and rule of law.
Mr. Johnson. Including rule of law, but I think if you
focus exclusively on that, you miss a big part of the issue.
Senator McCaskill. Well, I guess I am confused. You think
the counternarcotics budget and the amount of money spent on
contractors for counternarcotics in Colombia is what
strengthened governance and the underlying rule of law?
Mr. Johnson. I think it played a major role in providing
the space for the other programs to work. I do.
Senator McCaskill. OK. And that has worked?
Mr. Johnson. We believe that it has substantially worked.
Senator McCaskill. So are we going to be dramatically
cutting back the amount of money we spend on eradication and
production problems down there in the coming years?
Mr. Johnson. We have been significantly stepping down over
time. I think that we will be devoting more and more of our
effort to supporting the Colombians in manual eradication
programs. But I think if you look at the geography of Colombia
and the transportation routes and the ability of the government
under any conceivable scenario to extend its reach over the
entire country, there is going to be a continuing role for
aerial eradication well into the future.
Senator McCaskill. In 2003, as you know, Congress passed a
law saying that we should transfer counternarcotics contracts
in Colombia away from contractors and to Colombia nationals.
According to the reports to Congress that our staff has
reviewed, the Department has not fully transferred any of those
activities in Colombia. Is that accurate?
Mr. Johnson. I think I would like to have an opportunity to
go over our documentation with your staff because I think that
there are some places where we have, if you will, fully turned
over things. But this is an ongoing effort, and it is not one
that we slacked away from. We anticipate that, in terms of the
support of the funds under my Administration, we would be
looking to conclude our support significantly and eventually
entirely for the Colombian military. But we look to the
Colombian police as a long-term partner that we would work with
well into the future. And our colleagues at the Department of
Defense, of course, would continue with their engagement and
through the foreign military financing and sales program to
continue an engagement with the Colombian military as well.
Senator McCaskill. In 2004, Congress limited the number of
contractors in Colombia. Has that limitation been helpful or
has it been a harmful policy? And is that a way to get at this
as somebody who continues to be frustrated, or what Mr.
Wechsler talked about, that is that we have just exploded
contracting without appropriate oversight or personnel to keep
track of it in this government over the last decade? Should we
start setting a number on how many contractors are allowed in-
country?
Mr. Johnson. Well, in the case of Colombia, as I mentioned
earlier, we have cut that figure in half, from 1,200 to
slightly under 600.
Senator McCaskill. But the law required you to do that. The
law says that you had to limit the number of contractors
allowed in Colombia to 600. I do not think that--I mean, I am
assuming you did it because the law told you you had to?
Mr. Johnson. Well, we would have done it, whether we
thought it was a great idea, because the law told us that we
had to. But we have been engaged in that period of time in a
program that we refer to a nationalization, which is turn these
responsibilities and these programs over to the Colombians
during the course of that period of time.
Senator McCaskill. Do you think it would be helpful for us
to do a number limitation on contractors in other environments
around the world?
Mr. Johnson. Speaking for myself, I think maintaining some
flexibility in that area makes more sense than a rigidity. But
I know that will require an active interaction with you and
your staff to make sure that we are following the ideas that
you think are appropriate in terms of shrinking the contractor
footprint worldwide.
We are looking at ways to do that. I read newspapers. I
know that this has changed. We are looking at ways to engage
more fully with our State and local authorities for the
provision of police training, for example, where there might
not be a Federal solution, and by so doing, we would be cutting
into some things that we have traditionally done through only a
contractor solution.
On the other hand, as I look at that as a model, I am still
thinking that I am going to certainly need significant
contractor support for life support for these individuals in
environments which might be quite challenging.
Senator McCaskill. Don't misunderstand the view that I hold
about contracting. It is not the number of contractors that
bothers me. My urgency about reducing contracting is because it
has become very clear to me that we do not have adequate
contracting oversight in government, and this is an equal
opportunity sin. We spend a significant amount of time on
Defense and State because you are two of the big ones. But I
think Energy is next up, isn't it? The Department of Energy, we
will be looking to see if they hire contractors to help them
get ready for the hearing we are going to have about
contractors at the Department of Energy. Homeland Security,
same thing.
