The military will continue to be a dominate part of Obama's 'solution' for Afghanistan

[bigtree]

. . . until Congress and the White House manage to find and fund the civilians we should expect to be performing jobs and tasks that the military has adopted and assumed in their absence. Is the reversal of roles the result of some deliberate design; for expediency or someone's economic advantage? Or, is it just a result of political neglect or a lazy deference to the military at budget time?


from the Associated Press: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqyaFh_efr-brDq0rMLF1hkop0tgD97O8FMG0

US lacks civilians for Afghan 'civilian surge'

The Obama administration is having trouble finding the hundreds of civilians it wants to bolster its troop buildup in Afghanistan, so military reservists might be asked to do many of the jobs.

Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that the military is trying to find ways to fill the gap. That would likely be with reservists, who often have the necessary skills because of the experience they have in their civilian lives, officials said.

"It's just a realization that they are not going to be able to provide the 'civilian surge' in the near future and the need is now," Morrell said. "We're looking at ways to step into the breach and figure out how we can get additional personnel there to help out on the civilian side."

The Pentagon has been asked to see if it can find 200 to 300 reservists, and officials are canvassing the force to find the needed experts — educators, engineers, lawyers and others, said Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman.



from the State Dept. today:


Washington, D.C.--(ENEWSPF)--April 23, 2009 - 12:35 p.m. EDT

MR. WOOD: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the briefing. Let’s go to your questions.

QUESTION: There have been some reports today about the Administration not being able to get as many civilians needed to staff the civilian surge in Afghanistan. I’m just wondering what – first of all, how many are needed, where are they coming from, and what’s the Department doing to get its part of this --

MR. WOOD: Well, Matt, I don’t have numbers for you at this point. But the President is basically taking what we’re calling, you know, a whole of government approach to meeting the critical needs for civilian staffing in Afghanistan. We’ll be using all authorities, temporary appointments if necessary, curtailing assignments of individuals if necessary to fill these positions. We plan to fill all the civilian positions on schedule. We will be working closely with other government agencies, including the military, to make sure we have the right mix of both civilian and military staffing.

But at this point, I don’t have any further details to give you other than we are working very hard right now to establish those numbers and fulfill the requirements.

QUESTION: You said that you intend to fill all these positions on time. What does that mean?

MR. WOOD: On schedule.

QUESTION: What’s on schedule?

MR. WOOD: Well --

QUESTION: What’s the schedule?

MR. WOOD: I don’t have the schedule for you, but --

QUESTION: Well, if you don’t have the schedule, how do you know that you’re – how can you say that you’re --

MR. WOOD: I’m just saying – I’m saying I don’t have the schedule in front of me, but certainly, the people who are responsible for putting together our staffing have an understanding of what a particular timeline --

QUESTION: Right.

MR. WOOD: -- the timeline is going to be. And from everything I understand, they’re going to be able to fill the positions within that timeframe.

QUESTION: Does that mean you’re going to rely on the military, then, for a lot of this, even if they are civilian employees of the Pentagon?

MR. WOOD: Well, in some cases, we may have to because they have the expertise and are able to deploy relatively quickly. On the civilian side, of course, there are bureaucratic hurdles that one has to go through. But the Administration is very committed right now to moving very quickly to fill these civilian positions. And as I said, I’ve given you the details of – in terms of what mechanisms, you know, we would be willing to use to do that. So – but regarding numbers, I just don’t have those at this point. But once we have more details, I’ll be happy to share them.

QUESTION: Wasn’t the original idea, though, to rely less on the military --

MR. WOOD: That’s certainly – absolutely.

QUESTION: Even if they are civilians? So that’s a bit disappointing?

MR. WOOD: No, I wouldn’t characterize it in that way. I would just say, look, we’ve got some really difficult challenges to meet in Afghanistan, and we want to make sure that we’ve got the right mix of civilian and military personnel to do the jobs that are required. We are going to take some steps to make sure that we can fill the civilian positions on time, from the State Department side. There will be other government agencies that will be providing civilian expertise, and they’re going to be doing – taking the steps necessary to do that as well because this is a high priority for the Administration.

So I wouldn’t characterize it in the way you did. I would just say we are working very hard now to try to make sure that we can staff up accordingly, so that we can get on with confronting the challenges we face. Yes.