Features » October 3, 2007 » Web Only

Merc is the New Crack

America’s deadly dependence on private security contractors in Iraq

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Blackwater private security contractors secure the site where a roadside bomb exploded near the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad on July 5, 2005.

The United States is in throes of a deadly addiction, according to Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. In “Can’t Win with ‘Em, Can’t Go To War without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency,” a report released this month, Singer argues that America is hooked on private security contractors.

“[Our reliance on private security contractors] has created a dependency syndrome on the private marketplace that not merely creates critical vulnerabilities, but shows all the signs of the last downward spirals of an addiction,” Singer writes. “If we judge by what has happened in Iraq, when it comes to private military contractors and counterinsurgency, the U.S. has locked itself into a vicious cycle. It can’t win with them, but can’t go to war without them.”

Shortly before the release of the report, the private security firm Blackwater made headlines for yet another scandal involving violence against Iraqi civilians. On September 16, a Blackwater convoy under contract to the State Department opened fire in a crowed marketplace in the Mansour district of Baghdad, killing as many as 20 civilians, according to Singer’s report.

The killings sparked nationwide outrage. Prime Minister Maliki called the incident a “crime” and the Iraqi Interior Ministry threatened to revoke Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq. In an ironic twist, it turned out that Blackwater had no license to revoke. After high-level American intervention, Blackwater was back in business on September 21.

This wasn’t the first international incident sparked by Blackwater contractors. On Christmas Eve 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed the guard of the Iraqi Vice President. The company fired him, and whisked him out of the country within 36 hours. Ten months later, he still has not been charged with any crime.

According Blackwater incident reports obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, employees fired on Iraqi civilians at least 195 times since 2005, an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater fired the first shots in over 80 percent of the reported incidents.

Blackwater has fired 122 employees under contract to the State Department for various infractions, according to a 15-page memo issued by the Oversight Committee on October 1. This amounts to more than one-seventh of Blackwater’s current workforce on the State Department contract.

As Singer notes, outsourcing military duties to private contractors insulates politicians from the political consequences of putting American troops in harm’s way.

Blackwater’s CEO Erik Prince testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on October 2 that his “professionals” are a part of the U.S. force in Iraq. Yet, when contractors kill, they do so outside military law. When they die, their deaths are not counted as American military casualties.

Private security contractors outnumber now outnumber uniformed military personnel in Iraq. According to Singer, there are 160,000 armed civilian contractors in the country today. Some are under contract to U.S. federal agencies, including the State Department. Others are hired by private interests because the American occupying force cannot maintain adequate security.

Private security companies claim to support the U.S. military, but in fact, the interests of the two groups frequently conflict. Contractors answer to their clients, not to the generals on the ground, and certainly not to the public. Contractors are hired to protect the individuals who sign their checks—even if they undermine the overall counterinsurgency effort in the process.

These unaccountable private forces are actively undermining the U.S. mission in Iraq by inflaming popular opinion against the occupation. According to Singer, Iraqi civilians see security contractors as an extension of the U.S. military.

The more damage the contractors do, the more troops are needed to fight the insurgency. As the need for boots on the ground increases, so does the temptation to hire more contractors.

Ostensibly, the United States is in Iraq to win hearts and minds. Unfortunately, military contractors are making enemies faster than the United States is making friends.

There is no solution, short of getting the soldiers and the mercenaries out of Iraq as soon as possible. We don’t have enough troops to do the job, and the hired help is only aggravating the problem.

If Americans won’t volunteer to fight this war, our leaders have no business outsourcing it to private companies.

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• Reader Comments

  This outsourcing of military jobs is wasteful and probably simply corrupt. That latest Blackwater incident was in the news the other day when it was found that the FBI investigators that were going to be investigating into the incident were going to be escorted by…drum roll please…Blackwater. Now that it became known, they are switching the protection to regular military.

  The fact is that all this corporate military is actually costing more money than having the regular military do the jobs. How could it not? If our tax dollars head to the Defense Department and then they contract out to the Halliburton’s and Blackwater’s on no-bid contracts and open-ended contracts, these corporations don’t have to prove that they are performing their contracts at the lowest price. They in fact aren’t subject to the competition of the market as normal corporations are.

  The security companies pay high wages, as much as $100,000 a year for their Iraqi personnel, compared to the average marine or army wage, that’s extreme. Not only that but it actually encourages ground troops to leave the military to join a Blackwater in order to make the higher wage. In essence, we the taxpayer fund the military training of ground forces so that they can leave the military as soon as possible to work for those corporations, who get pre-trained workers. And now our tax dollars are paying higher wages.

