Private Military Corps.

[keith]

Iraq Struggles With Rise of Guns-For-Hire

By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 7, 5:03 PM ET


A half-dozen armored sport utility vehicles with guns pointed out the windows careen onto Baghdad's busy airport highway, bringing traffic to a screeching halt.

Iraqis have learned to keep a wary distance from the convoys of foreign guns-for-hire in mirrored sunglasses and bulletproof vests, who have a reputation of firing at any vehicle that gets too close because of the ever-present danger of suicide bombers.

Iraqi officials accuse many of the companies providing protection in violence-plagued Iraq of being a law unto themselves, prompting a flurry of attempts to better regulate an industry that is expanding rapidly around the world.

South Africa and Britain are proposing tough new laws governing the participation of their nationals in foreign conflicts. Humanitarian groups are trying to identify gaps in international law. And the industry itself is pushing greater self-regulation.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, who oversees the activities of private security companies, accuses them of being "militias." Some companies counter that Jabr, who has himself been linked to a private Shiite force accused of widespread abuses against Sunni Muslims, is contributing to the problem by refusing to register security contractors.

Since militaries were slashed at the end of the Cold War, private companies have been a growing presence on the world's battlefields, performing jobs conventional forces can no longer handle. It is a hugely competitive, multibillion-dollar industry, with clients ranging from governments and blue-chip corporations to warlords, drug cartels and terror groups.

In Iraq, at least 20,000 contractors — local and foreign — are guarding coalition bases, protecting U.S. officials, training Iraqi security forces and interrogating detainees. They also protect businessmen, journalists and humanitarian workers, among others.

Doug Brooks, head of a U.S.-based association of military contractors, says reports of abuse in the industry are exaggerated.

"In general, companies are using people who are middle-aged ex-military, so they know what they are doing, and they don't make as many mistakes" as the armed forces, he said.

The companies say they recognize the need for regulation in a dangerous industry: "We would prefer a high level of professionalism across the board. It makes it easier and safer for everybody," said Greg Lagana, spokesman for U.S.-based DynCorp International.

Many top firms have joined associations like Brooks' International Peace Operations Association, which impose stringent human rights standards on their members.

Firms say they also are subject to volumes of legislation in the countries where they are based, recruit and operate, including arms-trafficking and anti-corruption laws.

Their employees are bound by international conventions on war crimes, just like their uniformed counterparts. Those working for the U.S. government can also be prosecuted in an American criminal court for offenses committed abroad.

And there is the pressure of the marketplace: "Failure in this industry comes soonest to those who openly violate sound business principles and disregard the moral, ethical and legal high ground," said Chris Taylor, Blackwater USA's vice president for strategic initiatives.

Abuses happen nonetheless. In Iraq, civilians mistaken for car bombers have been shot and killed. There also has been gunfire exchanged between contractors and Iraqi security forces.

"Normally, it would be that state in which the companies operate that is responsible for policing this, but these companies typically operate in failed states," said P.W. Singer, an expert on private military companies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. And he said human rights violations are rarely prosecuted outside the country where they happened because of the logistic difficulties.

Two military reports have implicated contractors working as interrogators and translators in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, but unlike their military counterparts, they have not been tried. Their employers deny the allegations.

The United Nations, African Union and International Committee of the Red Cross, among others, are working on proposals to tighten the regulatory framework.

South Africa is proposing the most sweeping reform. It is embarrassed by the participation of apartheid-era defense force members in African conflicts, including a foiled 2004 plot to overthrow Equatorial Guinea's dictator in exchange for oil concessions.

A bill before the South African Parliament would bar virtually any activity in a conflict zone without government authorization — even humanitarian work.

U.S. officials in Iraq have expressed alarm. South Africa's former soldiers are among the most sought-after there, due to their professionalism and experience in African wars.

"Combat experience counts," said Lt. Col. Wallace Dillon, deputy commander of the Reconstruction Operations Center, or ROC, which uses contractors to escort personnel to building sites and guard convoys of material. "Would you want a doctor operating on you who has never performed surgery before?"

Britain, where some of the biggest companies in Iraq are headquartered, is considering less drastic measures. A parliamentary Green Paper outlines options including licensing the companies and approving their contracts.

Andy Bearpark, head of the British Association of Private Security Companies, welcomed this approach but worried about the length of the process and criteria to be used.

"The British industry doesn't want to lose out to the American industry because it takes too long to get a contract licensed," he said.

In Iraq, the former U.S. authorities started registering security companies and issuing weapons permits. But the process stopped after sovereignty was returned to a transitional Iraqi government in 2004.

Jabr says there are already too many companies, many of them recruiting from Saddam Hussein's feared former forces. He is refusing to license more firms without vetting their employees.

But the ministry's mostly Shiite security forces are accused of torturing and killing members of the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under Saddam, making companies reluctant to give out information about whom they hire.

Meanwhile, lawlessness reigns. More firms are entering the market, and no one knows who they are.

For their own safety, many companies have started reporting to the ROC: the military operations center offers daily security briefings, a vehicle tracking system and panic buttons.

The system has improved coordination between the military and civilian contractors, Dillon, its deputy commander, said. But participation is not a requirement of most U.S. contracts.

The Department of Defense insists its contractors abide by the same rules of engagement as coalition forces, but that is not a requirement of other U.S. departments operating in Iraq, Dillon said.

"Governments have to be smarter about this," said Singer, arguing they can use their buying power to shape the industry. "Support those that have good oversight. If they find out their contractors did anything wrong, hammer them."

___

Associated Press reporter Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

[keith]

Dubai Does Brisk War Business
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
February 24th, 2006


Every morning, from dawn till about noon, cargo and passenger flights to Iraq and Afghanistan make Dubai airport’s Terminal Two possibly the busiest commercial terminal in the world for the "global war of terrorism." Conveniently located between the two countries, Dubai is the ideal hub for military contractors and a lucrative link in the commercial supply chain of goods and people between Afghanistan or Iraq and the rest of the world.

The trade from this relatively small air terminal is completely legal but some of the flight operators have been known to flout the law in order to keep the profitable business going. Tickets to either destination go for about $400 a seat round-trip, cargo travels for about $2 a kilogram.

The European and American travelers arriving at the much larger Terminal One never see this part of the world's second busiest sea/air hub. They are whisked away by banks of gleaming silver escalators to duty-free shopping, sunbathing at the seven star resorts and the famous gold markets.

But at Terminal Two, the most common destinations on the overhead list are Baghdad and Kabul, via airlines like African Express, Al Ishtar, and Jupiter. Most of the passengers on these flights are Afghan or Iraqi, but every morning a few Americans, Indians and Philippinos arrive, often accompanied by minders to make sure that they catch their flights. Some are from the United States embassy or military, others from Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the biggest contractor in both countries.

Labor Supply

On Saturday, December 10, 2005, flight XU 106 of African Express airways, officially based in Nairobi, Kenya, was scheduled to take off from Terminal Two in Dubai for Mosul when immigration intercepted 88 Philippino workers. The men had just arrived in Dubai on tourist visas and were ticketed to leave on the early morning flight to northern Iraq.

Officially the Philippine government has banned its nationals from working in Iraq after truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was kidnapped in July 2004. In addition at least six Philippino workers have also been killed while working in Iraq over the last two years. In an attempt to prevent workers from going to Iraq, all new Philippino passports are now stamped with "Not Valid for Travel to Iraq."

Yet some 6,000 Philippinos are estimated to continue to work in Iraq. Some were lured by of the relatively high pay for unskilled jobs; others were forced to take the jobs, according to interviews with workers conducted by CorpWatch.

Some of those detained in December say that they paid a Manila labor recruitment agency, Tierra Mar, between 40,000 to 70,000 pesos each (US$760 to $1330) for the jobs. Arrested with the 88 workers was Jordanian national Mah'd Moh'd Ahmad Hamza who was issued a temporary visitor's visa to the Philippines by the country's consulate in Dubai on September 19, 2005.

The 88 workers were deported back to Manila the following week and Tierra Mar has been placed under investigation for breaking the ban. However, government officials say the incident may just be the tip of the iceberg.

"United Arab Emirates seems to be a favored jump-off point because of the facility in obtaining a visit visa to this country," Philippine Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomas, told reporters. "We received information that the modus operandi of those circumventing the government restriction seems to be the use of old passports without the travel ban stamp," she added.

Prime Projects International

One of the key players in the supply of labor to Iraq is located a 20 minute ride from the airport in a skyscraper that overlooks Dubai Creek. Prime Projects International (PPI) is on the fifth floor of the office building of the Twin Towers, behind the dark blue glass windows that reflect the sun as it sets over the ocean in the evening.

PPI was created just months after September 11, 2001 when British businessman Neal Helliwell and his partner, Toby O'Connell, won a subcontract from Halliburton to help construct prisons in Guantanamo Bay for KBR. They kept costs down by using low-wage Philippino labor.

Since then Helliwell and O'Connell have supplied workers to build Camp Anaconda, a U.S. military base in Balad, northern Iraq. They are estimated to supply over 7,000 workers to their clients, many of whom are from the Indian sub-continent or the Philippines.

Indeed on November 10, 2005, Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, gave a special "International Employer Awards" at Malacanang palace to Neil Helliwell, chief executive officer of PPI. The award was for "displaying continuous preferences for Philippino workers and providing them with excellent career advancement and generous package of employment benefits."

But their workers who have made it into Iraq complain that they have been treated badly. "TCNs (Third Country Nationals) had a lot of problems with overtime and things," recalls Sharon Reynolds of Kirbyville, Texas, who was employed as an administrator by Halliburton . "I remember one time that they didn't get paid for four months."

"They don't get sick pay and if PPI had insurance, they sure didn't talk about it much," Reynolds recalls. "TCNs had a lot of problems with overtime and things. ...I had to go to bat for them to get shoes and proper clothing."

"(They) had to stand in line with plates and were served something like be curry and fish heads from big old pots," Reynolds says incredulously. "It looked like a concentration camp."

(see Blood, Sweat & Tears: Asia's Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq)


PPI officials have refused to talk to the media at all but CorpWatch has learned that the company is being monitored by the State department for "human trafficking" of workers into Iraq.

One thing is certain - Helliwell and O'Connell have made good money in this business. In May 2005 the two men bought a yacht named "Pacific 50, Yo!" that they raced off the coast of Thailand on the island of Koh Samui.

Cargo Supply

This January, a month after the Philippino workers were deported from Terminal Two, business is still brisk. Most mornings liaison staff from two companies can be seen at the airport: SkyLink, a Canadian company provides flights for employees, and Eagle Global Logistics (EGL), a Texas company, provides cargo handling services for the company into Iraq. The staff, armed with clipboards and pens, make sure that each passenger and each pallet of goods is safely on its way. And every evening, the liaison officers to greet returnees who touch down from Afghanistan and Iraq in the late afternoon and continue arriving until late into the night.

