TIME - When Private Armies Take to the Front Lines

[NNN0LHI]

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

The security contractors killed in Fallujah represented a little known reality of the war in Iraq

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." snip

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."

more

[saigon68]

1. Mercenaries

That's "Pontius" Bremer (Governor or Viceroy of the Province of Iraq-Nam) there, next to the 2 Mercenaries.

Take note of the bullet proof vest Pontius is wearing under his white shirt and red tie.

[happyending]

8. PFC

So what is the pay for a PFC in the Army these days?
When I was a PFC and Spec 4, way back in the old days,
it wasn't much. You couldn't pay your rent and utilities
and buy food for 2 on it.

Would these mercenaries work for Blackwater for comparable
pay?

[Vitruvius]

20. You mean: "That's 'Pontius' Bremer there, next to the 2 OTHER mercenaries

A higher pay grade -- but a mercenary. And like the other two, he's wearing body armor, as you pointed out...

[saigon68]

23. I stand corrected Sir

A dead mercenary after 6 days in the hot Iraqi sun smells just like any other dead corpse or dead animal.

[trumad]

2. Booo fucking hooooo

"We've responded to the military at least half a dozen times, but not once have they responded to our emergencies," says Custer.

It's not the Military's job to save your 2000 dollar a day asses.

[saigon68]

5. Be careful what you say about the mercenaries here

You shouldn't Criticize these Patriots--

After alll they are quarding food shipments for poor starving children,</sarcasm>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1345738

[seemslikeadream]

7. We must be careful

somebody might find out



Gravediggers at work in Kinshasa's largest cemetery, where there are more than 50 burials per day. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 2 million people have died since 1996 as a result of violence, starvation, and lack of access to basic health care.




THE TRUTH

[trumad]

10. Yah...I read that surprisingly stupid thread

and thought for a momnet that I accidentally linked to FR.

[KittyWampus]

27. Suprisingly STUPID? You Mean Rejecting The Depraved Indifference

to humanity that some here revel in is STUPID?

Frankly, the extremist behavior shown by several posters in THIS and other threads seem to mimic Freeper bile.

:puke:

Let's all just emulate Ann Coulter. We can just put a Leftist spin on the hatred coming out of our mouths.

But I bet that makes some feel really SMART and/or superior. :eyes:

[Demeter]

3. This Is NOT American!

If we don't want to make the sacrifice, if the sacrifice is not worth making---we shouldn't hire professional killers, PERIOD!

If we can afford to hire professional killrs, then we ought to pay the GI's enough so that they don;'t need food stamps.

There are so many things wrong with this picture, it is hard to know where to start, and where to stop!

REGIME CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME! REGIME CHANGE NOW!!

[KoKo]

4. I'm glad to see some attention being given to this. I'll bet few in the

public had any idea about these Blackwater type "hired guns."

The choice is a draft or the mercenaries, though. We can't have endless war without one or the other or both.

:-(

[aquart]

14. Let's not have endless war.

You didn't make that one of the choices. Let's put it on the table.

[KittyWampus]

28. Yes, I'll be glad to read the article and learn more

without having to deal with the nasty rhetoric attached to the subject here.

[Shakespeare]

6. Glad Time finally noticed this-Mother Jones ran a story on it a year ago

Note to Time: remove head from ass and do your fucking job.

[goforit]

24. And the NYTimes posted this in 2001.......before 911.

They did a full 2-3 page story on it.

But so long as some Americans get another chance at the truth
if they care to.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Making a Killing: The Business of War

Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often, these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests, whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions have prolonged the conflicts.

A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has also found that a handful of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this war commerce – a growth industry whose bottom line never takes into account the lives it destroys.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/bow/default.aspx


Making a Killing: The Business of War

WASHINGTON, October 28, 2002 — At least 90 companies that provide services normally performed by national military forces but without the same degree of public oversight have operated in 110 countries worldwide, providing everything from military training, logistics, and even engaging in armed combat. Amid the global military downsizing and the increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments have turned increasingly to these private military companies to intervene on their behalf around the globe, a new investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found.


With the ongoing international military presence in Afghanistan and a possible war in Iraq on the horizon, the issue of military privatization has taken on new relevance. Since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 U.S.-based private military companies identified by ICIJ, a review of government documents showed. Not every contract was for military services; records obtained from the Pentagon were not specific enough to determine the purpose of each of the contracts.

Private military companies a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries are just one face of the increasing trend of the privatization of war, the investigation found. A small group of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this business of war.

Related Link
Read the report, "Making a Killing: The Business of War"

Arms dealers have profited from a massive unregulated sell off of low price surplus armaments into the most fragile, conflict-ridden states and failed states. The weapons, mostly from state-owned Eastern European factories, have found their way to Angola, Sudan, Ethiopia, Colombia, Congo-Brazzaville, Sri Lanka, Burundi and Afghanistan where conflicts have led to the deaths of up to 10 million people during the past decade.

The investigation profiles arms dealers like Victor Bout and Leonid Minin, both of whom were born in the Soviet Union and, after its breakup, became involved in the profitable trade in arms to Africa. Bout, a Russian pilot, allegedly supplied arms to the Taliban, and was dubbed the Merchant of Death for supplying weapons to a series of African conflicts. Minin, a Ukrainian, was charged with supplying weapons that fueled a bloody war in Sierra Leone. Both have been accused of having ties to international criminal syndicates by various international authorities.

