The issue becomes even more complicated when contractors are working for intelligence agencies. Contracting information for federal agencies is generally available, but for the spy offices, “missions, contract awards and dollar amounts and the number of contractor personnel are classified and therefore not publicly available,” Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, told a Senate hearing.
Another issue involving contractors — inside and outside intelligence agencies — is the federal reimbursement of their executive salaries. This year, that could reach $750,000 for contractor bosses. More on that later.
The subject of Tuesday’s hearing was “Intelligence Community Contractors: Are We Striking the Right Balance?” Some testimony before the Senate subcommittee on government management and the federal workforce indicates that the answer is no.
Chairman Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) said that after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “intelligence agencies had to rapidly surge their workforces and turned to private contractors to fill gaps. While I understand the initial need to rely on the contractors, I am concerned that 10 years later, the IC [intelligence community] remains too heavily dependent on contractors. According to an investigation by The Washington Post, close to 30 percent of the current IC workforce are contractors.”
Although some confusion may remain, Daniel I. Gordon, administrator for federal procurement policy, said the policy letter makes clear that in specific situations contractors “cannot take part in security operations.”
If the proportion of intelligence agency contractors to federal employees is out of balance, the congressional panel should look within, said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former CIA official who now is president of the Intelligence & Security Academy.
“Federal agencies have very little say in the employee/contractor ratio,” Lowenthal told the panel. “This is largely determined by the budget, and the budget is in the hands of the Congress.”
The 2010 Post investigation looked closely at the many ways private contractors blur the inherently governmental line in matters of national security. “Private contractors working for the CIA have recruited spies in Iraq, paid bribes for information in Afghanistan and protected CIA directors visiting world capitals,” reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin wrote. “Contractors have helped snatch a suspected extremist off the streets of Italy, interrogated detainees once held at secret prisons abroad and watched over defectors holed up in the Washington suburbs. At Langley headquarters, they analyze terrorist networks.”
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