So, either we are going to get the right contracting
oversight in place, or we are going to have to reduce the
contracting, one or the other, because the current situation I
think is untenable.
Let us go back to the metrics for a minute. Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), is it important? Are the
metrics--do you all feel like that there is a coordinated
effort with ONDCP at the top? Or do you all feel that it is
still a siloed effort?
Mr. Johnson. I have an active engagement with Mr.
Kerlikowske, and I look to him to provide the type of guidance
that I will then implement in the international programs for
which I am responsible. The clear shift with a real focus on
demand reduction, prevention, and treatment, as he addresses
it, is something that we have begun a shift to. We are looking
very strongly at that in all of our programs. You will see it
in Afghanistan and Mexico and so forth. That is one signal.
We also look at the price/purity statistics that he uses as
a measure to gauge in some measure whether the programs that we
have, which are aimed at eradication and interdiction, are
having an effect on the streets in the United States.
Senator McCaskill. And I certainly think those are both
great additions to your repertoire, that price/purity is very
important, as you all know, I used to know a lot more about
that when I was actively prosecuting, but the purity of heroin
in this country has just skyrocketed and it has gotten
inexpensive because of it. We are seeing more problems in local
communities from OxyContin than heroin only because OxyContin
has gotten more expensive than heroin in some places.
So getting back to ONDCP, they require agencies to submit
performance reports on counternarcotics activities. In 2009,
the Defense Department presented 285 performance measures for
your counternarcotics activities. However, in a recently
released preliminary report from GAO, it states that your
performance measures were missing key attributes of successful
measures in the database and were otherwise inadequate.
Can you give me an example, Mr. Wechsler, of the
unclassified performance measures used by the Defense
Department? What would be an example of a performance measure
that you all would be looking to to see if you are doing a good
job or a bad job?
Mr. Wechsler. Sure. It depends on the program, but, for
instance, one example is on the JIATF-South's efforts to do the
aerial and maritime domain awareness and to attack the air
bridge system. It is the proportion overall of the tracks that
are going in that we believe that are drug-related that were
interdicted, and that is a top-line metric that then will have
very many submetrics underneath it. But that is a very good
metric to be looking at for that line of activity. There are
other lines of activity that talk about building partner
capacity for which there are different metrics about how
capable the individual foreign force that we are trying to
train is and very much akin to the way that we train military.
Senator McCaskill. I know that you have hired a contractor
to help you with revising your guidelines for performance
measures. Who is the contractor that was hired for this
project?
Mr. Wechsler. It is Hagerty.
Senator McCaskill. Hagerty. The same contractor that is
helping you with this hearing?
Mr. Wechsler. That is right.
Senator McCaskill. But there is somebody between them and
you, isn't there? Isn't there somebody that you hired, then
they sub-hired Hagerty? Isn't it Lockheed?
Mr. Wechsler. Oh, yes, well, there is--and I am happy to
get into this. We do a lot of our contracting through an office
called the Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office, and they
have five primes, and the primes do subprimes. And that is
where not all but a good deal of the contracts go through,
particularly when you want to do something quickly. I decided
that I could not wait for the personnel system of the
Department of Defense to give me the personnel that I needed to
work on performance metrics, and we needed to start more
rapidly.
Senator McCaskill. And this is a constant theme we hear.
Mr. Wechsler. Absolutely.
Senator McCaskill. But why do we need somebody to take a
cut? I mean, why is Lockheed getting a cut of this contract
that the Hagerty people did, getting data, trying to get data--
I do not think we have successfully gotten the data yet for
this hearing--and on the performance measures? Are they taking
a cut, is Lockheed taking a cut on that, too?
Mr. Wechsler. Undoubtedly as a prime they would have a
management responsibility, and we can get back to you on
exactly what that is. The process is set up to provide rapid
action when we need rapid action, and so you have the five
primes that compete for their position as that. The alternative
is to put something out for independent contractors. Of course,
it would then take the same amount of time that it would take--
or probably sometimes more than it would take for me to hire
someone into my office. So that is why we are where we are.
