The contractors are to assist the Office of Security Assistance – Iraq (OSC-I) to help the Iraqi government — which we trust will not be led by the disastrous Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — in the piece-of-cake “goal of reducing tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and Sunni and Shias.”

Okay, you might think achieving this could take a couple centuries and, yes, we’ve tried this before, but the notice indicates you should plan to do this in no more than three years. The notice says that “the proposed contract. . . is for a period of performance of twelve (12) months and two (2) twelve-month option periods.”

The “key focus” is on things that “involve, but are not limited to, administration, force development, procurement and acquisition, contracting, training management, public affairs, logistics, personnel management, professional development, communications. . . intelligence and executive development.” Certainly sounds tightly focused.

As reported by the Washington Post

The PRTs, the concept for which was announced in December 2002, have performed activities ranging from resolving local disputes to coordinating local reconstruction projects, although most U.S.-run PRTs and most PRTs in combat-heavy areas focused on counterinsurgency. Many of the additional U.S.civilian officials deployed to Afghanistan during 2009 and 2010 were based at PRTs, which have facilities, vehicles, and security. Some aid agencies say they felt more secure since the PRT program began, 49 but several relief groups did not want to associate with military forces because doing so might taint their perceived neutrality.

Virtually all the PRTs, listed in Table 15, were placed under the ISAF mission. Each PRT operated by the United States has had U.S. forces to train Afghan security forces; DOD civil affairs officers; representatives of USAID, State Department, and other agencies; and Afghan government (Interior Ministry) personnel. USAID officers assigned to the PRTs administer PRT reconstruction projects. USAID spending on PRT projects is in the table at the end of this report.

Despite the benefits, President Karzai consistently criticized the PRTs as holding back Afghan capacity-building and repeatedly called for their abolition as “parallel governing structures.” USAID observers backed some of the criticism, saying that there was little Afghan input into PRT development project decision-making or as contractors for PRT-funded construction.