By Kenneth J.
Theisen, 5/10/07
More than four years ago the U.S.
invaded Iraq.
Since that time the number of U.S. troops has gone up and down and been subject
to public debate, particularly now. The U.S. is currently
engaged in a “surge” of troops. In the
real world, this is an escalation of the war by inserting more U.S. forces
into the country. But while Congress and the public are largely aware of the
numbers of U.S. military
forces in the country, even Congress is ignorant when it comes to the extent of
private armed forces or mercenaries in Iraq.
In April 2007, House Armed Services Committee Chairman
Ike Skelton and Representative David Price of North
Carolina asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to
provide details on the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs)
in Iraq.
They have asked the GAO how many such contractors are working in Iraq, for what
purpose, and under what laws they operate.
According to earlier GAO and other reports on the subject
of private military and security contractors there may be more than 100,000
employees of PMSCs such as Blackwater, Fluor, Custer Battles, Vinnell, DynCorp,
and former Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Iraq.
These contractors perform logistical support activities for the American
military. Work which was once done by soldiers such as laundry, food
preparation, mail delivery, etc. is now done by PMSCs, freeing the U.S.
troops for combat activities. But many
employees of these companies also engage in armed activities that often erupt
into firefights.
According to a GAO report, 48,000 of the PMSC employees
work as private soldiers. That is more
than the total of all the troops in Iraq from all the “coalition of the
willing” countries. Congressman John
Murtha says, “We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making
more than the secretary of defense.” For the most part, the U.S. government
is paying the bills. House Intelligence
Committee member Representative Jan Schakowsky thinks that nearly 40 cents of
every dollar spent on the Iraqi occupation goes to war contractors but she is
not sure as this information has been kept from congress and the public.
The Bush regime openly admits the importance of these
mercenary forces in Iraq. Earlier this year at his confirmation hearing
as military commander in Iraq,
General David Petraeus testified before the Senate that PMSCs were critical to
victory in Iraq. The “tens of thousands of contract security
forces” gave him confidence that the U.S. could win the war. He even
told the Senate that he has been guarded by PMSC employees himself.
In case readers think that these PMSCs are just “security
guards” not really involved in “real fighting” let us take a look at just one
of the companies. Triple Canopy is a PMSC
with about 1000 men in Iraq.
It gets about $250 million per year from
the Pentagon. During a six-month period in 2004 its employees were attacked at
least 240 times and were engaged in some 40 firefights. After that period the
company stopped keeping track of the attacks as they became too frequent to
document them all. During the period
when the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) ran Iraq,
PMSCs alone with no U.S.
military involvement held off large insurgent attacks upon CPA compounds in the Iraqi cities of Kut and
Najaf. In Najaf they even called in
their own helicopter air support. The PMSCs
are a very active part of the shooting war.
One of these PMSCs is Blackwater USA. It is in charge of security
for the U.S. ambassador and
other senior officials in Iraq. It has a $300 million dollar contract with
the U.S. State Department. When
Congressional delegations, such as the one recently led by Senator John McCain
when he visited an Iraq
market, come to the country they are guarded by Blackwater mercenaries. As
Petraeus told congress, even high ranking U.S. military officers receive
Blackwater protection. Blackwater has 20
aircraft, including helicopter gun-ships (at least one was downed by hostile
fire in January this year), two military style training bases in the U.S., and
21,000 troops on its database ready to deploy anywhere in the world. Its mercenaries are currently deployed in
nine nations. (Blackwater made headlines in 2004 when four of its mercenaries were ambushed and two were hung from a
bridge in Falluja. The U.S.
then launched a major attack on the city and killed thousands in revenge.)
One problem with these mercenaries is that they appear to be beyond the law.
Former Iraq Viceroy Paul
Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17 while he was in charge of Iraq for the
Bush regime. It conferred legal immunity
from prosecution to PMSCs. Only two
mercenaries have been prosecuted in Iraq for their crimes. One was
prosecuted because he killed another contractor and another for storing child
pornography on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. This is despite many
documented cases of abuse, including the deaths of Iraqis at the hands of
mercenaries. In one notorious case involving the PMSC Aegis, a ‘trophy video’ was published on the
internet in 2005 showing Aegis employees randomly shooting at civilian vehicles
on the road leading to Baghdad airport. PMSC employees of CACI International
and Titan were also allegedly involved in abuse cases at Abu Ghraib. These two
private companies employed interrogators at the prison. None of their employees
was charged.
The PMSCs even have their own trade group called the
International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) with paid lobbyists,
political donations, and all the trimmings that go with your typical industry
group. IPOA has lobbied for the
“Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act” in order to avoid being subject to
military jurisdiction including military court martial for its military
activities overseas. IPOA donations to
the Bush regime may pay off more than they already have. Earlier this year,
Bush called for the creation of a
Civilian Reserve Corps. According to Bush, “Such a corps would function
much like our Military Reserve. It would ease the burden on the armed forces by
allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad
when America
needs them.”
