Stabilization and Reconstruction Staffing - RAND Corporation

The Problem 5The authors’ first-hand experiences with the Coalition ProvisionalAuthority in Iraq made it obvious to them that the United States failedto field a complete, competent civilian staff. That assessment has beenechoed widely by others familiar with the CPA experience. 8 It is nota criticism of the capabilities of any individual who worked for theCPA—the authors believe that, for the most part, these were extraordinarypeople of real talent. Furthermore, the U.S. failure in this regardshould not be attributed to a lack of effort or competency on the partof those charged with the task or to their leadership abilities. Rather, itsimply states that the staff, as a staff, was inadequate.The failure was in institutional capability rather than in individualeffort: The United States simply does not have, organized and inplace, the bureaucratic machinery and expertise necessary to field large,competent civilian staffs for SSTR operations quickly. And, althoughthe research reported here is not a postmortem of the CPA, that experiencehighlights the need, and serves as an impetus and a starting point,for examining the challenge of how to field competent civilian staffs infuture SSTR operations.In conducting this research, it was also necessary to consider thecontext in which SSTR operations could take place—that is, the magnitudeof the U.S. commitment and the U.S. role in the overall effort(whether the United States is participating as part of a standing internationalbody’s efforts, alone, or as part of an ad hoc coalition). TheUnited States realistically cannot plan to create and field SSTR staffsthat are, in effect, unbounded in size or undefined in composition orrole. Situations requiring very large commitments (e.g., such as thoseeral Government and transform government into results-oriented, efficient and citizencenteredenterprise” (U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Performance Budgetingand Strategic Planning, “About the President’s Management Agenda.” See Executive Officeof the President, Office of Management and Budget, The President’s Management Agenda,Fiscal Year 2002, Washington, D.C., no date).8 The inadequacy of the CPA staff as a staff is acknowledged by all of its former membersinterviewed for this research, as well as by two of the authors, one of whom held a seniorposition on the CPA staff and the other of whom was the deputy leader of DoD’s PersonnelAssessment Team of the CPA (Personnel Assessment Team Report to the Secretary of Defense,February 2004).