Army Plows Ahead With Troubled War-zone Program
S&S, 18 Feb 2013
Part 2 of 2
'Chaos and malfeasance'
However, sexual harassment and racism among the government contractors who recruited and trained Human Terrain teams was substantiated, according to the Army's report.
In one case, a team member with military experience made a statement under oath that the training staff at Fort Leavenworth was overwhelmed and that problems, including sexual harassment, flowed from bad leadership.
"Teams were hurriedly deployed to Iraq and subsequently without exception failed either as a team or in the quality of the product delivered," the statement said. "This atmosphere was reflected in the staff's struggles in dealing with the continuous deluge of unqualified students and severe personnel issues. ... This gross lack of leadership and oversight sowed the seeds for the chaos and malfeasance to come."
One of those leaders, according to the statement, was "one of the worst misogynists I have ever encountered in my career." Sexual innuendo was commonplace, the official wrote. "One woman upon giving (the trainer) a goodbye hug and peck on the cheek received the comment, 'How about a little tongue with that next time.' "
The allegations concerned a "contract employee," Kubik said. That person was fired.
A separate investigation of racial discrimination at the training base at Fort Leavenworth was "investigated and founded," according to the Army report.
A white employee, whose name was redacted from the report, referred to the training section's personnel and administration department as a "ghetto, stating that there were too many black people in the (personnel) section, stating that he would not hire any more black soldiers in the training directorate, and finally, for attempting to intimidate those who spoke or might speak against him."
Kubik, however, disputed the report's finding of racism, saying there was no evidence "that the white soldier had engaged in racial discrimination." However, the soldier was disciplined, Kubik said and added that the Army and the Human Terrain System have "zero tolerance" for such conduct.
Another defect cited in the Army report and other studies was the lack of contractor accountability. BAE Systems, based in Rockville, Md., recruited and trained prospective team members until 2011, when contractor Oberon Associates of Manassas, Va., took over the program, Pentagon contract records show. BAE has repeatedly defended its work and blamed TRADOC for problems.
When the Human Terrain System program was launched, contractors recruited, hired, trained and sent members to war zones. The 2010 investigation cites "inadequate direct government oversight, leadership and management" as one of the "foundational defects" in the program.
Unqualified, poorly trained teams have been deployed to war zones, according to a senior adviser to the military with a long history in social sciences. He asked not to be identified because he still works with commanders.
If the contract called for 20 teams, the adviser said recruiters and trainers filled the teams with business majors and economists if they could not find enough anthropologists. Some lacked experience conducting field research, and commanders would simply disregard their reports, he said.
Next up: Expansion
Despite the myriad problems documented in the 2010 report, the Army is exploring the possibility of sending teams to other countries, Kubik said. Indeed, in November, the Army's Special Operations Command gathered military and academic experts to determine how to deploy Human Terrain teams throughout the Army's special operations.
Kubik says the quality of the teams has been high and continues to improve with lessons learned in the field incorporated into training. Three external assessments, Kubik said, have "resulted in favorable reviews of the HTS program and significant improvement in HTS team effectiveness."
However, an analysis of the military reviews of the program that Kubik cites shows that the details of the scathing internal Army report were not passed on to others reviewing the program.
A May 2010 study by the TRADOC's Office of Internal Review and Audit Compliance at the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, which controls the program, did not cite the problems with fraudulent time sheets, harassment or racism. Nor did a November 2010 study by the Center for Naval Analyses that Congress demanded from the Pentagon. The details were also missing in a June 2012 Pentagon inspector general's analysis.
While the National Defense University report, to be published by the Institute for World Politics, praised the military's interest in cultural understanding, it concluded that the Army is expanding a program without a cogent strategy for success.
The report's damning conclusion: "It is quite likely that the future of socio-cultural knowledge in U.S. military forces will be much like its past — a story of too little knowledge, obtained and disseminated at great cost, but too haphazardly, and often too late to ensure success."
http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-e...ogram-1.208528