One item that the president did not mention
is the political expediency of using mercenaries. Not only can they be deployed “under the
political and media radar,” but contractor deaths also go unreported by the U.S.
government. Many media outlets publish a
daily count of U.S. troops
killed in Iraq, but no one
has a count of the hundreds or more of PMSC employees who have died in Iraq. (Representative Jan Schakowsky thinks about 800 have been
killed, but there are no official figures.) The privatization of military duties also allows the regime to pass out
lucrative contracts to supporters.
Not surprisingly, the privatizing of the
military had been suggested in 2005 by Erik Prince who just happens to own
Blackwater USA.
At a military conference he proposed the creation of a contractor brigade to augment
the U.S.
military. He stated that, “There’s
consternation”about increasing the permanent size of the Army.” Prince
estimated that the cost of expanding the military will cost $135,000 per
soldier and then claimed “We could do it certainly cheaper.”
(Prince is an ex-Navy Seal and a Christian fascist. The close ties between Prince, Blackwater,
Christian fascism, and the Bush regime are documented in a book by Jeremy
Scahill entitled, BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD’s MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY
ARMY. See more of Scahill’s work on the
subject or mercenaries at: http://alternet.org/story/51276/,
http://alternet.org/story/49307/,
http://alternet.org/story/40853/,
http://alternet.org/story/40853/,
http://alternet.org/story/40853/,
http://alternet.org/story/40853/,
and http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091005A.shtml.)
It should also not surprise anyone that one
of the leading champions of privatization of the military is none other than
the Vice President. When Dick Cheney was George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of
Defense he commissioned a study on how to further privatize the military. The
company chosen to do the study was Halliburton who later employed Mr. Cheney as
its boss. Of course Cheney’s former company has made a fortune from the
contracts it has gotten in the Iraq
war.
Former
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was also an advocate of outsourcing
military functions. Not only was he one
of those behind giving contracts to PMSCs to train the Iraqi forces, but in
2006 Rumsfeld issued the Pentagon’s quadrennial review which lays out the
military’s future plans. The review classified PMSCs as part of the “U.S. total force” making up the U.S. military
machine. Rumsfeld saw private contractors as essential part of the remaking of
the U.S. modern military to
make it a leaner, more deployable force ready to defend U.S. interests
anywhere in the world.
Given
the support of Cheney and Rumsfeld within the Bush regime, it should not shock
anyone that the use of PMSCs is so wide-spread in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and installed Hamid Karzai as the
new president it had to protect him as puppets are not that popular in Afghanistan
where foreign domination has been fought for centuries. The Bush regime
contracted with the U.S.
firm DynCorp to provide security for President Karzai. Then when the Bush regime
attacked Iraq and installed
retired U.S. general Jay
Garner as the first post-Saddam leader in Iraq it had to protect him and his
retinue. Garner contracted with a
British PMSC which hired Gurkhas from Nepal and South Africans, some of
whom were employed under the apartheid regime.
Now scores of PMSCs are in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
One of the linchpins of the U.S. strategy in Iraq
is to train Iraqis to replace U.S.
troops, particularly for security duties.
Millions of dollars in contracts have been awarded to PMSCs such as
Vinnell to provide training of Iraqis. Unfortunately for the U.S. the loyalty of these troops to the U.S. effort has
not always been of the highest quality. In many of the early battles in Anbar
province and other places, PMSC trained troops deserted, including many who
went over to the side of the insurgents.
Others just disappear after their training or fail to show up for their
assignments. But this problem is not
limited to PMSC trained Iraqis. Similar
problems have occurred with Iraqis directly trained by the U.S.
military. Maybe it has something to do
with serving the interests of the U.S. occupiers. For some reason,
many Iraqis do not seemed interested in dying for U.S. imperialism.
But PMSCs are not only training Iraqis and
others overseas. They have also been
involved in direct training of U.S.
military forces. For instance, in 2003 Blackwater
obtained a $37.7 million contract to train
more than 10,000 U.S.
sailors annually in “force protection.” As the Pentagon’s quadrennial
review under Rumsfeld indicated, PMSCs are an essential part of the “U.S. total
force.”
In addition to all the PMSCs utilized by the U.S., it is also important to know that other
nations such as Great Britain
also employ PMSCs in Iraq. As the British gradually reduce the numbers
of their troops in Iraq,
will they employ more mercenaries from British PMSCs such as Control Risks
Groups, AKE, and Global Risk Strategies which already have mercenaries in Iraq?
The British use of mercenaries in warfare is not new. In
the American Revolution, King George III used German mercenaries called
Hessians to fight the troops of George Washington. It is somewhat ironic that
the 21st century self-styled King George W is now utilizing
mercenaries to defend and expand his empire.
There are other parallels between the two Georges. George
III tried to expand his political power while he was king. He drove the Prime
Minister William Pitt the Elder from office and concentrated most power in his
own hands. He surrounded himself with yes-men. But his concentration and abuse
of power became too much for the British and he was ultimately driven from
power in 1811. George III died blind, deaf and mad at Windsor Castle
in 1820.
When
will the concentration and abuse of power by the Bush regime become too much
for the American people? How much longer
can we wait to drive our King George from his throne?