How the CIA Became Dangerously Dependent on Outside Contractors | Allison Stanger, US News

Allison Stanger is the Russell Leng ‘60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury  College. Her book, One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy, will be published by Yale University Press in October.

Recent revelations of contractor involvement in CIA covert operations have been shocking. Plotting assassinations of al Qaeda operatives. Planning and executing the harsh interrogation (torture) of suspected terrorists. Loading Hellfire Missiles on Predator drones. At first glance, this looks like free-market fundamentalism taken to its logical extreme, something to blame on the Bush administration. But that conclusion misses the real reasons why the work of government is increasingly in corporate hands. The CIA deploys contractors because it no longer has the in-house capacity to pursue new mission-critical tasks without an assist from the private sector.

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