DynCorp International in Irving, TX received a contract from The US Department of State to train, equip, and build the capacity of Afghanistan’s police forces. The potential value of the award is $117.2 million for the first year and $85.3 million and $87.5 million respectively, for two option years. This is a follow-on award for DynCorp International, which has been training police in Afghanistan since 2003.
The U.S. program focuses on basic-skills training for existing police and basic training for new and lower-ranked police. It also provides equipment and assistance with administrative reform. The training, to be held in centers throughout the country, consists of basic policing skills, policing in a democracy, and developing trainers among experienced Afghan police officers. Subjects include first aid, human rights, establishing and protecting crime scenes, traffic control, evidence chain-of-custody, investigations, interviewing techniques, treatment of suspects, applicable laws, and defensive tactics.
The training is aimed at increasing the overall ability of the National Police, Border Police, and Highway Patrol in Afghanistan to provide police presence, improve public security, and support the rule of law. The contract also calls for the development and repair of facilities and provision of equipment and supplies for the Afghan police, whose infrastructure is chronically underdeveloped and was largely destroyed during 25 years of conflict. See full DynCorp release.
DynCorp International has more than 14,000 employees in some 35 countries. It provides a wide variety of logistics and security services to the US government and other clients around the world. DynCorp’s status and breadth of operations as the world’s largest security contractor has placed it in an unwelcome spotlight on several occasions, including its controversial operations as part of the Drug War in Colombia, and U.S. State Department complaints regarding the aggressiveness of its operatives tasked with protecting Afghanistan’s President Karzai. Several of its employees have also died in the line of duty while training police in Iraq.
The firm was acquired from CSC by by the investment firm Veritas Capital in December 2004 for about $850 million, and had revenues of nearly $2 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005.