The privatisation of war

BY FERN LANE

The US and British Governments have turned to private military corporations to provide security and carry some of the dirty work in Iraq. These are what the media are calling the civil contractors, the new lingo for mercenaries. After some of the activities of some of these individuals came to light with the investigation of tortures in the prison of Abu Ghraib, it is now clear why they have become targets for the Iraqi resistance.

The graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad call into question once again the role of the so-called civil contractors in this Iraq war.

A military report into the Abu Ghraib case makes it clear that mercenaries hired by the Pentagon were supervising interrogations in the prison, though they have no legal accountability. One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.

The presence of mercenaries in Iraq became public knowledge after the killing of four workers of a private security firm in Fallujah on 31 March. But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence gathering has come to light. The army investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc, with headquarters in Virginia, and the Titan Corporation, based in San Diego, for their involvement in the functioning of Abu Ghraib. According to the military report on Abu Ghraib, both played an important role at the prison.

So far, there is no official count of how many paid civilians are stationed in Iraq, but analysts estimate that the number could be as high as 20,000. (Britain, by comparison, has 11,000 troops in Iraq.) These paid contractors, often former (or active on leave) military personnel from armies around the world, are employed by multinational corporations. And when in the past they were contracted to cook meals or build camps — like in Vietnam — in Iraq they are also responsible for guard duty, carry weapons, work on planning and logistics and train the new Iraqi security forces.

To train the Iraqi forces the United States has contracted the Vinnell Corp, a subsidiary of American defence giant Northrop Grumman. Vinnell is one of more than a dozen private military companies, often called PMCs, hired by the Pentagon to augment US forces in Iraq in ways that have occasionally raised the eyebrows of real soldiers and occupation officials. Much of the work conducted by the contractors is secret. Mostly they safeguard sites, but occasionally they are needed for a specific task — say, quietly snatching a suspected loyalist to Saddam Hussein. Another US company, DynCorp of Reston, has been hired to help train Iraq's police

At a time when the overstretched US military is struggling to convince other nations to send troops to help secure Iraq and convince those who are already there not to leave, the private military contractors can relieve some of the pressure on American forces in a way politically less expensive for the Bush and Blair administrations.

Armed employees of Custer Battles, a US firm, guard Baghdad airport, staffing the type of checkpoints often operated by American soldiers.

Erinys, a British company with offices in the Middle East and South Africa, guards the oil fields.

Global Risk, a British firm that offers "risk management," has the contract to provide armed protection for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the US-led occupation power.

It is also important to highlight the role that these mercenaries played in the US invasion of Iraq. According to Steve Schooner, co-director of the government procurement law programme at George Washington University Law School, the Pentagon's outsourcing strategy helped win the initial stage of the war. ''Our ability to project technical superiority and overwhelming force in a short period of time at the outset of the Iraq war was driven by reliance on contractors, who can move very quickly,'' Schooner says.

The Pentagon's current overall strategy emphasises a flexible, efficient, pared-down army equipped with the latest information technologies, many of which were developed in the private sector, not in military labs. Advocates of streamlining military operations say it's more efficient to subcontract the operation and maintenance of sophisticated systems to the companies that invented them, rather than have the military handle that itself. In Iraq, contractors are involved in maintaining and operating high-tech weapons systems — including the F-117 stealth fighter and the M1A1 Abrams tank — and operating unmanned drones.

However, the question is then, what control has the US administration over these mercenaries? It seems that so far, the only possible sanction against them is for the government to terminate the contract with the private company providing the personnel. This is essentially because the companies set up their operating procedures and there's only a minimal registration that sets limits on the kind of training they receive and what weapons they carry. The mercenaries are not part of the chain of command or the code of military justice. There is no law to apply to them while in Iraq. However, it seems they can be taken back and tried in US courts.

There are mercenaries that have gone missing or have been killed and wounded in Iraq, although they aren't counted among the official tally of American deaths. When contractors are kidnapped, they aren't considered prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, and their capture rarely attracts significant media attention. Deborah Avant, a political-science professor at George Washington University, says these facts can make it more politically expedient to deploy contractors than to deploy soldiers or reservists. ''It's easier for the government to do questionable things with contractors,'' she adds, ''because their deaths and kidnappings don't make headlines.''

An exception was the attack in Fallujah, which was violent and shocking and brought the attention of the media to the presence of mercenaries in Iraq. As the four American mercenaries drove through Fallujah they were ambushed, their SUV's set on fire, and the corpses mutilated. The four in Fallujah worked for Blackwater USA, a security and training company based in North Carolina.

Like many Blackwater employees, each had once served in elite military fighting units. At the 6,000-acre North Carolina facility, employees and visiting law enforcement personnel practice at firearm target ranges and in a simulated town built to train for urban warfare.

About 450 of Blackwater's contractors work in Iraq for private firms and for the Pentagon, many charged with providing security for non- military coalition employees, including US Administrator, Paul Bremer.

The Washington Post reported that Blackwater commandos also fought off an attack on US Headquarters in Najaf on the same week the incident in Fallujah took place. There, Blackwater helicopters dropped supplies and lifted out a wounded marine.

To that can be added the deaths of two British soldiers working for US security companies; both of them had spent time in the north of Ireland.

The presence of mercenaries has not been welcomed by the soldiers in Iraq. Some of them have said privately that these soldiers-for-hire walk around Iraq with their weapons in full view as if they belong to the coalition army. They worry that the private-sector soldiers might not be constricted by the same rules of engagement and that any rogues among them who kill or hurt Iraqis could bring reprisals on all foreign forces.

This could be one of the reasons why it is felt that when mercenaries are in danger, soldiers do not take the same risk to secure their safety as they do take when other soldiers are involved.

However, despite security risks, mercenaries will keep making their way to Iraq so long the money is worth the risk. And, so far, it seems to be so. Employees of Erniys make $88,000 a year, plus benefits, triple what most soldiers make. A bodyguard from a company like Pilgrims or Securicor can cost as much as $500 a day.