SkyLink and EGL are the last link in the global supply chain of Iraq-bound goods and people that got to Dubai on better known commercial carriers. The United States military uses Federal Express (FedEx); the German airline Lufthansa recently delivered a dozen armored vehicles to Dubai on one of its cargo planes. A United States military officer, working out of the FedEx office, checks cargo manifests every day at Terminal Two, bypassing the country's national customs staff for sensitive cargo.

Many of the goods also arrive into Dubai by ship into Port Rashid and Jebel Ali, the country's two main ports, which rank among the busiest in the world. Barwil, Inchcape and Maersk, shipping companies from Norway, Britain and Denmark respectively, have major import operations that allow cargo to arrive anonymously into the region.

By contrast, Afghanistan has no sea ports and Iraq has just two: Umm Qasr and Khor az Zubayr, both of which face major operational challenges from years of sanctions and neglect. Even after goods arrive at these ports to be transported by truck into the country, they face substantial security threats from attacks and road-side bombs, not to mention skyrocketing insurance rates.

Dubai's choice as the central hub for war traffic is not accidental. A sleepy Middle Eastern port for centuries, famed for its pearl trade and central location on the spice trade from India to the rest of the world, it became suddenly wealthy with the oil boom of the 1970s like the neighboring nations of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the emirate wisely decided to invest its money in developing other businesses, such as tourism (which accounts for about a sixth of the national income) and the import-export business (which accounts for two-thirds).

In the last few years as Dubai has become quite expensive. many companies have moved their bases to Sharjah, the neighboring emirate just 30 kilometers away, where rents are half those of Dubai. Indeed many of the aircraft used at Terminal Two are owned by anonymous and shadowy companies in Sharjah. Some of these aircraft owners like Air Bas have been linked to notorious arms smugglers including Victor Bout. Instead of dealing directly with the U.S. government, these companies rent their planes to middle agencies like Chapman Freeborn and Coyne Air, which in turn provide them to Skylink and EGL.

Phony War Surcharges

This profitable re-export business has recently come under scrutiny for overcharging. Under the sub-contract to Halliburton , EGL has been in charge of shipping military equipment ranging from "armor-plated vehicles to trash bins" from Houston to Dubai en route to Iraq for the last two years. The company uses old Russian cargo workhorses: Antonov 12's that can carry 15 tons and Ilyushin 76's that can carry up to 40 tons

In December 2005, the company announced in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing that it was being investigated over these shipments. The focus of the probe was insurance surcharges added by Christopher Joseph Cahill, the regional vice president of EGL, soon after a rival company's plane was shot down in late 2003 while trying to land at Baghdad airport.

Federal investigators in Texas were informed by a whistleblower that the extra 50 cents per kilogram of cargo that was supposedly imposed by Aerospace Consortium (which supplied aircraft to EGL) were in fact, phony. The charges were added to 379 air cargo shipments costing a total of $13.2 million over several months

Mike Lockhart, an assistant U.S. Attorney General in Beaumont, Texas, told CorpWatch that the investigators subpoenaed EGL, seeking information about the surcharges, and were given a letter from Aerospace Consortium explaining the reason for the charges. The documents "looked very suspicious, not what you would expect to see at all," he said. The charter company was also unable to provide any evidence of the insurance increase.

EGL has since fired Cahill and has offered to pay back the military the $1.14 million in "improper charges" that the auditors estimated had been added to the bill. But the Department of Justice wants the company to pay an additional $2.86 million fine.

Lockhart says that the company may have been aware of the charges all along and did nothing to stop it. "They defend their actions and say they were confused, but is is likely that they knew," he told CorpWatch.

"Cahill recognized an opportunity to unilaterally institute war risk surcharges and thereby increase profits to EGL," court documents stated. Cahill also "knew that he did not have to seek approvals from elsewhere within EGL to add such purported war risk surcharges."

"U.S. taxpayers are asked to carry a significant burden during times of war. But they will not be asked to tolerate merchants of war who seek to profit unlawfully from legitimate wartime expenditures," said Rodger Heaton, U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois.

An EGL spokeswoman said Cahill was dismissed when the company learned of the fraud. EGL "feels he should be treated appropriately for those violations" under the law, she added.

But Cahill's attorney Edward Chernoff told the Houston Chronicle that his client wasn't collecting any money for himself from these surcharges. "It was a business decision. He wasn't even getting bonuses from it," Chernoff said.

Cahill, who pleaded guilty in mid-February, is to be sentenced May 26 where he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

Business As Usual


Meanwhile business at the ports of Dubai remain strong and profitable. Indeed Dubai Ports World, the wealthy state-owned company that controls Jebel Ali, into which most military cargo arrives, has stirred tremendous controversey in the last few days by buying up P&O, a British company, giving it control over six major ports in the United States including New York.


David Phinney and Lee Wang contributed reporting for this article

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13322

[keith]

Date: 10 May 2006
Amid rising insecurity, Baghdad residents look to private security companies[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 10 May 2006 (IRIN) - Some residents of the capital say that private security companies represent the best way to guarantee their safety given the deteriorating security situation and the inability of police, military (Iraqi and US) and local militias to respect human rights.

“When you go out in the street and you see Iraqi police or army, you’re afraid that you could be shot dead or arrested at any time,” said 45 year-old Baghdad shopkeeper Abbas Kubaissy. “They behave outside the law and without the minimum respect for locals.”

Often fearing for their lives, Baghdadis have learnt to keep their distance from the military convoys constantly rumbling down the city’s streets, despite the fact that such convoys are ostensibly intended for their protection. “My two sons were killed because they got too close to an Iraqi police car,” said Safa'a Madd'aa, 56, a Baghdad resident. “They shot them dead without the minimum of compassion.”

Military officials, however, pointing to the tense security atmosphere, defend such actions as inevitable. “It can be seen as aggressive behaviour, but every Baghdadi is aware of the dangers faced by the Iraqi Army and police countrywide,” said senior interior ministry officer Major Col. Hassan Ali. “They have been informed to stay away from convoys because terrorists are everywhere.”

Ministry officials have also accused private security companies of being de facto militias, often using the name of private security groups to specifically target Sunni Arabs. “Our ministry has decided not to register any more security companies and to try to deactivate those which already exist to prevent the emergence of more militia activity,” said Ali. He went on to estimate that at least 20,000 local and foreign contractors were currently active in the country protecting clients, training personnel and “assisting” in interrogations.

While Ali insisted that government security personnel were “much more understanding with the civilian population” than private security companies, some locals disagreed. “Last week, when I was entering a government building, the private security guards at the door were very respectful,” said Omar Rabia'a, 34, a government employee in the capital. “But when an Iraqi policeman nearby heard my Sunni name, he shouted at me and took me aside for additional questioning.”

With gunfights between private security contractors and Iraqi security forces becoming a common sight in the streets of Baghdad, residents express exasperation. “Weapons should be in the hands of the state, not in those of independent militias,” said Suha Bartiar, spokeswoman for a local NGO. “But first, government security organs must learn more about human rights and how to behave with their fellow Iraqis -- then they might be respected by the population.”


Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

[keith]

9 May 2006
BRITISH FORCES TOO STRETCHED

By Colonel Tim Collins

HUGE and dangerous cracks are beginning to show in the Basra security operation, and it is not the fault of the British Armed Forces.

It's clear that a great deal of luck was involved in containing the riot at the weekend - and that luck may not hold next time it turns nasty.

In Northern Ireland we had a ringfenced support back-up if anything went wrong.

We don't have anything like that system in Iraq.

The resources are stretched already and the strain means that we simply do not have a full-time support unit that can quickly deploy to the region or the locale where the tension is happening.

It was incredibly fortunate that there was a quick reaction force in place on Saturday.

It did its job but they had to rely on the help of the Iraqi police - something which cannot always be relied on - and they were very lucky too that the private security companies were there to help.

These companies played a major role in helping out on Saturday - because of their military experience they knew exactly what to do.

But these stop-gap solutions are only papering over some very large cracks. The cracks have appeared because British forces do not have the resources to do all that they are being asked to do.

I do not believe that it is possible for Britain safely do what it is doing in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans.

Those are three arenas when one is more than enough.

Something has to give and British troops are being put in a very difficult position because of it.

The new Defence Secretary Des Browne needs to talk to the Chancellor about the amount of resources being put into the operation in these places.

That's where the problem lies - it's all about the money - and Des Browne needs to ask Gordon how they are going to get more.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17050866&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=british-forces-too-stretched--name_page.html

[keith]

Peace Corp.
As the international community dithers over Darfur, private military companies say they've got what it takes to stop the carnage, if only someone would hire them.

At left, a guard from a private security company at work in Iraq. At right, a UN peacekeeper in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Reuters Photos)

By Rebecca Ulam Weiner | April 23, 2006
THREE YEARS OF FIGHTING in the Darfur region of Sudan have left an estimated 180,000 dead and nearly 2 million refugees. In recent weeks, both the UN and the US have turned up the volume of their demands to end the violence (which the Bush administration has publicly called genocide), but they've been hard pressed to turn their exhortations into action. The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is ''out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.

But according to J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of the private security firm Blackwater, there is another option that ought to be on the table: an organization that could commit significant resources and expertise to bolster the African Union peacekeepers and provide emergency support to their flagging mission.

A few weeks ago, at an international special forces conference in Jordan, Black announced that his company could deploy a small rapid-response force to conflicts like the one in Sudan. ''We're low cost and fast," Black said, ''the question is, who's going to let us play on their team?"
Private security companies like Blackwater have thrived in Iraq, where the US military has relied on them for everything from guarding convoys to securing the Green Zone. But these companies recognize that the demand for their services in Iraq will eventually diminish, and Blackwater, for one, is looking for new markets. It's not alone in seeing peacekeeping as a growth area. Competitors such as Aegis and Dyncorp have also realized that while conflicts like the one in Darfur may not bring them profits on the order of Iraq, there's no shortage of them. And if such companies are able to help the international community succeed in peacekeeping, it could improve the image of an industry that hasn't enjoyed much support from the press or the public.
Private military companies have had a hard time convincing the international community that privatizing peacekeeping would be as good for Darfur, and for the rest of the world, as for their industry. In part that's because of the mixed reputation their work in Iraq has earned them and because the explosive growth of the industry has raised fears that security contractors working for the US government in Baghdad (and post-Katrina New Orleans) could become bona fide armies for hire. But the discomfort also has deeper roots, in the complicated history of private intervention in these kinds of conflicts. When Kofi Annan was UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping, he explored the option of hiring the South African private military company Executive Outcomes to aid in the Rwandan refugee crisis. He ultimately decided against the option, declaring that ''the world is not yet ready to privatize peace."

The world still appears to be unready-and representatives of private military companies believe that's shortsighted. ''When traditional peacekeepers can't provide an adequate response because of their home country obligations, there's an alternative that should be openly and frankly discussed. And that's a private professional group," says Chris Taylor, Blackwater's vice president for strategic initiatives. As he sees it, his company could provide the necessary security in places like Darfur ''so that traditional NGOs and aid agencies could do the work they can't do [now]."