It is this office--and we will certainly--I should have
mentioned earlier--get back to what Senator McCain said about
all the things that we have done in our office, we will get you
all that in writing. But a lot of the things that we have done
in our office have been most directly about this office, the
CNTPO, which we most have direct oversight and working with, to
improve their ability to contract and to oversee contracts, and
there has been a great number of steps that we have taken in
the last year towards that end, and they are not finished.
Senator McCaskill. It is just a weird system that has
evolved, that you have got these big companies that essentially
are providing inherently government functions by subbing out
quickly to other people. It is almost like we created a process
to make sure that we are hiring in a way that is fair and open-
minded or that we are contracting in a way that is fair and
open-minded, and then we have this huge short circuit that all
you have got to do is get primes and do tasks. And if you get
primes and do tasks, then they get a middleman cut. Can you
imagine the amount of money we are spending on the middleman
cut in this government? I mean, in the Pentagon alone, it is
billions of dollars. It is so frustrating to me. And this would
never occur in the private sector. This is where so much money
is being wasted, and it is all just to get around the process.
It is like you said, Mr. Johnson. The ANCs are great
because you can get around the cumbersome process that takes so
long. And I am aware of this. I do not mean to be yelling at
you guys about it, because it is a reality. You want the work
done and you need it done quickly. So we have to figure out how
we do a better job on the complexity of hiring and the time of
contracting because it is costing us much more money than the
problem we tried to solve by making it so complex. And we can
do it because we print money.
Mr. Wechsler. If I could say, Senator, I completely agree
with your assessment. I just spent the last 8 years in the
private sector, and, of course, we did contract in the company
that I worked with quite often. And if we wanted to contract, I
just contracted something.
Now, you do not want that system, of course, in government
because you do not want an individual without any oversight
making those kinds of decisions with taxpayer dollars. So there
is this balancing effort that has resulted in the system that
you are accurately describing, and I very much look forward to
working with you, at least in the one area that I have a say
on, and help figuring out how to make sure that if we are out
of balance, that we can balance it, that we can rebalance it.
Senator McCaskill. In the President's national drug control
budget for fiscal year 2007, there is a discussion of an
improvement underway to establish a comprehensive Performance
Reporting System--I do not think we have used enough acronyms
in this hearing; it is hard to get through these hearings
without a lot of acronyms--a PRS that will track resource
allocation, program effectiveness, and provide prompt feedback
on the agency's progress within the National Drug Control
Strategy.
Now, if you juxtaposition that up with the reality that one
of the things we learned in the GAO report is that United
States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and United States Central
Command (CENTCOM) and JIATFs, all components that have
operational control over counternarcotics, they say that their
personnel does not use the main counternarcotics database.
Well, this is a problem. You have got the three different parts
of the defense that are supposed to be reporting into a
database so we can manage these contracts, and they do not use
it.
How can you do performance measures--I do not care how many
contractors you hire. How can you do performance measures if
you cannot get the commands to even use the database you have?
And on top of that, guess what? We are about to create a new
database.
Mr. Wechsler. You are exactly right. This was, again, the
topic--this specifically was the topic of the conversation that
we had just last week in the context of our annual POM reviews.
In my experience, putting on my management consultant hat,
quite often the drivers of situations like this when I have
seen it in the past is that the performance--there is a variety
of them, but the performance metrics themselves are not useful
to manage the programs, and that people will use the database
when they themselves find that--first and foremost, when they
are told to do it, but also when they themselves find that it
is useful for running their own programs that they are
responsible for. They see this as an additional task that is
separate and devoid from their own responsibilities to manage
the program. Then they are going to be lax at using it. And you
mentioned before the weaknesses in the previously existing
performance metrics system. And so I see these two failings as
being intricately links. You get the right performance metrics
that measure the right things that help you run the programs in
the right way, and then you get the right database to track
those particular efforts. Then the people who are running those
programs will not only do it because they are told to do it,
but will want to use this metric. And then we at a headquarters
level can use the individual data and the aggregated data to do
the kind of oversight at a policy and programmatic level that
we need to do in order to provide the oversight that we are
required by Congress.
