As a result of these policies,  information on local nationals working under USAID contracts and  assistance instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan is still not being  tracked in SPOT. To address the shortcomings identified in our  2009 report, we recommended that the Secretaries of Defense and State  and the USAID Administrator jointly develop and execute a plan with  associated time frames for the continued implementation of the NDAA for  FY2008 requirements, including:  ensuring the agencies’ criteria for entering contracts and contractor  personnel into SPOT are consistent with the NDAA for FY2008 and  with the agencies’ respective information needs for overseeing  contracts and contractor personnel,  revising SPOT’s reporting capabilities to ensure they fulfill statutory  requirements and agency information needs, and  establishing uniform requirements on how contract numbers are to be  entered into SPOT so that contract information can be pulled from  FPDS-NG. They cited ongoing  coordination efforts and planned upgrades to SPOT as sufficient. DOD, State, and USAID Data on Personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan Are Incomplete

DOD, State, and USAID reported to us that as of March 2010 there were  262,681 contractor and assistance personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan,  18 percent of whom were performing security functions. We determined that caution should be exercised when  identifying trends or drawing conclusions about the number of contractor  and assistance personnel in either country based on the data the agencies  reported to us. Several factors, many of which are similar to the challenges  with SPOT, hindered the agencies’ ability to collect accurate and reliable  personnel data, including difficulty obtaining information on the number  of local nationals, low response rates to agency surveys, and limited ability  to verify the accuracy or completeness of the personnel data reported. For  example, officials with one State office noted that none of its Afghan grant  recipients provided personnel numbers. Although agency officials acknowledged that not all contractor and  assistance personnel were being tracked over the course of our review  period, they still considered the data provided to our requests for  personnel information to be more accurate than SPOT. Only State and USAID Reported Data on Killed and Wounded Contractors and Assistance Personnel

Although DOD, State, and USAID are required to track the number of  personnel killed or wounded while working on contracts and assistance  instruments in Iraq and Afghanistan, only State and USAID tracked this  information during our review period. Both agencies noted  For  that some of the reported casualties resulted from nonhostile actions. Absent a reliable system for tracking killed or wounded contractor  personnel, DOD officials referred us to Labor for data on cases filed under  DBA for killed or injured contractors—as they have for our prior reports. The three agencies reported that they generally used competitive  procedures when awarding their contracts. did not report competition information. State and USAID Relied Heavily on Grants and Cooperative Agreements in Iraq and Afghanistan

State and USAID reported obligations of $1.8 billion on 668 grants and  cooperative agreements with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during  fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year 2010. With SPOT not yet fully implemented, the agencies have relied on other  methods of collecting data that have their own shortcomings to respond to  our requests for required information, and in some cases, data were not  provided. Over the past year, SPOT’s  implementation has continued to be undermined by a lack of agreement  among the agencies on how to proceed and how best to meet their  respective data needs to fulfill statutory requirements and improve  oversight and management of contracts and assistance instruments. Therefore, we believe the  recommendation in our 2009 report still applies, and we are not making  any new recommendations. Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Section 863 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,  as amended, directs GAO to review and report on matters relating to  Department of Defense (DOD), Department of State (State), and U.S.  Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts in Iraq and  Afghanistan. In response to this mandate, we are assessing the status of  the three agencies’ efforts to implement the Synchronized Predeployment  and Operational Tracker (SPOT) and providing the results of our analysis  of agency-reported data for fiscal year 2009 and the first half of fiscal year  2010 on (1) the number of personnel, including those performing security  functions, working under DOD, State, and USAID contracts and assistance  instruments with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan; (2) the number of  such personnel who were killed or wounded; and (3) the number and  value of contracts and assistance instruments that were active or awarded  during our 18-month review period and the extent of competition for new  awards. Due to the lack of other  available and reliable data sources, we could not independently verify  whether USAID’s and State’s data were accurate.
Why GAO Did This Study

The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied extensively on contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements for a wide range of services in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, as GAO previously reported, the agencies have faced challenges in obtaining sufficient information to manage these contracts and assistance instruments. As part of our third review under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, as amended, GAO assessed the implementation of the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) and data reported by the three agencies for Afghanistan and Iraq for FY 2009 and the first half of FY 2010 on the (1) number of contractor and assistance personnel, including those providing security; (2) number of personnel killed or wounded; and (3) number and value of contracts and assistance instruments and extent of competition for new awards. GAO compared agency data to other available sources to assess reliability.

What GAO Found

While the three agencies designated SPOT as their system for tracking statutorily required information in July 2008, SPOT still cannot reliably track information on contracts, assistance instruments, and associated personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result, the agencies relied on sources of data other than SPOT to respond to our requests for information. The agencies' implementation of SPOT has been affected by some practical and technical issues, but their efforts also were undermined by a lack of agreement on how to proceed, particularly on how to track local nationals working under contracts or assistance instruments. The lack of agreement was due in part to agencies not having assessed their respective information needs and how SPOT can be designed to address those needs and statutory requirements. In 2009, GAO reported on many of these issues and recommended that the agencies jointly develop a plan to improve SPOT's implementation. The three agencies reported to GAO that as of March 2010 there were 262,681 contractor and assistance personnel working in Iraq and Afghanistan, 18 percent of whom performed security functions. Due to limitations with agency-reported data, caution should be used in identifying trends or drawing conclusions about the number of personnel in either country. Data limitations are attributable to agency difficulty in determining the number of local nationals, low response rates to agency requests for data, and limited ability to verify the accuracy of reported data. For example, a State office noted that none of its Afghan grant recipients provided requested personnel data. While agency officials acknowledged not all personnel were being counted, they still considered the reported data to be more accurate than SPOT data. Only State and USAID tracked information on the number of contractor and assistance personnel killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan during the review period. State reported 9 contractor and assistance personnel were killed and 68 wounded, while USAID reported 116 killed and 121 wounded. Both agencies noted that some casualties resulted from nonhostile actions. DOD still lacked a system to track similar information and referred GAO to Department of Labor data on cases filed under the Defense Base Act for killed or injured contractors. As GAO previously reported, Labor's data provide insights but are not a good proxy for the number of contractor casualties. DOD, State, and USAID obligated $37.5 billion on 133,951 contracts and assistance instruments with performance in Iraq and Afghanistan during FY2009 and the first half of FY2010. DOD had the vast majority of contract obligations. Most of the contracts were awarded during the review period and used competitive procedures. State and USAID relied heavily on grants and cooperative agreements and reported that most were competitively awarded. While DOD and State did not comment on the draft report, USAID commented on the challenges of implementing SPOT and provided revised personnel data that GAO reviewed and included in the report. In response to GAO's 2009 report, DOD, State, and USAID did not agree with the recommendation to develop a plan for implementing SPOT because they felt ongoing coordination efforts were sufficient. GAO continues to believe a plan is needed to correct SPOT's shortcomings and is not making any new recommendations.