The UN and others clearly have legitimate questions about whether private military companies can do what they claim. But the industry, agitating to lend a hand where the international community has dragged its feet, has raised some legitimate questions of its own. When the world's governments and multilateral organizations have proven as ineffectual as they have in Darfur, should they turn to the private sector for help? In the absence of a viable alternative, is the international community's aversion to what some call ''mercenarism" stronger than its will to fight genocide?

Private contractors have been providing logistics in low-intensity conflicts in African nations for years, and conducting training operations as well. Dyncorp, for example, is currently involved in what is by most accounts a very successful mission in Liberia, helping train the army and national guard in the aftermath of Liberia's long and bloody civil war.

Indeed, while the industry has grown and matured in Iraq due to the US military's unprecedented reliance on contractors there, it's actually in Africa that early private military companies first did significant work.

In the mid and late '90s, the South African firm Executive Outcomes and British firm Sandline International offered direct combat support to the governments of Angola and Sierra Leone. In Angola, 500 ex-special forces officers working for Executive Outcomes conducted sophisticated airstrikes and commando operations to help the Angolan military retake its diamond mines and oil fields from the rebel group UNITA. In Sierra Leone, Executive Outcomes and later Sandline were hired to combat the RUF insurgency. With targeted helicopter attacks and ground assaults, both firms dominated tactically, but fighting broke out soon after their respective contracts ended.
The legacy of these operations, as a result, is mixed. On the one hand, the firms' tactical prowess efficiently and effectively stopped the fighting, saving thousands of lives and leading to the return of over a million refugees. But the benefits were not long-lasting.

What companies like Blackwater are proposing to do in Darfur today is very different from the combat missions of a decade ago. ''We have no interest in offensive operations," says Taylor flatly. Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, the industry's trade association, agrees: ''[Executive Outcomes] and Sandline were supporting offensive combat operations. I don't think that'll happen again, and certainly not that way."

Today, private military companies are offering defensive services-they propose to secure refugee camps and vulnerable villages, guard humanitarian aid agencies and NGOs, or, depending on the requirements of the contract, assist peacekeepers like the African Union troops in Darfur. ''Security work is more about avoiding violence, it's not about inflicting violence," says Joe Mayo, formerly with the security and training firm Triple Canopy, and now an independent consultant to the industry. ''A good day for a security guy is when nothing happens."

Aid agencies and NGOs in Darfur haven't had many good days lately. The beleaguered African Union peacekeeping force has few resources to spend defending an NGO like Save the Children, and the ability of such organizations to continue working in the area is very much in question. ''You can't expect people to work in conflict zones without protection," says Christopher Kinsey, a scholar with the Joint Services Command at King's College London and author of the forthcoming book ''Corporate Soldiers and International Security" (Routledge), ''especially as noncombatant immunity is no longer respected." Kinsey believes there's a legitimate role for private military companies in humanitarian operations.

There's little question that companies like Blackwater could be more effective operationally than the African Union, which has been hampered by its peacekeepers' lack of command and control experience. Private military companies boast a roster of former special forces officers and law enforcement officers who are accustomed to volatile conflict and post-conflict areas like Sudan.
Blackwater also subjects all of its personnel to an impressive array of extra training-whether they're training to work in Baghdad or the firm's North Carolina headquarters. They take classes in international humanitarian law, leadership, ethics, regional awareness, and ''customs and traditions." They've recently approached Amnesty International about teaching human rights education classes. And the International Peace Operations Association boasts that its code of conduct was written by human rights lawyers.

The industry also claims that it's far cheaper than its multilateral or military counterparts. ''We offer the ability to create a right-sized solution-which creates a cost savings right off the bat," says Taylor. By contrast, Brooks notes, ''NATO is insanely expensive; it's not a cost-effective organization. Neither is the [African Union]. Private companies would be much, much cheaper. When we compared their costs to most UN operations, we came up with 10 to 20 percent of what the UN would normally charge."

But while many would agree that there's an enormous need for the peacekeeping services that companies like Blackwater are willing and able to supply, that does not mean there's a market. ''The question isn't their operational ability," says David Isenberg, senior analyst at the British American Security Information Council, ''they've demonstrated an ability at least equivalent to a decently run UN operation. It's a question of political will."

As the industry is the first to admit, this political will remains elusive. ''The political dimension to this discussion is far more difficult than the tactical dimension," says Taylor. In 2003, a consortium of for-profit companies was formed to try to supplement the UN mission in Congo with everything from aerial surveillance to ''armed rapid deployment police." It was never adopted. Asked whether the UN's official position on using private security contractors has changed, UN spokesman Farhan Haq replied, ''The one-word answer is no."

Such an answer may suggest a reflexive discomfort with privatizing force. But it also represents some nuanced, widely shared concerns. The first, and most common, is accountability. And it isn't merely hypothetical, considering the alleged involvement of private contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the recent conviction of the military contractor Custer Battles for government contract fraud in Iraq, and earlier, in Bosnia, the involvement of Dyncorp contractors in a forced prostitution ring.

''There are some legitimate reasons to be skeptical," allows Isenberg. ''How do you ensure oversight, compliance with international humanitarian law, follow the rules of warfare, rules of engagement, comply with the Geneva Conventions, and the whole bureaucratic panoply of rules that come into play?" Particularly when you're trying to preserve fast, flexible, and inexpensive deployment.

Compounding the problem of accountability is the fact that private companies are of course not just out to save the world, but to make money. Assuming an industry made up of rational actors, eager to maximize profits, can loyalty to a particular firm-or a particular client-be maintained? Can standards? What happens when there are conflicts of interest? The industry claims that it would only accept contracts from legally recognized bodies, but what if this body were an unsavory regime?

Without uniform regulation of the private military industry, the answers to these questions largely depend on one's faith in the market's power to encourage good behavior. As Kinsey sees it, the industry actually takes corporate responsibility quite seriously. ''It's not because the companies are being altruistic," he says. ''It's beneficial in the long term for them to conduct themselves responsibly."

More fundamentally, many believe that the international community has a special responsibility to take on problems such as Darfur-and that outsourcing humanitarian interventions to the private sector is just another way of sidestepping the hard political debates that should take place in public.

But the abstract ideal of an engaged international community might seem a rarefied consideration in light of the realities on the ground.

''This came up a long time ago. People were saying that if we use private sector in the Congo, the international community will never get its act together," says industry spokesman Doug Brooks. ''But that was 3 million dead Congolese ago. The international community isn't going to wake up no matter how many people you kill. I think that it would be a good idea for the international community to get its act together. But we've got to find another way."

Rebecca Ulam Weiner is a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

[keith]

Interesting article from 2 years ago.

Blackwater commandos in Najaf Battle

Eli at Left Eye points out this Washington Post article which describes Blackwater commandos engaging in firefights with Iraqis alongside American soldiers.


An attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia members on the U.S. government's headquarters in Najaf on Sunday was repulsed not by the U.S. military, but by eight commandos from a private security firm, according to sources familiar with the incident.

Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine, the sources said.

The role of Blackwater's commandos in Sunday's fighting in Najaf illuminates the gray zone between their formal role as bodyguards and the realities of operating in an active war zone. Thousands of armed private security contractors are operating in Iraq in a wide variety of missions and exchanging fire with Iraqis every day, according to informal after-action reports from several companies.

In Sunday's fighting, Shiite militia forces barraged the Blackwater commandos, four MPs and a Marine gunner with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 fire for hours before U.S. Special Forces troops arrived. A sniper on a nearby roof apparently wounded three men. U.S. troops faced heavy fighting in several Iraqi cities that day.

The Blackwater commandos, most of whom are former Special Forces troops, are on contract to provide security for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Najaf.

With their ammunition nearly gone, a wounded and badly bleeding Marine on the rooftop, and no reinforcement by the U.S. military in the immediate offing, the company sent in helicopters to drop ammunition and pick up the Marine.
Be sure and click through the link and look at the picture of Blackwater "civilians" on a roof in Najaf fighting alongside Marines.
During the defense of the authority headquarters, thousands of rounds were fired and hundreds of 40mm grenades shot. Sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of Blackwater's work in Iraq reported an unspecified number of casualties among Iraqis.

A spokesman for Blackwater confirmed that the company has a contract to provide security to the CPA but would not describe the incident that unfolded Sunday.
So, can we stop calling them "civilians" now?

UPDATE: Phil Carter at INTEL DUMP reacts to this WashPo article:

Analysis: Whoa... so these guys work for the U.S. government, but not for the CPA and CJTF chain of command? That's not just odd, that's dangerous. Even if the Blackwater guys are the best in the world, I'm a little reticent to support the idea of armed contractors running around on their own without command, control and coordination with American and allied units on the ground. It worked this time, but it seems like a fratricide formula in the future.

Moreover, there is a certain "WTF" factor here, to quote a friend of mine. What are these contractors doing that they have this much firepower, and a friggin' helicopter of their own? And what kind of command system does CPA and CJTF have that they had zero visibility of this incident until presumably the Washington Post reported on it? Blackwater's employees exhibited a great degree of heroism on Sunday in Najaf, and they should be commended for their initiative and personal courage. However, it may be wise to reconsider the system of command and control that lets these guys run around Iraq with this much firepower and no accountability to U.S. government agencies.

Suffice to say, actions like this clearly support my argument that the Blackwater contractors in Fallujah were not entitled to protection as non-combatants under the 4th Geneva Convention. And unfortunately, because they fight outside the U.S. command structure, don't wear uniforms, and don't always carry their arms openly, they're likely not combatants under the 3rd Geneva Convention either. Thus, they fall in the gray area between the two categories. Ironically, the unlawful combatants we have detained at Gitmo fall into the same gray area. I don't think it's necessarily the best idea to contract out combat functions like these to private military contractors, and I think we're assuming a great deal of risk because of the legal issues in play.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=A688_0_1_0_C

[keith]

CMI to Vet Those Going to Iraq

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
May 14, 2006
Posted to the web May 15, 2006

By Frank Nyakairu
Kampala

There is great concern in government circles of a possible terrorism backlash as hundreds of Ugandan flock to Iraq to work, especially as armed guards. A top source in government has told Sunday Monitor that there is fear of that "terror tactics and techniques could be copied [in Iraq] and used here". As a mitigation measure, the government has quickly instituted a vetting system and sent undercover security operatives to spy on Ugandans in Iraq.

The fact that some companies were secretly and illegally recruiting hundreds of Ugandans for security jobs in Iraq worsened this fear recently. "We are concerned that the people who have ended up in Iraq could be recruited by wrong people there," a top official in the Labour, Gender and Social Development ministry told Sunday Monitor on Friday.

The ministry cleared eight companies to recruit Ugandans to take over jobs formerly done by Iraqis and Georgians. But recently government was allegedly shocked that M/s All Sec Uganda Limited, a local private security company, had illegally recruited and sent hundreds of Ugandans to Iraq.

