Pentagon planning more oversight of war-zone contractors: "The Defense Department said Monday that it plans to improve oversight of contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq by hiring more contracting specialists and providing additional training to government employees who supervise work performed by outside firms.
Pentagon officials told a congressionally appointed panel monitoring federal spending on contracts in the two war zones that years of attrition in the department's acquisition workforce have hampered oversight, particularly as defense budgets have skyrocketed. The Army's contracting workforce, for example, is only 55 percent of what it was in the mid-1990s, while the dollar value of contracts overseen has jumped from $11 billion to $165 billion, officials said.
'The Army is reversing this 15-year steady decline in its workforce,' said Lt. Gen. William N. Phillips, principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. 'We project recovery will take at least 10 years.'"
