Stabilization and Reconstruction Staffing - RAND Corporation

46 Stabilization and Reconstruction Staffing: Developing U.S. Civilian Personnelorganized and prepared to fill these requirements without any changesto regulation or law.Existing AuthoritiesThe paradox of using federal civilians in reconstruction and stabilizationefforts is that, generally, federal civilians move out of, rather thaninto, areas of political instability. A complete playbook for identifying,obtaining, and organizing human resources for deployment to anunstable area simply does not exist. There are, however, statutes, rules,and policies that provided the foundation upon which federal civiliansserved in Iraq and could serve in the future in other SSTR operations.One of the most difficult bureaucratic tasks facing CPA and other U.S.government agencies was recruiting employees and other individualsinterested in and available for assignment to Iraq. Without changes,the same problem is likely to reappear in future contingencies. In general,once identified, candidates must be assessed with regard to qualificationsand suitability, appointed, then compensated and managed.We discuss each of these tasks below.Identifying DetaileesAccording to the GAO, approximately 26 percent of the CPA staff wasdetailed from DoD and other federal agencies. Most were volunteers,even though there are a number of authorities that may provide for theinvoluntary assignment of civilians to SSTR areas. U.S. governmentcivilian personnel were not deployed involuntarily in any significantnumber.Not all U.S. government departments and agencies have thesame defined authorities. Foreign Service Officers can be involuntarilyassigned overseas, although this has not happened in large numberssince Vietnam, and they can resign rather than accept such an assignment.Moreover, the population of FSOs available for such assignmentsis relatively small. For example, the largest foreign service is the State