"So what we have decided is to stop all illegal recruitment and have everyone going to Iraq first [get] vetted by the CMI and ISO, and also send intelligence personnel to monitor activities of Ugandans there" said the source.

All Sec Uganda Limited was said by sources, last Tuesday, to be linked to President Museveni's son-in-law, Mr Odrek Rwaboogo. The latter however issued a rebuttal last Wednesday, distancing himself from the said company.

Officially, 422 Ugandans have in the recent past been cleared to go and work as security guards in the war-torn Iraq. Another 200 are due to follow.

Militant groups in Iraqi opposed to US presence have over the past months targeted most US installations and personnel, using suicide bombers, rocket propelled grenades, mortars and roadside ambushes.

But the Minister of State for Gender Labour and Social Development, Ms Zoe Bakoko Bakoru, on Friday denied knowledge of government's fears about imminent terrorist attacks. "We have not received such reports, but for security reasons we called the security agencies to ensure that wrong people do not end up in Iraq," she said.

She added that out of the 422 Ugandans sent to Iraq, "11 have been deported for laziness and theft." Army spokesman Maj. Felix Kulayigye also said that clearance of the Iraq bound Ugandans was "normal procedure." He said: "What I know, under normal circumstances, any person going for a security job may have to be cleared by security agencies."

Kulayigye who denied that an undercover team had been sent to the volatile country, added: "It is not that we are worried, but we have always been terror-alert, and we are not taking any chances."

An intelligence team, which is based at Entebbe International Airport, recently arrested 16 UPDF soldiers who were among 275 Iraq-destined Ugandans. The soldiers are due to be charged with desertion.

Ugandans in Iraq are in charge of the inner security of Camp Victory, at Al Asad, Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit, and other large US bases in that country. They are contract workers for the EOD Technology, a Tennessee-based company that specialises in unexploded ordnance clean-up and security services for the US military.

Putting them on guard duty frees American soldiers for missions outside their bases. The Ugandans' initial contract is for six months, and attracts a pay of about $1,000 per month for each employee.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2006 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

[keith]

For Water Truck 103, a Perilous Path to the End
Ambush Greets Convoy At Site Near Baghdad

By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006; A01

WITH CONVOY 77, Iraq -- A few miles west of Baghdad, a brand-new water truck backed gingerly off a flatbed truck and down a makeshift dirt ramp, completing its 7,000-mile journey from a factory in Texas to a government ministry in Iraq.

Considering the enormous effort the United States had made to get it to its destination, there was not much celebration among the small crowd of Iraqis who looked on as the truck was driven away. Nor was there any particular joy among the guards and drivers who had delivered the truck.

For them, it was just another job that had brought them up the highway from the Persian Gulf, through the austere desert of southern Iraq and the fertile farmlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Along the way, they had seen flocks of sheep and camels, escorted by ancient-looking men in red checked kaffiyahs and white dishdashas; barefoot children running up to the side of the road and waving for something to eat; crude mud houses that looked as timeless as the land itself. What they did not see were the men with fingers wrapped around the triggers of assault rifles.

Since the 2003 invasion, the U.S. government has allocated more than $20 billion to rebuild Iraq. The massive program, which ultimately benefits both the people with nothing and the people with nothing but guns, is actually a huge number of smaller tasks that begin with a decision by leaders in Washington. With the signing of an executive order, a complex chain of events is set in motion that, if all goes as planned, brings things from America to Iraq.

First, taxpayer dollars are transformed into trucks, toolboxes, building supplies, arms, ammunition, boots and uniforms, X-ray machines and hospital beds that are carried to Iraq mostly by an army of civilians -- inventory managers, stevedores, truck drivers and private security contractors -- whose largely unseen role in the war can be as dangerous as a soldier's.

This is the story of a tiny piece of that effort -- the 400-mile journey of a brand-new water truck from Umm Qasr, Iraq's main seaport on the Persian Gulf, to the Baghdad Water Directorate west of the capital. It was there that the men with guns were waiting.

Umm Qasr

The dusty white Klein K-250SS water truck with "103" written in red marker on its windshield sat on the back of a red flatbed truck in a yard in Umm Qasr, tied down with chains for the final leg of its journey.

Truck 103 began its life in Jacksonville, Tex., at the manufacturing plant of Klein Products Inc. It is valued at $120,707 and carries about 2,500 gallons of water, a useful purpose in a country where drinkable water can be scarce.

The truck wended its way by ship to the port of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where it was loaded with 26 other water trucks onto another long, black ship called the Strong American. From there, it moved up the Persian Gulf and through a short, artificial channel into the port of Umm Qasr, where it arrived on Feb. 25.

Umm Qasr, a charmless place with a skyline dominated by gray, blue and yellow cranes and rusting warehouses, is controlled by Shiite Muslims, the dominant sectarian group in southern Iraq. Many of the steel containers stacked around the port bear the logo IRISL -- Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.

"God knows what they're bringing in here," Lt. Col. Jose Velazquez said of the country's Iranian neighbors as he drove around the port on a 108-degree afternoon. "There's no doubt in my mind that we have people with bad intentions in the port. But in the time I've been here, we haven't had any major issues."

American items coming into Umm Qasr move through a web of government agencies, contractors and subcontractors. At the top is Velazquez, with the Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division Project and Contracting Office, which is responsible for overseeing reconstruction efforts in Iraq. It contracts out the delivery of goods to a Kuwaiti company called PWC Logistics. PWC in turn coordinates among local ship captains and truck drivers who ultimately carry and deliver the items, and the private security contractors who protect them.

Umm Qasr is one of the main entry points for reconstruction items. It and the nearby port of Zubayr received more than 10,000 vehicles -- police cars, firetrucks, cement mixers, bulldozers and tractors -- in 2005 alone. All of the equipment eventually winds up in Iraqi hands.

"That's our main effort here: to push equipment out," Velazquez said. "There are people who have died doing this, but we are in a war. So we have to continue working to accomplish our mission."

With that, he signed off on the departure of Convoy 77: 12 water trucks, bound for the Baghdad Water Directorate and escorted by the 22 men of Team 7 of ArmorGroup International.

On the Road

The convoy rolled out on May 9 at 8:15 a.m. It consisted of 12 flatbed trucks and two spare cabs, escorted by four armored Ford F-350 pickup trucks with machine guns mounted in back, as well as an unarmed pickup that would drive ahead to discreetly scout out the route.

From here, Mark Jones was in command. His team consisted of 18 Iraqi employees and three British expatriates with a combined 42 years of military experience. Jones had served in the British army for 11 years before joining ArmorGroup, a company that protects many of the reconstruction convoys.

Though he has gone private and no longer wears a uniform -- except for a Union Jack patch and a small pin with the Welsh flag on his body armor -- he runs his team like a military unit.

"If it comes to small-arms fire, we keep on driving," Jones said in a rapid-fire briefing outlining the route. "If someone is injured, we're not going to stop inside the killing zone. If one of the vehicles is taken out, we'll do a crossover drill," in which one car comes up alongside the crippled vehicle, removes the passengers and continues the mission.

"If we have to stand and fight, we'll stand and fight."

Jones emphasized the possibility of violence -- "contact," in the military euphemism -- because the slow-moving convoys are often hit by bombs planted in the road or small-arms fire. The trucks can take plenty of punishment from rifle and machine-gun bullets and shrug off smaller bombs. But rocket-propelled grenades, RPGs, are a bigger threat. A direct hit can punch through even the armor of the pickups and incinerate everyone inside.

From the moment the convoy left the port, the team was on alert. As they traveled Main Supply Route Tampa, each truck's radio squawked with sights to look out for, whether debris, other traffic or suspicious "pax" -- a military word for people or passengers.

"Left side, vehicle, black, pax on telephone." Could he be calling insurgents?

"Two vehicles parked on left side, doors open." Gunmen?

"Static vehicle, right side." A car bomb?

"Bridge ahead." Any overpass is an ideal spot for an ambush.

"Two men with guns, right side! One has an RPG!"

"Eyes on!" Jones cried, and for a moment everyone expected an assault. But it was apparently just two U.S. soldiers on foot patrol outside Camp Cedar.

"Your mind moves quickly," Jones said. "You're not physically tired, you're mentally tired at the end of a run."

For all that wariness, the worst thing that happened to the convoy on the first day of its journey was a truck breakdown, a problem quickly solved by using the two spare trucks in the convoy to tow the cargo and the broken-down truck.

After six hours and 280 miles, the trucks pulled into Convoy Support Center Scania, a U.S.-run refueling base about 125 miles south of Baghdad.

"What a journey," Jones said. "That was one of the better ones."

Camp Scania

The Iraqi truck drivers, sweaty and tired, emerged from their trucks to get water and something to eat. Like most of his fellow drivers, Wahid Abid, the driver of the flatbed carrying Truck 103, was wearing white cotton pants and a white T-shirt. He was a Shiite from Basra and had been a truck driver since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

"Yes, certainly it's dangerous," he said before settling down with a meal and climbing into the cab of his truck, where he would spend the night. "I've been forced to work, because we need to earn money to live. We have no jobs, just this work."

Jones and his three British teammates slept on bunk beds in a large tent inside the camp and ate at the American mess hall, a well-stocked place serving Cornish hen, french fries, fruit smoothies and Baskin-Robbins ice cream. But they were still in Iraq.

Unlike the American soldiers sitting around them, the four Britons said, they weren't in Iraq to serve their country, bring democracy to Iraq, win respect at home or even rebuild the country. They were motivated, they said, by the same thing as the Iraqi truck drivers.

"I done my time in the army," Jones mused in the mess hall. "I enjoyed it. But I asked myself, 'How much money am I making?' I can secure my future 20 times faster than I would in the British army. It's money. Nothing else. Money."

"And anyone who tells you different is a liability," added Leon Hart, his teammate.

Baghdad

After the broken truck was fixed, the convoy wound out of the concrete barriers of Camp Scania under an overcast sky at 7:25 a.m. the next day. They traveled north through the towns of Iskandariyah, Latifiyah and Mahmudiyah -- some of the most violent in Iraq -- but it was all quiet as the convoy arrived in the capital and pulled through the Baghdad Water Directorate's white gate into a large, walled compound.

After setting his gun trucks into defensive positions, Jones walked over to the manager's small office, dropped a bulky envelope on his desk and handed him the paperwork to sign for shipment No. 10,687.

"There are the keys for the trucks," Jones said.

Outside, Truck 103 was being unloaded. There was no ramp to back the trucks off the flatbeds, so an Iraqi bulldozer operator made one out of dirt. After several minutes of work, they had one that was sturdy enough for the truck to slowly back down to the ground. Mission accomplished. A little piece of America had been delivered to Iraq.

Jones walked back to his gun trucks, waiting for the rest of the cargo to be unloaded. It was slow work; more than an hour and a half passed. Iraqis from town came and went. The men of Team 7 relaxed and chatted.