Natural resources including oil, diamonds, timber and the mineral coltan used in the manufacture of modern conveniences like cellular telephones have played a central role in the economics of war. Mercenaries, multinational companies, and private investors have conspired with legitimate governments, brutal dictators and bloody rebel leaders to turn the natural wealth of poor countries into the currency of war commerce.

Drawing on classified intelligence files, government reports, court records and public documents, the investigation identifies the non-state actors in this growth industry and explains how they often influence the turn of world events. The nearly two-year investigation, conducted by 35 writers, researchers and editors working on four continents, will be published in 11 installments:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=177&sid=100

[AliceWonderland]

11. Thanks for this; very informative articles

n/t

[Demoiselle]

12. Custer?!!!? CUSTER?!!!

A soldier-for-hire outfit (we used to call them Mercenaries, folks) named "Custer Battles"? I have truly slipped down the rabbit hole.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

25. Talk about your unintentionally(?) ironic corporate names...

Do they have a "Little Big Horn" operational security division?

[cliss]

13. Thanks Don, for bringing this up.

Scary, very scary. The implications are nightmarish. The fact that this whole situation was secret tells you something. Expensive, deadly, Pandora's Box, a lot of adjectives come to mind.

I have to ask myself: why are they enlisting a Private Mercenary army? And at such a huge cost?

Apparently, the US armed forces are either not good enough, or maybe they're not accurate enough to do a really superior job of killing, and that's why the Pentagon hired these people.

I'm just wondering why they felt they needed this, and at such a staggering cost.

[aquart]

15. And you wondered why this war was so expensive.

And yeah, what were the mercenaries doing so far from anything they needed to guard? Seeing the sights?

[Dulcinea]

26. Because they're not accountable to anyone except the neo-cons.

Their employers.

[seemslikeadream]

16. watch this video

http://www.ericblumrich.com/pax.html

[daleo]

17. This bit is interesting re: what their mission really was

"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."

I thought they were supposed to be delivering food to a marine base, although with SUV's I wouldn't think they could manage much more than a couple of pizzas.

[patcox2]

18. Were they really even mercenaries?They call it "cover," in the spy trade.

This is sounding odder and odder. You have to ask at some point, were they even "private security" or "mercenaries?" Or were they CIA? The US government would never admit that four CIA agents were killed in the middle of some covert action, thats pretty much a given. And all CIA agents have some ostensible "cover" job; sometimes they are in the military, more often they work for company that would have some reason to be where they are. And if they are heavily armed and running around through the hotbed of anti-american sentiment, and they get killed, and the government needs to deny its involvement, then "private security" is probably the only plausible cover they could come up with.

Its pure, irresponsible speculation, of course, but it would explain our massive response. After all, Lidice was in response to the attempt to assasinate Hitler, you don't level a town over private security guards, you only level a town when its one of your own.

[NNN0LHI]

22. What would be the purpose of needing a "cover" for the CIA in Iraq?

Its not like this is some covert black bag operation in Iraq. The whole world knows the CIA is there. I don't get it?

Don

[patcox2]

29. Because they're up to something unsavory, perhaps?

Don, the CIA always needs cover, no less in Iraq than anywhere else. The CIA by its nature is the organization we would use for the really dirty, ugly things we need to do, or in Bush's case might just enjoy doing. The things we would not want the press and the world to know we are doing. Even in Iraq there are things we don't want the world to know we are doing, clearly, hence the news blackout from Falujah. I am just speculating that they might be more than just private security, but the story stinks. If they were guarding a food convoy, what happened to the food convoy? Its a bullshit story, obviously. I truly believe its one of two things; either they were guarding a food convoy, but then went off the reservation, cowboying out of testosterone induced exuberance joyriding throught the enemy stronghold, or they were CIA engaged in something so covert that the government will not admit to them and had to make up this "food convoy" ruse (how self-serving, they were humantitarians, not trained killers).

[NNN0LHI]

30. I agree with most you said but let me add two more possibility's of...

...what they may have been doing. Drug running or pimping. Either of those things will get you killed in a hurry while in an Islamic state. The way they were set up, killed, and then torn to pieces indicates to me that someone was trying to send a message to others here. Just my own suspicion. I have no proof.

Don

[yellowcanine]

19. Modern day Hessians

What does it say about an empire that has to rely on merceneries to get the job done? Robert Fiske was talking about these guys the other day on Democracy Now. How they swagger around waving their automatic weapons and in general demonstrate a low level of professionalism. Maybe we need a contingent of "Hessian" soldiers to follow * around as he campaigns. They would fit right in with the Liar Liar Pants on Fire guy.

[SquireJons]

21. ...And they will be just as successful as the Hessians

... were at the Battle of Trenton. If my memory of history serves me right, it was the use of Hessians that angered many middle of the road colonialists and greatly added to the determination of those who volunteered for the colonial army.

[Dhalgren]

31. Mercs in America. That's what came to my mind.

These are hired killers, who have no loyalty except to their employer. If our government gets too used to having these guys around, where will it stop? A little domestic crowd control? Humvees full of dapper thugs in designer combat gear, patrolling US highways and neighborhoods? I know, I know - tinfoil hat stuff. Maybe, but it was the first thing that occurred to me.