This is an editorial I sent to my political email address book. I'm reaching 15 directly and half of them send it to their address books, so I'm thinking maybe 100 recipeints. I will know I have arrived when someone I don't know forwards my stuff to me!!
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Almost everyone knows that Halliburton won some very lucrative contracts to provide logistical support (or not) for the war in Iraq. They did things like provide food, procure fuel and deliver it to depots and on occasion provide security. Almost nobody knows the extent of private contractors involved in providing security in Iraq. Companies like Triple Canopy, DynCorp, Blackwater and others provide guards for a price.
Security. What exactly does that mean? Sounds like the rent-a-cop you see outside the mall, right? Well, it's not. These companies supply highly trained and well paid paramilitary to guard government officials and even high ranking US military officers. Most of the "security guards" are retired special forces personnel. You know, Green Berets, Delta Force, SEALS and the like. The people Hollywood makes bad movies about, movies staring Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone.
Examples would be the 40 private gunmen hired from DynCorp to guard President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. Or the 200 or so that guard the Green Zone in Iraq where the US Generals stay. Or the Triple Canopy guys guarding Paul Bremer while he was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Or the private investigators who were involved in the Abu Gharib torture--investigators who were not charged or even questioned about the interrogation techniques used. They aren't governed by Military law, US law or Iraqi law. They literally answer to no one.
These security guards earn from $75,000 and $125,000 a year. Tax free. Their employers provide the latest most advanced armor and equipment available, as good or better than anything the US army offers to it's troops. The average grunt in a US uniform earns $20-25,000 and many are still awaiting ceramic armor plates.
A company spokesmen will say that they do not perform military activities, that they provide only security. In Iraq that line blurs. A dozen or so Triple Canopy employees guarding a Coalition Provisional Authority office in Kut held off 300 Shiite militia for two days, providing ammunition to the few coalition troops after they ran out. On the third day the leader of the TC force, a retired Delta Force Major, directed air support and supervised the evacuation of the headquarters with the aid of US helicopter gun ships. In Falluja four Blackwater soldiers escorting kitchen supplies to a US base were ambushed, killed and their bodies dismembered and hung from a local bridge. Estimates are that private contractors have lost 200 agents in combat. They are definitely not your average Supermart rent-a-cop.
There are an estimated 25,000 private contractors providing security in Iraq, a force one fifth the size of our military presence and two and a half times that of Britain. The contracts run into the tens of billions of dollars. Why hire mercenaries, and let's face it that's what they are, when we should have the most powerful army in the world? According to one of them it's because there aren't enough troops to do the job and there isn't anyplace to get them without a draft. "Besides", he said, "We can do stuff they can't. Some people will tell you they're here for Mom and apple pie, that's bull. It's the money.'' Their loyalty lies not with country and not with cause but with the highest bidder.
To learn more, here is an excellent article on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/magazine/14PRIVATI.html?pagewanted=1 
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