A Fistful of Contractors

[SoCalDem]

A british orgamization put this together. There's a TON of interesting information in it..


http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2004PMC.htm


Executive Summary and Key Conclusions
BASIC RESEARCH REPORT 2004.2

September 2004
A Fistful of Contractors:
The Case for a Pragmatic Assessmentof Private Military Companies in Iraq

By David Isenberg

The Executive Summary of A Fistful of Contractors is reprinted in full below. Alternatively you can download the full report or sections of the report in pdf format here:

* Full Report (1.9Mb)

* Part 1
o Acknowledgements
o Contents
o Executive Summary
o Control and accountability
o RECOMMENDATIONS

* Part 2
o Introduction
o PMC Sector: A Marriage between Government and the Private Sector
o PMCs in Iraq
o Issues of concern around PMCs
o Lessons from Abu Ghraib Prison
o Conclusions and recommendations

* Part 3
o Appendix 1: PMC Casualties in Iraq
o Appendix 2: Security Companies Doing Business in Iraq
o Appendix 3: Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib
o Appendix 4: PMC Contracts in Iraq
o Appendix 5: Iraq - In Country Working Conditions
o Index
o Notes

Executive Summary

Since the first civilian contractors started operating in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq there has been growing public scrutiny of their activities. While most of the attention has been paid to the activities of contractors doing reconstruction work such as Halliburton, Parsons, Fluor, et cetera, growing attention and concern has been paid to the operations of those private military and security firms (herein referred as Private Military Companies, or PMCs) who provide security for such firms, as well as for Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) workers, nongovernmental organizations, and western media.

This BASIC Report provides an analysis of the PMC activities in Iraq over the past year. To paraphrase the old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial, PMCs have come a long way. Where as little as a decade ago they were limited to African war zones they have now assumed a leading role in the activities of the world's sole military superpower, as well as being a front and center actor in the daily life of Iraq. If there were an Oscar category for combat participants, PMCs would certainly win the nomination for best supporting actor.

PMCs and their conduct are now out in the open, officially above the horizon of public awareness, although concerns about transparency, openness and regulatory oversight remain. An illustrative list of PMCs operating in Iraq can be found in the Appendix. Their relative numbers in the two Gulf Wars illustrate the increase in the use of PMCs: during the first Gulf War in 1991 for every one contractor there were 50 military personnel involved. In the 2003 conflict the ratio was 1 to 10.

It seems likely that any proliferation of private security firms will precede a period of consolidation as those companies that acquire profitability absorb those that fail.
Scope of PMCs in Iraq

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current updated info from the home page follows
http://www.basicint.org/pubs/2006PMC-Zurichpres.htm

[izzie]

1. Looks long so will read it later but you know this stuff started

years ago. Gaited living places is sort of part of it and private help at corp. to keep them safe is on the same line. I bring it back to sending in private people to brake strikes and the police stepping out, as being in the same vain. It fits in with cutting taxes for infrastructure, building private prisons and making them pay a profit to the owners and the tax payer setting it up for the profits of a few rich in most cases. It is feed out of tax payers money to a few rich.You could see a problem coming when the GOP Congress wished the govt. workers cut down as the pop. got bigger and Clinton went along with it. Bush has now run with it.