It was at this moment that the men with guns chose to strike.

A rocket-propelled grenade streaked in from the north, exploding nearby with a deep crump. After a half-second of frozen inactivity, one of the guards screamed, "Get in the truck!" Seconds later, a group of seven to 15 men opened fire with assault rifles from buildings overlooking the compound about 100 yards away.

The usual order of things would have been to drive to the nearest American base, but the iron gate to the compound was closed, too thick to ram through, and the men were under fire. They had to stand and fight.

The trucks' machine guns returned fire, spraying the buildings with bullets, as Jones and two teammates took aimed shots from cover. The shooting from the other side died down.

Jones, waving his hands, shouted at his excited gunners to stop firing. He whipped out his phone and paced around behind his truck, calling for military support. All the Iraqi truck drivers from the convoy had vanished, as had the employees of the water directorate. An Iraqi guard who had been shooting at the attackers got into Hart's pickup truck, breathing heavily and shaking.

As he closed the door, gunfire broke out again -- first the pop, pop, pop of rifles, then the rapid thumping of the machine guns atop the pickup trucks. Once again, Jones and the men outside shot back.

"Jay, get in your wagon! Get in your wagon, Jay, we're moving!" Hart yelled at his teammate James Stevens, who then ran out to the gate to open it so the trucks could escape.

As the team laid down a few more shots, the pickup trucks raced out of the compound, turning right on the road and getting onto the main highway east, toward the U.S. base at Abu Ghraib. Across the road, the insurgents took a few parting shots at the convoy. A man with an RPG scrambled for cover as the gunners in the trucks fired at him.

The reports came in over the radio as they reached safety: They had killed two insurgents. The convoy had scattered to the winds; three or four of the Iraqi truck drivers were kidnapped before they could make it back to Umm Qasr. Everybody in the security team was alive, nobody hurt. And a water truck had made it to Baghdad.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[keith]

The enforcer

Colonel Tim Spicer is effectively in charge of the second largest military force in Iraq - some 20,000 private soldiers. Just don't call him a mercenary

Stephen Armstrong
Saturday May 20, 2006
The Guardian


Colonel Tim Spicer is the future of warfare. Immaculately dressed, effortlessly charming, a keen Eric Clapton fan with tickets for most of Slowhand's gigs over the summer, he is also effectively in charge of the second largest military force in Iraq: the estimated 20,000 private security personnel who outnumber the British army by almost three to one. Spicer's company Aegis has a contract with the Pentagon worth almost $300m to oversee the 16 private security companies providing personnel, security, military training and reconstruction. As Bush's poll ratings fall, it looks as if these private soldiers will only increase.

Estimates of their numbers vary and Spicer isn't convinced by the figure of 20,000. "I'd say there's no more than 8,000 if you define it as expat Brits or Americans," he says. "If you include Iraqi security companies and third country nationals like Gurkhas, Fijians and others, you could be getting up to 20,000. The oil protection force used to be run by a private security company and it had upwards of 10,000 people in it, but that's now been nationalised under the ministry of oil."

No matter how many there are, the strategic advantage for the Pentagon in working so closely with the likes of Aegis is clear. Iraq's increasing unpopularity in America is mainly fuelled by rising troop casualties - now approaching 2,500 - while private security deaths go unrecorded. The American broadcaster PBS estimated that 18 "private warriors" were killed in two weeks last June, but there are no official figures.

"The impact of casualties is much more significant if they're sovereign forces as opposed to contractors," Spicer says. "However, it is the sovereign forces that do the fighting. Aegis's casualty figures are incredibly light - we've lost three in two years; two to suicide bombs and one to a road accident. I couldn't tell you about the other companies."

As Bush and Blair face pressure to set deadlines for troop withdrawal and the violence continues, there's every chance these private companies could take up the security slack. Their numbers have mushroomed since 9/11. In the 1990s there were probably a handful at most, today there are 25 in the UK, about 30 in the US and a few in France and Germany. And they are becoming ambitious.

In April, a US private security company called Blackwater declared itself ready and able to resolve the situation in Darfur. "We're low cost and fast," said its vice chairman. "The question is, who's going to let us play on their team?" Aegis's Iraq contract makes it the largest British player in the "security bubble". Should the troops withdraw, they'd effectively be in charge of the western presence in Iraq.

"I don't think any of the coalition nations are going to cut and run," says Spicer. "But if they did go, that would not mean the end of the insurgency. I don't subscribe to the view that there is a civil war going on, but if the coalition left it could very easily disintegrate into one. The Iraqi security forces are not ready to take control. And therefore there would be a very significant increased role for private security - protecting critical infrastructure like oil, power station and water supplies, otherwise the insurgents will blow them up."

We're walking through the galleries of the Imperial War Museum and come to rest in front of the sleek, black motorbike Lawrence of Arabia was riding when he died. Spicer is fascinated by Lawrence as the man who organised the first modern Middle Eastern insurgency against an imperial power. Despite leaving his public school early to sprawl on the grass at the Isle of Wight festival and manage American rock bands, it was his interest in history that finally drew him back into the family tradition of army service.

The museum is one of his favourite places. Initially he and his son came to see the planes and tanks in the bright main hall but, as the boy got older, he took him to the fake first world war trenches to get a sense of what life is like under fire. I wonder aloud why a soldier with Falklands experience would return to combat in the private sector after leaving the army in 1995.

"I did go and work in the City," he smiles, "but if you've trained to do certain things for 20 years and you're halfway competent and ... and you enjoy it, because that is the difference between the conscript and the volunteer, you probably miss it, if the truth be known. Why leave the army and join a private security company? Certainly there's an element of financial reward. But most people who work for me feel they are doing a valuable job. It's not just a bunch of hard men in it for the money."

That, however, is an accusation thrown at him in the past. He vigorously defended two of his soldiers convicted of murder in Northern Ireland and, after his stint in the City, set up Sandline - a private security company implicated in scandals in both Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea.

"I've always said that in Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone there was nothing wrong with what Sandline was doing because we were there at the request of the democratically elected governments," he argues. "But it attracted a lot of attention and played into the hands of people who felt that this was not a good way of doing things. The idea was well before its time. There was a huge amount of suspicion, mistrust and poor connotation attached to the security business at that time."

In a world where everything is contracted out, however, big security contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq mean the private security sector is bidding for respectability. Certainly the City sees the potential. Spicer is fending off calls from investors almost every day. Earlier this year, the British Association of Private Security Companies was set up, a lobbying body keen to promote self-regulation. The word mercenary is frowned upon. Although Spicer was happy to use it in its literal sense five years ago, it now makes him uncomfortable. "It's a pejorative term," he shrugs. "Mercenaries are bad."

Which is why he set up Aegis in September 2002. "I wanted to make sure that Aegis was a completely different animal." The company now has 1,200 employees. Three divisions provide intelligence, security operations and technical support. Many of the ground staff are ex-military, but the board has a number of merchant bankers and there's a sprinkling of journalists, police, former UN staffers and aid workers. There are offices in London, Washington, Kabul, Saudi Arabia and Nepal, but the company's largest presence is in Iraq.

It's not been a good week out there, but Spicer is an optimist. "It's not going to happen tomorrow, but if this government is formed and is balanced and the militias that support political parties can be kept in check - which is touch and go - then you'll see significant progress." Even so, there's an insurgency and a great deal of chaos. Would he join the calls from US generals for the head of Donald Rumsfeld? He speaks carefully: "There was a feeling that once the Ba'ath party had been removed there would be a natural desire to break away from 30 years of oppression and develop the country. There was a lack of realisation that there would be dissenters. Maybe someone should have thought 'how are we going to deal with this?' But I don't believe there was no plan for reconstruction - it may have been better organised, but it is taking place."

As for the idea that governments would try to avoid troop deaths by employing Aegis in Darfur, "The industry will resist," he believes. "It's not appropriate." Looking past Lawrence's bike and into the future, he says: "Maybe in 10 years' time it could develop into that ... but there will always be national sovereign forces working for national governments. It's just that the private sector will be there to assist and support them."

Career in brief

1974 Joined army, 21 SAS

1976 Sandhurst, Scots Guards

1982 Falklands. Becomes major in 1985

1986-87 Company commander in Northern Ireland

1990 Joint planning group Desert Storm

1991 Military assistant to Gen Peter de la Billière

1991-93 Special Forces

1994 MA for Gen Sir Michael Rose in Sarajevo

1996 Leaves army. Sets up Sandline

2002 Chief executive, Aegis

[keith]

Utahn gets 'rush' as bodyguard

. . . brandishing assault rifle, riding in armored car in Iraq, Afghanistan

By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News

Like most students, Dale McIntosh, a business major at Westminster College, works his way through school to pay for his education. He will be among the millions of students who will find a job this summer, but the similarities end there. Unlike his peers, he won't flip hamburgers, mow lawns or wait tables. He'll brandish an M-4 assault rifle and carry a Glock pistol on his hip while working as a bodyguard in the most dangerous place on Earth.

McIntosh is one of a growing number of privately contracted bodyguards — many of them ex-soldiers — hired by the U.S. government to protect its officials in Baghdad and other Middle East hot spots. McIntosh spent a year and a half in Iraq and Afghanistan protecting government employees assigned to work there, as well as those passing through on official business — among them, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. John McCain, Treasury Secretary John Snow, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (now ambassador to Iraq).

The work is highly dangerous. Four of McIntosh's comrades were killed last summer, two weeks after he returned to the states.

It's also highly lucrative. McIntosh can earn a lot of money quickly — he has made as much as $25,000 a month. At 29, he owns a house and other investment properties in Hawaii, a condo in Salt Lake City and drives a new Denali. He lives off his investments while he attends school.

"My family would prefer I didn't go over there," he says, "but it's such a good opportunity financially."

There is something besides money that drives McIntosh to risk life and limbs: adrenaline and the kind of camaraderie that athletes share as members of an elite team. He has survived a dozen firefights and ambushes, not to mention enough high-speed car chases and crashes to film another "Bourne Identity."

"It's addicting because you do get an adrenaline rush, and it gives you a new appreciation for life," he says.

Because of defense budget cuts, the United States relies heavily on private security contractors for protection. According to a recent article in The Australian Magazine, some 50 foreign security companies are licensed to operate in Iraq.

"In Iraq the subcontracting of war has happened on an unprecedented scale," writes Jon Swain. "In the first Gulf War there was one private contractor serving on the ground for every 50 American solders; now it is estimated that there is one for fewer than 10 servicemen."

These soldiers of fortune weigh the benefits — they can earn as much as $1,300 a day and $40,000 per month — against the risks — more than 300 private contractors have been killed, as they dodge exploding cars, road mines, rocket-propelled grenades, snipers, mortars, suicide bombers and military-grade assault rifles.

"The majority of the guys over there have wives and kids," says McIntosh. "They had come out of the military without much to show for it. It is a way to improve their lives."

