WASHINGTON – Volatile security conditions have forced the State Department to continue to employ a large number of contractors to protect personnel in Iraq after the shift from a military to civilian-led mission, several senior agency officials told a House committee Thursday.
“It is accurate our personnel have security concerns,” said Mara Rudman, U.S Agency for International Development assistant administrator for the bureau for the Middle East at a hearing in front of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s national security subcommittee. “The security environment in Iraq is improving but is still not a normal security environment.”
The last American troops left Iraq in December 2011. Yet the United States maintains a large presence in the country.
There are 16,000 personnel in Iraq employed by the State Department and other agencies, said Patrick F. Kennedy, undersecretary for management in the State Department. About 14,000 are contractors from the U.S. or countries other than Iraq who take part in daily missions such as security for personnel and medical aviation.
Approximately 6,500 of those 14,000 contractors are responsible for the security of American personnel in Iraq, Kennedy said. The high number is needed because of the still volatile security situation in Iraq.
By assessing these challenges and others, officials hope to gain knowledge to apply to the mission in Afghanistan, where the transition to Afghan security forces is set to be completed by 2014.
The numerous security contractors “is a presence that we have in Iraq—it’s a presence we have in Afghanistan—we have nowhere else in the world, and it is directly related to the security conditions, which are improving, but they are certainly not at a point that we cannot rely on our own inherent security personnel,” Kennedy said.
While conditions have improved near the Baghdad embassy, the movement of personnel still calls for 48 hours’ notice and the accompaniment of three security vehicles, said Stewart W. Bowen, Jr., special inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction. “It is a restricted environment from a security perspective,” he said.
Conditions outside of Baghdad remain unstable, Bowen said. “It is still quite dangerous up in Kirkuk. While there haven’t been very many duck and covers, as we say, in the [Baghdad] embassy this year, that is not the case up at the Kirkuk facility. Basra similarly is in a much more difficult security situation than those who operate in Baghdad,” he said.
The State Department is making plans to gradually reduce the number of personnel in Iraq over the next few years.
“As part of this effort, we are identifying possible reductions such as: transitioning from U.S. or third-country contractors to local Iraqi staff, and sourcing more goods and services locally, to reduce our overall reliance on contractor support,” Kennedy wrote in his statement before the subcommittee.