McChrystal: 'We Have Too Many Contractors'

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan said April 16 that the military is wasting money by employing too many private contractors to do jobs better done by soldiers or local Afghans.

"We have created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that is greater than it ought to be," General Stanley McChrystal told an audience of French officers and military experts at France's defense university in Paris.

"I think we've gone too far. I think that the use of contractors was done with good intentions so that we could limit the number of military. I think in some cases we thought it would save money. I think it doesn't save money."

The U.S. operation in Afghanistan employs more civilian contractors than soldiers, carrying out jobs ranging from catering and logistics to - more controversially - armed escort duties and intelligence gathering.

According to a U.S. Congressional report, citing figures from U.S. Central Command, in September last year there were 104,100 Department of Defense contractors assigned to Afghanistan compared to only 63,950 troops.

Since then the United States has begun to pour in an additional 30,000 troops, but the report noted that last year the number of contractors was increasing faster than the number of troops.

The Pentagon's use of contractors exploded during the Iraq war, and the program has proved controversial both in terms of corruption scandals and alleged atrocities by private gunmen working alongside the military.

McChrystal said the numbers were too high and that more could be done to draw in Afghans and give them a bigger stake in the operation.

"I think it would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved, increase the number of military if necessary and, where we have contractors, in many cases, I believe we should stop using foreign contractors and use a greater number of Afghan contractors," he said.

Last month, McChrystal reduced the number of civilians in military camps in at least one area, ordering the closure of western style burger joints and pizza parlors on U.S. bases in Afghanistan.

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