McIntosh doesn't have a wife, but he does have a father, Tony, and four older brothers, Keith, Tony Jr., Robert and Blake. (His mother passed away.) They are no strangers to military life. Tony served in the Army for 30 years, including a stint in Vietnam, before settling the family in Star Valley, Wyo., about 20 years ago.

Keith is a former Army veteran who patrolled the DMZ in South Korea. Robert is an Army doctor based in San Diego whose work consists largely of the treatment of soldiers who were injured in Iraq. Eventually, he will serve in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"It was scary having (Dale) over there," says Tony. "I didn't want him to go. But he's a grown man. People do what they feel they need to do. I worried all the time and prayed for him and was concerned and was just glad when he was back here safe."

After graduating from high school, McIntosh attended Utah State University briefly before signing up for the National Guard, which assigned him active duty for 18 months. Shortly after leaving the Guard, he joined the Marines and eventually earned an invitation to special ops training.

He was assigned to the U.S. Marines 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company. They trained abroad for several missions, working closely with their international counterparts. They did mountain training in the Alps with the Slovenians, jumped out of planes with the Tunisians, performed ship-to-land insertions with the Turks, practiced sniper shooting out of a helicopter with the Greeks, performed desert operations in Djibouti with the French Foreign Legion.

They were sent to Djibouti to prepare for action in Afghanistan; they waited on a Navy ship in the Adriatic Sea during the Bosnian conflict for a mission to seize dictator Slobodan Milosevic; they waited on a ship off the coast of Iran for another mission to seize Osama bin Laden's brother.

They never saw action. McIntosh and his platoon felt like the athlete who gets stuck on the sideline for the big game.

"Regardless of what people say, you want to go do what you've practiced," says McIntosh.

After five years in the Marines, much of it during the post-9/11 era, he returned to civilian life, as did other frustrated members of his platoon. "We thought, if we're not going to do anything now, when things are like they are, what's the point," says McIntosh.

McIntosh, 26 at the time, attended classes at Salt Lake Community College and worked as a personal trainer. Meanwhile, he was taking out student loans and going into debt. After meeting with an ex-Marine pal who was serving as a bodyguard for the Afghanistan president, McIntosh decided to quit school and join him.

Needing money and craving action, he was on a plane 10 days later bound for three weeks of training and evaluation with a private contractor based in Tennessee. He was trained in self-defense, close-quarter combat and defensive and offensive driving — how to spin a car, how to reverse direction, how to take corners at high speeds, how to ram another car, how to push a car to its limits.

McIntosh passed the evaluation and was sent overseas. He spent six months in Afghanistan, five months in Iraq, two months in Bosnia and then another two months in Iraq last summer before returning to Utah and school last fall. He struggled to adjust to civilization.

"I started going to the shooting range and shopping for a bullet bike — something to get the blood pumping," says McIntosh, who sleeps with a pistol by his bed. For the first few weeks he jumped when he heard loud sounds.

The truth is, part of McIntosh's job in Iraq is also tedious and austere. He and the other private security guards live in trailers inside a walled compound and almost never venture beyond those walls when they aren't working.

"When you left the compound, you wore body armor and you were armed to the teeth," he says. "We drove through the city with guns hanging out the windows and each of us was assigned to scan a sector."

Much of his job consisted of whisking clients through Baghdad at 80 miles per hour in armored Suburbans and Land Cruisers. Insurgents use a variety of tactics to slow them — i.e. rocks in the road, ramming their vehicle, parking a car loaded with explosives by the road, staging accidents.

"If you get into an accident, you don't stop," says McIntosh. "If there's a traffic jam or a car in the way, you pull into the oncoming lane of traffic or just push the car through and keep going. Speed is security for us. Anywhere we went, we went fast. A car bomb is harder to time for a fast-moving car. If someone is catching up to you, you know they're a threat."

(At least one client, Hillary Clinton, complained to a companion in the back seat that they were going too fast for her to see the sights.)

On one occasion, McIntosh was riding in the third car on a one-way street when their three-car motorcade was ambushed. As McIntosh tells it, "We saw a couple of guys walking up from the left and knew something was going on. You can sense it. One of them reached into a car and grabbed an AK. Someone inside the car handed the other guy a Glock. They started shooting at the limo (middle car). The first round hit the engine. The engine does not have armor, so the electronics went out, and the car went to idle. We swerved toward the shooters to try to hit them or mitigate their threat, and they turned their fire on us. Then we rammed the limo from behind and pushed it to our destination through traffic and stoplights."

Before their clients leave a secure area, the security guards gather information from native and American military sources and then make a recon drive as an advance team, plotting routes (rarely the same one twice) and checking out the destination ahead of time. They escort their clients from the vehicle to the building and then set up an armed perimeter.

"You precede them into every room," says McIntosh. "Some of the political people don't like it; they think it's embarrassing. We form a circle around them and don't let anyone inside the ring except people we know or he knows. We would be his bad guys for him so he could be the nice guy and let them in."

Much of the guards' effectiveness is based on deterrence through intimidation. Many of them are built like linebackers — McIntosh is 6-foot-3, 240 pounds. They lift weights and exercise in their spare time. McIntosh grew a woolly beard to add to his menacing aura (hence, his call sign of "Chewy"). They keep their weapons visible.

"The whole mentality when you're guarding someone is to avoid confrontation, to take a defensive posture," says McIntosh. "We didn't want a firefight. If someone shoots at us while we're driving, we run away and protect our client and get him out of harm's way. It's against everything instilled in a military man."

Notwithstanding, private contractors are controversial in the Middle East because they operate under virtually no law. They can and do shoot to kill anyone who is carrying a weapon, for instance, with impunity.

"I can't tell you some of the things we did over there," he says. "When we got there, contractors were legally in a gray area. We didn't fall under military law or Iraqi law. To do our job, we can't afford to be diplomatic — if someone won't listen, we act. If a car comes up behind us and won't back off on our order, we get aggressive. We stick a gun out the window, and if that doesn't work, we point it at them. At that point, if we felt threatened, we shot the engine block or even them. If they're not backing off, they could have a bomb."

That said, McIntosh adds, "When we first went over there, it didn't matter that we weren't under any law because we were all professionals and no one was taking advantage of that freedom."

He believes that is no longer the case. The reputation of private contractors has suffered with the increased demand for security and the resulting decline in quality guards. McIntosh notes that when he first trained for security work in Iraq, the selection progress was "rigorous." The firm that hired him considered only highly skilled and experienced former special ops soldiers. It was like a tryout for a professional football team. They stayed in a hotel together and dreaded a phone call that meant they would be sent home the next morning. McIntosh laments that such rigorous standards are no longer required.

from that first group," says McIntosh. "We were one of the first companies to go in there, and within a couple of months we saw the quality drop off. Now it seems like the only requirement to get into the contracting business is you have to get past Level Six on the Delta Force video game."

McIntosh realized how far the standards had fallen one day when he walked into a U.S. military base PX and saw one of the new private contractors. He was wearing a full-length black leather coat in the middle of the Iraqi summer, with a pony tail, screw-you sunglasses and two revolvers placed backward in holsters on his hips.

"First of all, no professional would dress like that," says McIntosh. "He just wanted to look cool. There are efficient ways to draw a weapon. He'd have to throw open his jacket, cross draw two revolvers that may have had only six to eight rounds. Those are the people who get into trouble and make a bad name for everyone."

McIntosh and other security contractors work and live with their lives almost constantly on the line. For a time, there was a $100,000 bounty on their heads during his assignment in Afghanistan. ("In a weird way, we were flattered," he says.) Driving through the streets, he could see people videotaping their motorcade "gathering intell."

During his stay in Iraq, McIntosh had to ride in unarmored cars. "Bullets went through the door like cheese," he says. During one ambush, a bullet passed through the door, struck one guard in the femoral artery and then struck a guard sitting next to him in the leg.

"He almost died," says McIntosh of the first man. "He lost so much blood he passed out. He stopped breathing just before we reached the hospital. The Suburban was covered in blood."

It is such moments as these that keep the McIntosh family glued to the TV while one of their own is working there. "Money's not everything," says Tony. "I feel he's made some money, and he's back home safe. Stay home now. He was blessed the times he was over there. There's a time he won't go back there anyway. . . . It's now as far as I'm concerned."

There is another kind of subtler wound that Tony, the Vietnam vet, fears for his son, as well. "The things people see in a combat zone . . . sometimes it's hard to get over it," says Tony. "Sometimes they never get over it. A lot of these homeless people are vets. They just couldn't handle it mentally."

Dale McIntosh has seen those things already. He owns a collection of videotapes of the ambushes recorded by cameras mounted on the dashboard, as well as a collection of photos that chronicle the carnage. There are photos of men with the tops of their heads shot off, and photos of skeletons in the street that have been picked almost clean by packs of dogs.

The McIntosh family hears and sees news of the latest violence in Iraq and stews until they hear that he is safe. Older brother Keith sends an instant message on the Internet every time there is an incident to contact his brother.

"I tried to talk him out of going over there," says Keith. "It's not something I would do. He's really good at it and seems to pick up the leadership roles quickly over there. When I heard things happen on the news, I would instant message him on the Internet and he would tell me he was all right. It's a risk most people wouldn't take for that money."

Looking back, McIntosh explains the allure of such a dangerous job: "I did it because of the money and because it gave us the opportunity to do the fun stuff we wanted to do in the military without a lot of the B.S. that came with dealing with officers. We had a purpose over there.

"In the military we weren't getting into the game. I was in five years and didn't real feel like my life was in danger, and I don't mean that the way it sounds. It's just kind of a rush, an appreciation of life when you've been in that situation, and I wanted to experience that. People were shooting at us, and we were shooting back. That was a rush you wouldn't come down from all day. Those are the moments that cause you to reflect on life. Even now, I don't get upset at petty things. The whole experience gave me a new perspective on life."

Ultimately, the risk contributed to his decision to return to the United States last summer. "You feel like you have a deck of cards you throw out there, and if you keep throwing them out there eventually your card will come up. I had benefited enough. I didn't want to start a family with one arm."

That said, McIntosh recently began the paperwork process for more security work. He plans to return to Iraq soon.

[keith]

In the Black(water)
by JEREMY SCAHILL
The Nation
June 5, 2006

Tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims remain without homes. The environment is devastated. People are disenfranchised. Financial resources, desperate residents are told, are scarce. But at least New Orleans has a Wal-Mart parking lot serving as a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center with perhaps the tightest security of any parking lot in the world. That's thanks to the more than $30 million Washington has shelled out to the Blackwater USA security firm since its men deployed after Katrina hit. Under contract with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Protective Service, Blackwater's men are ostensibly protecting federal reconstruction projects for FEMA. Documents show that the government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its guards in the area. Interviewed by The Nation last September, several of the company's guards stationed in New Orleans said they were being paid $350 a day. That would have left Blackwater with $600 per man, per day to cover lodging, ammo, other overhead -- and profits.

