When Private Armies Take to the Front Lines

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040412-607775,00.html?

"
When Private Armies Take to the Front Lines
The security contractors killed in Fallujah represented a
little known reality of the war in Iraq
By MICHAEL DUFFY

A nation that goes to war on principle may not realize it
will then have to hire private soldiers to keep the peace.
The work of the four American civilians slaughtered in
Fallujah last week was so shadowy that their families
struggled to explain what exactly the men had been hired to
do in Iraq. Marija Zovko says her nephew Jerry said little
about the perils of the missions he carried out every day.
"He wouldn't talk about it," she says. Even representatives
for the private security company that employed the men,
Blackwater USA, could not say what exactly they were up to
on that fateful morning. "All the details of the attack at
this point are haphazard at best," says Chris Bertelli, a
spokesman for Blackwater. "We don't know what they were
doing on the road at the time."

What the murder of the four security specialists did reveal
is a little known reality about how business is done in
war-torn settings all over the globe. With U.S. troops still
having to battle insurgents and defend themselves, the job
of protecting everyone else in Iraq—from journalists to
government contractors to the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L.
Paul Bremer—is largely being done by private security
companies stocked with former soldiers looking for good
money and the taste of danger. Pentagon officials count
roughly 20 private companies around the world that contract
for security work, mainly in combat areas. They are finding
plenty of it in Iraq. Scott Custer, a co-director of Custer
Battles, based in Fairfax, Va., says as many as 30,000
Iraqis and "several thousand expats" are working for private
outfits in Iraq. Security contractors make a lot more than
the average soldier, but last week's events suggest that
they may also be turning into more attractive targets for
insurgents. "If they can chase us out," says Custer
co-director Mike Battles, "then in a void, they become more
powerful."

Among the various professional security firms, none is as
renowned as Blackwater USA. Based in Moyock, N.C., the firm
gets its name from the covert missions undertaken by divers
at night and from the peat-colored water common to the area.
It was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, who
saw a growing need for private security work by governments
overseas and private firms. Since then, the company has
trained more than 50,000 military and law-enforcement
personnel just south of the Virginia border, near Norfolk,
at its 6,000-acre facility, which it calls "the finest
private firearms-training facility in the U.S." The facility
boasts several target ranges and a simulated town for
urban-warfare training. It is so advanced that some of the
U.S. military's active-duty special-ops troops have trained
there. Next month Blackwater will host the World SWAT
Challenge—an Olympic-style competition among 20 SWAT teams
from around the country—set to be broadcast on ESPN.

The security firm's website notes that "Blackwater has the
people to execute any requirement." Blackwater recruits from
the ranks of active-duty special-forces units—particularly
Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Delta Force troops—many of
which are based in nearby Ft. Bragg, N.C. The best and
brightest among private security consultants earn salaries
that run as high as $15,000 a month. And as various
commitments have strained the military's capacity to provide
day-to-day security for relief workers and diplomats,
Blackwater has prospered by filling the void. Since 2002,
Blackwater has won more than $35 million in government
contracts.

The current business boom is in Iraq. Blackwater charges its
clients $1,500 to $2,000 a day for each hired gun. Most
security contractors, like Blackwater's teams, live a
comfortable if exhausting existence in Baghdad, staying at
the Sheraton or Palestine hotels, which are not plush but at
least have running water. Locals often mistake the guards
for special forces or CIA personnel, which makes active-duty
military troops a bit edgy. "Those Blackwater guys," says an
intelligence officer in Iraq, "they drive around wearing
Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car
windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed
me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks." Adds an Army
officer who just returned from Baghdad, "They are a subculture."

Indeed, the relationship between the private soldiers and
the real ones isn't always collaborative. "We've responded
to the military at least half a dozen times, but not once
have they responded to our emergencies," says Custer. "We
have our own quick-reaction force now." But the private
firms are usually cut off from the U.S. military's
intelligence network and from information that could
minimize risk to their employees. Noel Koch, who oversaw
terrorism policy for the Pentagon in the 1980s and now runs
TranSecur, a global information-security firm, says private
companies "aren't required to have an intelligence
collection or analytical capability in house. It's always
assumed that the government is going to provide intelligence
about threats." That, says Koch, means "they are flying
blind, often guessing about places that they shouldn't go."

It's still unclear whether the four Blackwater employees
found themselves in Fallujah inadvertently or were on a
mission gone awry. Even by Pentagon standards, military
officials were fuzzy about the exact nature of the
Blackwater mission; several officers privately disputed the
idea that the team was escorting a food convoy. Another
officer would say only the detail was escorting a shipment
of "goods." Several sources familiar with Blackwater
operations told TIME that the company has in some cases
abbreviated training even for crucial missions in war zones.
A former private military operator with knowledge of
Blackwater's operational tactics says the firm did not give
all its contract warriors in Afghanistan proper training in
offensive-driving tactics, although missions were to include
vehicular and dignitary-escort duty. "Evasive driving and
ambush tactics were not—repeat, were not—covered in
training," this source said. Asked to respond to the
charges, Blackwater spokesman Bertelli said, "Blackwater
never comments on training methods and operational procedures."

At the Pentagon, which has encouraged the outsourcing of
security work, there are widespread misgivings about the use
of hired guns. A Pentagon official says the outsourcing of
security work means the government no longer has any real
control over the training and capabilities of thousands of
U.S. and foreign contractors who are packing weapons every
bit as powerful as those belonging to the average G.I.
"These firms are hiring anyone they can get. Sure, some of
them are special forces, but some of them are good, and some
are not. Some are too old for this work, and some are too
young. But they are not on the U.S. payroll. And so they are
not our responsibility."

But with Congress and the Bush Administration reluctant to
pay for more active-duty troops, the use of contractors in
places like Iraq will only grow. A Pentagon official who
opposes their use nonetheless detects an obvious if
unsentimental virtue: "The American public doesn't get quite
as concerned when contractors are killed." Perhaps. But that
may prove to be yet another illusion that died in Fallujah
last week.
"

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********