Senator McCaskill. I mean, don't you think it is kind of
problematic that we would start, whether a contractor is
developing PRS, I assume? Do you know?
Mr. Johnson. I do not know. I would have to consult with
Mr. Kerlikowske.
Senator McCaskill. Well, we will follow up with them. I bet
you it is a contractor. What do you bet? I bet it is. And we
will check with them about the PRS system, but we have had a
hearing on databases, and if there is one thing that we have
more of in government than contractors, it is databases. And it
is databases that are not being utilized fully. They are not
being utilized effectively. They are costing us a lot of money.
They are not talking to one another. And at the end of the day,
it is going to be like that general in Kuwait told me a long
time ago when I was asking him about the complete and abject
failure of contracting oversight in Iraq. He said, ``I wanted
three kinds of ice cream. I wanted it in the mess. I wanted it
yesterday, and I did not care how much it cost.''
That is out there, and it is particularly out there in your
neck of the woods, Mr. Wechsler.
We are buying airplanes--which one said we were buying
airplanes? You were buying airplanes, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. We are in Merida, yes, and we are also
acquiring some for both Afghanistan and for Iraq.
Senator McCaskill. Are we contracting with people to buy
airplanes and they are going to fly them? Or are we actually
buying them and hiring contractors to fly them? It was my
understanding we were contracting aviation, including the
capital requirements of aviation. And now you tell me we are
buying airplanes. Can you explain?
Mr. Johnson. We are acquiring the air frames, and we are
contracting for the flying and for maintaining them.
Senator McCaskill. And have we always bought the air frames
at the State Department, or have we contracted for someone else
to buy the air frames and fly them?
Mr. Johnson. We have in limited circumstances done leasing
of aircraft. I personally, in the areas where we are operating,
do not really prefer that because of the safety issues that it
raises. If we can acquire the aircraft and have a contract over
which we have very direct oversight provide the maintenance and
provide the piloting for us, I am much more confident of the
safety of those aircraft and the safety of the passengers on
board them.
Senator McCaskill. What percentage of the aircraft that you
have in the air doing counternarcotics work are being piloted
by contractors?
Mr. Wechsler. I am going to have to get you that exact
number, of course, or as close as we can get to that exact
number. I am just thinking, off the top of my head, the
programs that I know of. I know of some that are like that,
but, frankly, some of the more prominent ones and the ones that
we work on like the effort to provide MI-17 helicopters to the
Afghan counternarcotics police, those are ones where we buy the
helicopters. We have U.S. personnel that are there. We are
training up Afghans. There is some contractor assistance to
help in the training and to help with the maintenance.
Senator McCaskill. Right.
Mr. Wechsler. But all that is designed to provide Afghan
capability. It is not a permanent thing. It is designed as a
training function.
Senator McCaskill. I understand. Once we get all this
data--and let me turn to----
Mr. Johnson. Senator, could I correct something I said
before?
Senator McCaskill. Yes.
Mr. Johnson. I think I was focusing on these new
acquisitions that we had in Afghanistan and Iraq where the
contracting for the pilots and the maintenance is going to take
place. Just as Mr. Wechsler was mentioning about transfer of
skill in Afghanistan, we have worked very hard, particularly in
the case of Colombia, to transfer those training and skills. So
all of the helicopters that are operating there, for example,
are piloted by Colombian personnel, and much of the maintenance
is also provided by them with limited oversight by a contractor
that we provide.
On the other hand, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aircraft
that we are operating there are for the most part, I think,
exclusively to provide lift for our own personnel, and in that
case, we are not engaged in trying to build capacity yet for
the Afghans for that type of work.
Senator McCaskill. Well, let me focus back on
counternarcotics, because I believe you referred to buying
airplanes for Merida, right?
Mr. Johnson. Yes, ma'am, that is correct.
Senator McCaskill. Not Afghanistan and Iraq. The airplanes
you bought were for counternarcotics efforts associated with
Mexico.
Mr. Johnson. Yes ma'am. We are in the process of buying
helicopters as well as one fixed-wing aircraft.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Once we get all this data--do you
all talk to each other about what kind of airplanes you are
buying?