  And we can’t say that we needed the Blackwater’s because our military wasn’t getting enough recruits as Blackwater was in Iraq way back when the majority of the country bought into the war’s rationale. Maybe now we could say that might be true, but that’s how our leaders get around a dissatisfaction with a war, outsourcing.

  Posted by Jon B on Oct 4, 2007 at 9:32 AM

  The point has always been to figure out ways to evade legal structures that bind government personnel and government action. Prisoners held in Guantanamo, hiring of mercs, suspension of civil liberties via the USA Patriot Act, to name 3 big examples. All allow this government to carry out its plans inhindered by military or constitutional law. Because this administration, in so many realms, apparently considers the law to be an intolerable impediment. So much for the rule of law.

  They say this is a “special” war, for which unprecedented latitude of government action must be accepted if there is to be a chance of victory. I submit that when it all has shaken out and the end actually comes, it will have been special in two major ways: 1) it will leave our country less than it was, in terms of civil liberties at home and stature abroad, and 2) worse, it will have led to the build-up of an enemy constituency rather than to its reduction. More enemies ready to take us on, not fewer, for at least a generation to come.

  What the hell was the point of this war? What is its real raison d’etre?

  Posted by Kuya on Oct 9, 2007 at 8:22 AM

  Hi Kuya…

  The point of the war? I can think of too many, none of which were justification.

  1) To pilfer Iraqi oil, to put it in the hands of Western oil companies.
  2) Because supposedly Saddam tried to kill Bush’s daddy.
  3) The military/industrial/academic/congressional/complex.
  4) Neocon ideology, they want to rule the world by destroying it.
  5) Because Armageddon needs to be a self fulfilling prophecy and someone like Bush had to do it. Of course we all know that Revelations is hogwash, it’s sad that our leaders believe in it..
  6) For fun. The warmongers are nothing but grownups reliving their childhood of playing Risk, Battleship and Monopoly.
  7) For profit. See (1) and (3).
  8) Insanity. Those in the White House should be in the nut house.

  Posted by Jon B on Oct 9, 2007 at 12:19 PM

  Hola, Jon B,

  On the thread connected to Brian Beutler’s article “Crocker’s Kooky Economics” (ITT online, 13 Sep 2007), I made a remark about the administration desperately searching for a silver lining to go with their big, dark war-cloud.

  I’m not yet certain, but it may be that I’ve seen one.

  It may help lead to a more multilateral world, and allow this “single-superpower” mystique to fade back.

  I’m not positive, the future-webs are still fluxxing too much to predict very well, but it may be so.

  If, that is, one thinks that a more multilateral world would really be beneficial for the human species. Ya could make a case…

  Posted by Kuya on Oct 10, 2007 at 5:14 AM

  Kuya…

  The problem is that lone superpowers all through history don’t usually just give up their dominance by pulling back from the world. In virtually every case they overextend themselves and eventually fall from the top.

  It comes down to arrogance. Being on top feeds the ego of those who run the empire. They start feeling they can do no wrong or if they do make mistakes that those mistakes can be ignored and overcome. A dominant empire thinks that because they dominate it vindicates whatever took them to the top, so keep doing it. And it almost always is because of the empire’s military prowess, they get the edge up on everybody else and press that edge too far…overextend. Military power of course costs money and the bigger military the bigger budget.

  We seem to have fallen into that pattern. We spend way too much on having the dominant military and it’s costing us (we just passed $9 trillion in national debt). Those in power and those competing to be the next leaders are following the pattern (note in the last Democratic debate the three front runners Hillary, Obama, Edwards, all suggested we might be in Iraq until the end of their first term…and we know where the Republicans stand).

  The U.S. won’t retract to sharing the superpower status willingly. As with every other empire, it will take a fall to decide to be multilateral. We are spending ourselves out of empire status. The question is how long before we can recognize that it is obvious that we aren’t on top anymore.

  I’ve always found I’m good at predicting something will happen, I’m inaccurate at when it will happen. So, just as a prediction that I wouldn’t bet on…the U.S. will not be the lone superpower within the next 20 years. Some other nation/empire will pass us by, probably China. To me, it’s not if but when.

  Posted by Jon B on Oct 10, 2007 at 12:03 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 6 posts.

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