Shortly after the hurricane hit, Blackwater "launched a helicopter and crew with no contract, no one paying us, that went down to New Orleans," says company vice chairman Cofer Black. "We saved some 150 people that otherwise wouldn't have been saved. And, as a result of that, we've had a very positive experience." Indeed. It was only days after the company arrived that it started reeling in lucrative deals.

According to Blackwater's government contracts, obtained by The Nation, from September 8 to September 30, 2005, Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to "protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA." That contract kicked off a hurricane boon for Blackwater. From September to the end of December 2005, the government paid Blackwater at least $33.3 million -- well surpassing the amount of Blackwater's contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer when he was head of the US occupation of Iraq. And the company has likely raked in much more in the hurricane zone. Exactly how much is unclear, as attempts to get information on Blackwater's current contracts in New Orleans have been unsuccessful.

"We saw the costs, in terms of accountability and dollars, for this practice in Iraq, and now we are seeing it in New Orleans," says Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who has been one of Blackwater's few critics in Congress. "They have again given a sweetheart contract -- without an open bidding process -- to a company with close ties to the Administration."

After The Nation exposed Blackwater's operations in New Orleans this past fall [see "Blackwater Down," October 10, 2005], Schakowsky and a handful of other Congress members raised questions about the scandal. They entered the report into the Congressional Record during hearings on Katrina and cited it in letters to DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, who then began an inquiry. In letters to Congressional offices in February, Skinner defended the Blackwater deal, asserting that it was "appropriate" for the government to contract with the company. Skinner admitted that "the ongoing cost of the contract ... is clearly very high" and then quietly dropped a bombshell: "It is expected that FEMA will require guard services on a relatively long-term basis (two to five years)." Two to five years? Already most of the 330 federally contracted private guards in the hurricane zone are working for Blackwater, according to the Washington Post. Another firm, DynCorp, is also trying to grab more of the action, offering its security services for less than $700 per day per guard.

The hurricane's aftermath has ushered in the homecoming of the "war on terror," a contract bonanza whereby companies can reap massive Iraq-like profits without leaving the country and at a minuscule fraction of the risk. To critics of the government's handling of the hurricane, the message is clear.

"That's what happens when the victims are black folks vilified before and after the storm -- instead of aid, they get contained," says Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and an editor of Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch. "If officials really cared about protecting the people of New Orleans, they wouldn't be giving millions to scandal-ridden contractors. They would have given the city money to rebuild their levees to withstand more than a Category 2 Hurricane. They still haven't done that -- and hurricane season is upon us."

Kromm alleges that vital projects that have "gotten zero or little money" in New Orleans include: job creation, hospital and school reconstruction, affordable housing and wetlands restoration. Even in this context, DHS continues to defend the Blackwater contract. In a March 1 memo to FEMA, Matt Jadacki, the DHS Special Inspector General for Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery, wrote that the Federal Protective Service considered Blackwater "the best value to the government."

While companies like Halliburton may have raked in more profits since George W. Bush took office, few have seen growth as dramatic as Blackwater's. The firm has been at the front of the line at the domestic and international taxpayer-funded feeding troughs and has recently hired some high-profile former government officials, like Cofer Black, former chief of CIA counterterrorism, and former Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz. In March Black represented Blackwater at a conference in Jordan, announcing that the company was seeking to broaden its role in even more conflict zones. Blackwater is rapidly expanding its operations, creating a new surveillance-blimp division, launching new training facilities in California and the Philippines, and increasingly setting its sights on the lucrative world of DHS contracts. It is clamoring to get into Darfur and has also hired Chilean troops trained under the brutal rule of Augusto Pinochet. "We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals," company president Gary Jackson told the Guardian. "The Chilean commandos are very, very professional, and they fit within the Blackwater system." The business magazine Fast Company recently named Jackson one of its "Fast 50," predicting that the company and its president are in for "a very strong (and long) decade."

It's hard to imagine that the cronyism that has marked the Bush Administration is not at play in Blackwater's success. Blackwater founder Erik Prince shares Bush's fundamentalist Christian views. He comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family and social circle, and his father, Edgar, helped Gary Bauer start the Family Research Council. According to a report prepared for The Nation by the Center for Responsive Politics, in all of Erik Prince's political funding generosity since 1989, he has never given a penny to a Democrat running for national office. Company president Jackson has also given money to Republican candidates. For his part, Joseph Schmitz -- the former Pentagon Inspector General turned general counsel to Blackwater's parent, The Prince Group -- lists on his résumé membership in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed before the First Crusade. Like Prince, he comes from a right-wing family; his father, former Congressman John Schmitz, was an ultraconservative John Birch Society director who later ran for President. Joseph Schmitz was once in charge of investigating private contractors like Blackwater, but he resigned amid allegations of stonewalling investigations conducted by his department. He now represents one of the most successful of those contractors.

Schakowsky charges that the Administration has written Blackwater "blank checks," saying that the internal DHS review of the company "leaves us with more questions than answers." She points out that the report fails to address the major issues stemming from deploying private forces on US streets. In her testimony this past September, Schakowsky said, "Ask any American if they want thugs from a private, for-profit company with no official law-enforcement training roaming the streets of their neighborhoods. The answer will be a resounding NO."

Blackwater's ascent comes in the midst of a major rebranding campaign aimed at shaking its mercenary image. The company is at the forefront of the trade association of mercenary firms, the International Peace Operations Association, which lobbies for even greater privatization of military operations. Blackwater and its cause have clearly found serious backing in the Bush Administration. Hiring Blackwater, says Schakowsky, "may be legal, but it is not a good deal for taxpayers and Gulf region residents in particular." Blackwater's sweetheart deals, both domestic and international, are representative of how business has been done under Bush. They are a troubling indicator of a trend toward less accountability and transparency and greater privatization of critical government functions. It's time that more members of Congress ask tough questions about Blackwater and its rapid, profitable rise.

This article was reprinted with permission from The Nation.

[keith]

Don't jump ship, Iraq guards told
Sunday May 21, 2006


A Fiji recruiting agent for the London-based private security firm Control Risk Group has warned Fijian guards in Iraq not to jump ship when approached by other security firms who promise more money.

This comes after an increase in civilian Fijian deaths in Iraq in the past month with talks of sending more former soldiers to act as security guards for private companies in the war-torn country.

Four Fijian guards were killed in Iraq on April 19 after their convoy was ambushed by the Iraqi resistance.

Their families were not given compensation because they "jumped ship" from Control Risk to a Kuwait-based International Security Company that did not have compensation clause in its contract with the four guards.

Risk Control (Fiji) Limited recruiter Jonetani Kaukimoce confirmed today that 110 more former soldiers will be going to Iraq and they have been "fully briefed on the consequences of jumping ship".

Kaukimoce said the problem of "jumping ship" is that the Fijian guards are not aware of the resource limitations of the new security companies they are joining.

He said there are unscrupulous security companies that are forming by the minute in Iraq to take advantage of the security situation and the valuable tenders offered by firms that require armed protection from the Iraqi resistance.

Kaukimoce said he has been informed of instances where guards have been lured by these newly-formed security companies and they find themselves working with bad and faulty equipment.

"When they jump ship from one company to another, they do not know what they are jumping into," he said.

"When they jump into a new company, they (Fijian guards) don't know if the new company has say, armoured vehicles.

"There are five new companies in Iraq that are luring our guards and we have briefed our recruits about them and their capabilities."

Kaukimoce said that the guards coming back should tell their relatives who want to go to Iraq all about these ill-equipped security companies whose only goal is to win the lucrative contracts and tenders.

His company is well established and provides guards with latest equipment. He added the guards were well informed and understood the risks involved while working in Iraq.

"Most have been in Lebanon, they have served in Sinai and some have already served in Iraq as security guards, so they are fully aware of the risks involved," Kaukimoce said.

Ten civilian Fijian guards have died in Iraq to date. A separate figure of 12 Fijians serving in the British Army have also lost their lives with the latest being Private Joseva Lewaicei, serving with the Royal Anglian Regiment, who was killed by a roadside bomb.

[keith]

Ted Koppel: Time for U.S. to Form an "Army of Mercenaries"?

By E&P Staff

Published: May 21, 2006 12:05 AM ET

NEW YORK Little known to the American public, there are some 50,000 private contractors in Iraq, providing support for the U.S. military, among other activities. So why not go all the way, hints Ted Koppel in a New York Times op-ed on Monday, and form a real "mercenary army"?

Such a move involving what he calls "latter-day Hessians" would represent, he writes, "the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems."

The issue is raised by our "over-extended military" and inability of the United Nations to form adequate peace forces. Meanwhile, Americans business interests grow ever more active abroad in dangerous spots.

"Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures," Koppel explains, tongue possibly in cheek.

"So, if there are personnel shortages in the military (and with units in their second and third rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan, there are), then what's wrong with having civilian contractors? Expense is a possible issue; but a resumption of the draft would be significantly more controversial....

"So, what about the inevitable next step — a defensive military force paid for directly by the corporations that would most benefit from its protection? If, for example, an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation's ability to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion or two of mercenaries?"

Koppel notes that Cofer Black, formerly a high-ranking C.I.A. officer and now a senior executive with Blackwater USA, "has publicly said that his company would be prepared to take on the Darfur account."

He concludes: "The United States may not be about to subcontract out the actual fighting in the war on terrorism, but the growing role of security companies on behalf of a wide range of corporate interests is a harbinger of things to come."

[keith]

South Africa : SA's draft anti-mercenary bill 'flawed'
May 23, 2006

By Andnetwork .com

An association of private security companies claims that South Africa's draft anti-mercenary bill has critical flaws, and that it will undermine international peace operations and severely harm South Africa’s international image if it is passed as law.

The International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) told parliament on Tuesday that while it supports the general aims of the Prohibition of Mercenary Activity and Prohibition and Regulation of Certain Activities in an area of Armed Conflict Bill, the bill has critical flaws that would undermine international peace operations and severely harm South Africa’s international image.

The organisation's president, Doug Brooks, was briefing parliament's defence portfolio committee on the second day of submissions on South Africa's draft anti-mercenary bill.

IPOA is a trade association of companies advocating the usage of private sector security services in support of international peace and stability operations. Member companies provide services such as demining, logistics and security in conflict and post-conflict environments.

According to the organisation's website, South Africa is at the forefront of international peace efforts, especially on the African continent.

"The country has a tremendous reputation in the international community and is a recognised leader in committing personnel to international peace and stability operations."

The organisation's member companies have provided security services in Afghanistan, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, among other countries.

Brooks said private security companies are important to the reconstruction of countries such as Iraq, and generally catered for three general categories - logistics and support, private security companies hired "to protect the noun" and reform and development companies which supported long-term change.

An estimated 800 South Africans are presently employed at private security companies in Iraq, with more involved in logistics and de-mining operations.

IPOA claims that South Africans bring crucial skills and capabilities, the knowledge of how best to mitigate humanitarian suffering in conflict and post conflict
environments, and a tough readiness to serve in the most austere living conditions, making them invaluable components in successful international
peace and stability operations.

