New civilian force to conduct stability operations.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Stability Operations - State Department's Civilian Response Corps

The State Department is in the middle of building its new Civilian Response Corps, a 250-member team of nonmilitary personnel who can be flown into foreign locales within 48 hours to carry out reconstruction and stability operations.

The one-time pilot project is now fully funded at about $100 million per year and will have a new facility near Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia, said Jon Benton, acting principal deputy at the office of the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, at the State Department.

"We're building something really new on the civilian side," Benton said at a National Defense Industrial Association stability operations conference.

The force will draw personnel from the Departments of State, Justice, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

It is intended to be a "scalable force of experts who are deployable, self-sufficient, fully trained and fully equipped for reconstruction and stabilization operations," said Benton.

The Defense Department is not included because it is meant to be a civilian program.

"I would say that the U.S. military continues to be our biggest supporter in every respect," Benton noted.

The idea for an expeditionary force of civilians sprung from the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, when critics charged that the U.S. government was ill-prepared to "win the peace." Some in the military also complained that they were being asked to do too much in areas where they didn't necessarily have expertise, such as reestablishing the rule of law in the courts, setting up governments, and making sure basic services such as hospitals, sewers and electrical grids are functioning.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been a vocal proponent of boosting USAID and the State Department's ability to assist the military in nation building. The European Union and Canada already have established civilian response units and the United States was seen as lagging.

The hiring process has been slow, Benton and other officials admitted. There will be 250 fulltime members who will train and participate in exercises while awaiting possible deployments. Once a call for their services is sent out, members may be asked to fly out within 48 hours and be prepared to deploy for up to a year.

Only 66 members of the team had been hired by September. The corps expects to be fully staffed by the end of 2010, he said.

In addition, the corps is...