After CIA Deaths, Should Afghans Guard US Bases?

(Jan. 1) -- In 2004, an Iraqi national walked into a dining facility on a U.S. military base in Mosul and detonated a bomb that killed 22 people. Wednesday's suicide bombing at a U.S. military outpost in eastern Afghanistan echoes the 2004 bombing, which was, at the time, one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The attack, which occurred on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province, killed seven CIA employees and is the second deadliest single incident in the agency's history (the deadliest was the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut). With an investigation already under way, the question now is whether the attacker was an Afghan soldier who used his status to gain access to the base.

The Khost bombing comes at a pivotal time: The Army this week announced a competition to provide private security for another base in eastern Afghanistan, in Gardez. The announcement, released Dec. 28, calls on potential bidders to maximize their use of Afghans, particularly from the surrounding region.

"[T]he contractor shall hire a minimum of 75% of its guard force from within a 50 kilometer radius of the location requiring security; subcontracting opportunities will also be afforded to those companies within 50 kilometers of the location requiring security," the announcement states. The Army also says that getting tribal elders to accept the hiring plan is essential.

It's not just the U.S. military that is urging contractors to hire Afghans rather than Americans or third-country nationals. Congress has also told the Pentagon to rely more on Afghan national workers for contracting jobs.

Relying on Afghans for security and other base work comes after years of controversy over private security work in Iraq. After the Marez attack, which was reputedly carried out by an Iraqi working on the base, private contractors moved heavily toward relying on third-country nationals for labor and security.

Security companies actually prefer to hire Afghans when possible, according to Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, which represents private security contractors. Hiring Afghans is cheaper and makes more sense for perimeter security, because they speak the local language, Brooks argues.

But after the dining facility bombing in Iraq, it became much harder for companies to employ Iraqis in any capacity. "At that point, the U.S. government made it difficult to bring nationals on bases," Brooks says.

According to Brooks, the concern now is that the bombing in Khost could have a similar effect, pushing the military to move away from having Afghans guarding bases. "I think that would be a huge mistake," he says.