Private armies
jha_amin
But the same can be said for prostitution.
W O R L D / I R A Q
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
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040412-607775,00.html
KARIM SAHIB / AFP / GETTY
Monday, Apr. 12, 2004
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庸rom journalists to government contractors to the U.S.
administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer擁s 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預n Olympic-style competition among 20 SWAT teams from
around the country耀et 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用articularly Navy SEALs, Army Rangers
and Delta Force troops洋any 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羊epeat, were not幼overed 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.