Mr. Johnson. Absolutely.
Senator McCaskill. OK. So is there not a way that we could
buy airplanes on existing contracts? I am sure the Defense
Department has a much better deal on these aircraft than you
are ever going to get at the State Department.
Mr. Johnson. We are buying them through the Army Command,
and we are using their contract.
Senator McCaskill. All right. So it is going through Army
Command.
Mr. Johnson. Absolutely.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Well, good. See? We got some great
news out of this hearing.
OK. So we still have a problem on this data. I am going to
try to go as many hearings as I can possibly go without
subpoenas. But we still have a problem on the data.
Now, we made a broad request, and we have a little bit of a
chicken-and-egg thing going on because we have learned the hard
way that if you make a broad request, you may get enough
information you can really use. But we are more than happy to
make a less broad request if we are actually going to get what
we ask for.
So what I would suggest we do is to have your staffs get
with the staff of the Subcommittee. Now, we are not going to
let you decide what data you can give us, but you know what we
want to do. We want to get a handle on whether or not you know
and can produce information about the contracts you have, how
they were issued, the scope of the work they are doing, the
performance measures that are there, and if somebody is looking
over the shoulder of these contractors and seeing if we are
getting a bang for our buck, if we are getting value. That is
the data we need. And we need it not to take 3 months, and we
need not to have a situation where you give us information and
it is stuff we could have gotten easily ourselves and we have
done enough work to know that what you gave us was not even
complete, and you did not even admit it was complete until
after we confronted you with it. And then you come to the
hearing today, and you clearly have a lot more numbers than we
have ever heard before, which makes it hard for us to prepare
for the hearing to ask the kind of questions that I would like
to ask. If I had all those numbers that you had indicated at
the beginning of the hearing, Mr. Johnson, if I had that
information, I could have done a much better job drilling down
on contract oversight today than I was able to do because of
the lack of data.
So I suggest we try this one more time. I suggest we get
your staffs with our staff, and you give us input as to how
quickly you can get us the kind of data that both of you are
smart enough to know that we need to do adequate contract
oversight, and let us go from there. And we are going to try
one more time, and if we are still frustrated at the end of
this process, then we will issue subpoenas. Does that seem
fair?
Mr. Wechsler. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator McCaskill. Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. We are ready to proceed on that basis.
Senator McCaskill. OK. We will try again. And we are not
going to go away, even though we have to move on to the
Department of Energy and arm wrestle them on contracting
oversight. We want to stay with this because I do not want to
move from this topic until everyone is aware, especially the
contractor community, that there is no place you can be in the
Federal Government that we are not going to be trying to look
and see what is going on. And the people who are managing the
contracts in every nook and cranny of the Federal Government
are going to have to realize that these kinds of questions are
going to be asked on an ongoing and consistent basis because
this Subcommittee is not going anywhere. There is way too much
work to do. It is amazing to me that there has not been one of
these subcommittees much sooner in the process because what
happened, we had an explosion of contracting, and everyone was
so busy exploding contracting, nobody was paying attention as
to whether or not there was adequate oversight, adequate
management, and adequate data collection so we could keep track
of whether or not they were doing a good job, to say nothing of
the problem we have with the middleman. We have some people
getting very rich off taxpayers that are just shuffling
contracts, and we have to make sure that we can hopefully fix
that problem, and that is a long-term goal of this Subcommittee
and obviously a work in progress.
I appreciate both of you being here. I appreciate the time
and energy you put into preparing. We are not done, but I feel
confident that you both understand where we need to go with
this, and we will look forward to continuing to work with your
staffs in a cooperative fashion, and hopefully in another few
months we can come back around and tie this up and be confident
that you all know what contracts are out there and that they
are fully being managed and that you do not have a situation
where there is a far-flung embassy that is doing contracts and
you really do not have a handle on it, and you do not have a
situation where commanders are saying one thing, the
acquisition is doing something else, and nobody has even
bothered to manage the contract, which essentially is what you
were kind of saying in a very diplomatic way in your opening
statement. And believe me, I am not shocked. I see it, we see
it time and time again.
So thank you both, and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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