more civilian contractors for US min. of Defense?

this came from the US Navy site:

Jul. 21, 2002 — An SA-330 Puma helicopter transports cargo from the Military Sealift Command (MSC) ship USNS Sirius (T-AFS 8) to USS George Washington (CVN 73) as the guided missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60) provides escort. U.S. Naval Ships (USNS) are under the command of a civilian master and are crewed by civilian mariners. The crews are civilian employees of the Department of the Navy. As a cost-savings measure, MSC contracts the the services of the Pumas. George Washington and her battle group are deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Could any one tel me the reason accept for cost reduction why US military is using more an more civilian contractors?

In the Netherlands Airfoce they have cival contractors bud they keep that percentage verry low because of crissis.
In the balkan crisis the could’nt send the cival personel to that erea
but they to verry inportant work(depot level maitanance) and now there making the for a large part all militairy to over kom this problem. This even so with cival gate guards, when there was trouble it was not possible to arm them,this is illigal in the netherlands.
So the gate guards are military again.

So why are the US military doing this?

with a nice pic of a cival contractor suplying US ships with puma’s.

greatings, shorty
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