"We firmly believe that the South African government can formulate legislation that would create a more open and legal process for South African citizens to provide their valuable services, while ensuring that excesses and humanitarian crimes are addressed in appropriate legal venues.

"The bill must be improved to allow South African citizens to openly and legally participate in support of international peace and stability operations without impeding upon the republic’s ability to appropriately prosecute egregious humanitarian crimes. The South African government can ensure appropriate transparency and legitimacy of the peace and stability industry by engaging with South African companies and citizens."

IPOA previously proposed the formation of an inclusive South African panel of experts composed of representatives from the government, parliament, academia, human rights organizations and the industry. Such a panel would set an example to the world in terms of transparency while ensuring that the private sector works in partnership and accord with government policies to enhance international peace operations.

The panel of experts would promote openness, legality, proper ethics and international co-operation.

Improving the Bill

IPOA believes the Bill could become viable and useful legislation with some significant modifications such as the acceptance of the reality that many private sector services fundamentally assist in making international peace and stability operations successful.

Also, that if South Africa’s leadership role in international peace and stability operations is to be maintained, it is important that South African law be harmonised with the laws and regulations of other states and international organisations that host or utilise companies in the peace and stability industry.

The organisation also wants the South African government’s designations of "areas of conflict" to be be based "on clear rather than arbitrary criteria".

Johannesburg Bureau

http://www.andnetwork.com/index?service=direct/0/Home/top.fullStory&sp=l35836

[keith]

U.S. Is Faulted for Using Private Military Workers
The reliance on security firms to interrogate and transport suspected terrorists has created 'rule-free zones,' says Amnesty International.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
May 24, 2006


WASHINGTON — The U.S. government's use of private military contractors to conduct interrogations in Iraq and to transport suspected terrorists creates "rule-free zones" and allows abuses to go unpunished, Amnesty International charged Tuesday.

There are 20 known cases of civilian contractors suspected of committing criminal acts while handling detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only one has been prosecuted thus far, said Larry Cox, Amnesty's U.S. executive director.

"Amnesty International is not opposed to the use of private contractors," Cox said at a news conference to release the group's annual report on human rights. "But the reliance of the United States government on private military contractors has helped create virtually rule-free zones sanctioned with the American flag and firepower."

The human rights organization said its research also showed that at least 25 American companies appeared to have been hired by the U.S. government to transport suspected terrorists to countries known for human rights violations, a practice that might make them "complicit in the U.S. government's practice of outsourcing torture."

The CIA has come under intense international criticism for the practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which it captures terrorism suspects in one country and moves them to another for interrogation and detention. Less attention has been paid, however, to private companies whose airplanes and other transportation services have been used in the CIA's program.

Private military contractors based in the United States and other countries have been a controversial presence in Iraq. Their role has come under greater scrutiny after four employees of Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based security firm, were killed and two of their corpses hung from a bridge in Fallouja in March 2004.

An estimated 25,000 private security workers are employed in Iraq, costing nearly $50 billion since the start of the war. Estimates based on government reports indicate that more than 200 have been killed.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has repeatedly defended the Pentagon's use of private contractors, saying it is an effective way to free up military personnel and other government employees working in combat zones.

In December, Rumsfeld acknowledged that such contractors were not covered by military law, but he argued that Iraqi laws as well as U.S. civilian laws govern the behavior of Americans working in Iraq.

President Bush, who was asked about the legal status of contractors in Iraq at a town hall session last month, said he delegated such policy decisions to the Pentagon.

"I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case," Bush joked after a talk to graduate students in Washington. "I'm going to call the secretary [Rumsfeld] and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it?"

In January, the Justice Department acknowledged that it was looking into 11 allegations of detainee abuse by civilians from the Pentagon, as well as those involving nine civilians from "another agency," believed to be the CIA.

Other than the case against former CIA contractor David Passaro, in which assault charges were filed two years ago in connection with the June 2003 beating death of a detainee in Afghanistan, all of the others have been referred to a task force set up in the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Justice Department said. No other charges have been filed in any of the cases. Passaro is awaiting trial.

Amnesty officials said despite allegations of abuses, there were signs that the industry was beginning to establish self-regulating guidelines that could help prevent such problems in the future.

Laura Dickinson, a University of Connecticut law school expert on military contractors who has worked with Amnesty International on the issue, said she had been in contact with the International Peace Operations Assn., a newly formed trade group for private military groups, about ways to change contracts and regulations governing the companies.

Dickinson said she had studied 60 publicly available contracts of private companies working for the U.S. government in Iraq and found that none of them required employees to obey international human rights and humanitarian laws, provisions that could easily be added to government contracts.

She said many domestic government contracts, such as those for companies running state prisons, routinely included provisions for such laws, as well as an accreditation process that prevented companies from winning such deals without the approval of national trade associations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-contractors24may24,1,6995503.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

[keith]

SA mercenaries 'highly prized in hot spots'

May 23 2006 at 03:49PM

Removing South Africans employed at private security companies contracted to do work in international hotspots could prove "disastrous", members of Parliament heard on Tuesday.

"Many international efforts will be at risk... (Some) will have to close their operations if they can't rely on South Africans," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association.

Brooks was briefing Parliament's defence portfolio committee on the second day of submissions on South Africa's draft anti-mercenary bill.

Also speaking on behalf of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, Brooks said South Africa currently set the ethical standards for peace-keeping operations, providing more personnel (2000) than for example, America.

'We don't have a secret ninja team that can go and whack violators'
"South Africans are more robust, able to live under more austere conditions, have increased flexibility and can adapt to changing conditions," Brooks told Sapa of the reasons why South Africans were so highly regarded.

He said the proposed legislation would undermine peace-keeping operations, from Darfur in Sudan to Haiti and Iraq, because the "costs of peace" would increase significantly.

Brooks said private security companies were vital to the reconstruction of countries such as Iraq, and generally catered for three general categories - logistics and support, private security companies hired "to protect the noun" and reform and development companies which supported long-term change.

An estimated 800 South Africans were presently employed at private security companies in Iraq, with more involved in logistics and de-mining operations.

The department of foreign affairs said that a total of 23 South Africans had been killed in Iraq while providing security-related services.

Brooks said the peace and stability industry was critical to international operations, and supported efforts to enhance transparency and accountability.

He said there was a concern in industry that the anti-mercenary bill was counter-productive and ran contrary to democratic ideals.

Quoting from the United Nation's special rapporteur on mercenaries, Dr Shaista Shameem, Brooks said that companies not engaged in violations of human rights and impeding the right of people's to self-determination were "not a problem".

He said the UN itself made use of the private sector to provide security of UN operations, as well as logistics and support in areas such as refugee camps.

Brooks said it seemed as if the worlds' poorest countries were trying to deal with the most difficult peace-keeping operations imaginable, and a key point was that the "West is abrogating its responsibility to support these operations".

Asked by committee members about violations and the monitoring thereof, Brooks said the association had a code of conduct and tried to be proactive, but conceded this was limited.

"We don't have a secret ninja team that can go and whack violators."

Brooks said the worst the trade association could do was debar errant private companies, adding: "We can't shoot them, that's the job of states."

He said a complaint emanating from companies working in Iraq was that there was insufficient oversight of their work, which could impact on future contracts.

Brooks said in discussions with South Africans on the ground in troubled areas, the concerns raised in relation to the bill was that it would be interpreted too broadly and "will make criminals of them".

Brooks supported a system which allowed serving members of the South African National Defence Force to apply for leave, serve overseas in a private company, and return to the SANDF.

However, committee chair, Thandi Tobias, questioned this, saying that this was not okay and needed to be controlled. - Sapa

[keith]

Fuelling Africa's turmoil

The continent is awash in firearms. With young fighters going from conflict to conflict, eradicating the demand may be more difficult than eliminating the supply, one expert tells Olivia Ward The continent is awash in firearms. With young fighters going from conflict to conflict, Arms dealers are Africa's birds of prey, picking the bones of countries already destitute from years of murderous violence.

But an African security expert says the burgeoning trade in small arms — those which can be carried by individuals — has also created a dangerous new scenario in which battle-hardened young gunmen infiltrate borders across the continent, providing ready firepower for conflicts that migrate to new territory even as peace deals are signed.

The career fighters, he says, are part of a broad-based gun culture that makes the demand for weapons a steadily increasing factor in Africa's destructive arms trade — and decreases the hope for peace in such conflict-ridden areas as Darfur.

"Youth unemployment is horrific in most of Africa," said Eboe Hutchful, chair of the African Security Sector Network, an umbrella group of politicians, security experts and academics working for security sector reform. "There are many young men who see no alternative to offering their services to whoever wants to hire them to fight. They may not start conflicts, but they're available to anyone who is ready for a war."

The "hired guns" take their weapons with them, but sometimes barter them for cash along the way, said Hutchful. In Africa's huge arms bazaar, there are many opportunities to rearm.

"(Demobilized fighters) may be offered $300 in Liberia, but $900 in Ivory Coast. They'll take the money and move on somewhere else," Hutchful said.

According to the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms, there are 8 million firearms in the West Africa alone, and millions of people have been killed by them in Central and East Africa, in spite of regional accords meant to halt the flow of weapons.

Hutchful, a Ghanaian political scientist and University of Toronto grad, heads the Ghana-based African Security Dialogue and Research, and is professor of African Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit.

In Africa, he says, demand is catching up with supply as a fundamental factor in the floodtide of arms sweeping the continent.

"Eradicating the demand may be even more difficult than getting rid of the supply," Hutchful said in a telephone interview during a recent visit to Ottawa.

"In some African countries guns are now part of the culture. You have to have a personal weapon," he said.

Once acquired, small arms — defined as deadly weapons that can be carried by individual combatants — flow easily across Africa's porous borders, Hutchful said. "Many African countries aren't in a good position to address the problem. There are initiatives, but they're difficult to enforce. Small arms are simply out of control."

The multi-million-dollar international arms trade is responsible for many of the weapons that plague Africa today, despite tracking efforts and arms embargoes.

Reports show that guns are invading territory where they were once almost unknown, such as western Kenya, where an influx of automatic weapons has turned cattle theft among the impoverished Pokot tribe into civil war.

However, Hutchful says, foreign-made arms are only part of the problem. Africa's black market weapons manufacturers are now taking a cue from importers. "In West Africa, there are a number of producers of small arms. But there's a sense of denial about locally manufactured weapons — (governments) don't want to admit that they themselves might be proliferators."

Many of the producers, Hutchful says, are ordinary blacksmiths looking to boost their small incomes: "They produce routine agricultural implements and guns for hunting. But the guns end up in the hands of criminals. In Ghana and Nigeria there is a lot of armed robbery done with locally made weapons."

Some local producers are trying to "go legitimate" by declaring their businesses and operating under government rules. But Hutchful says, "there are huge amounts of dirt-cheap arms already circulating. It may not be worth their while."

As long as arms are cheap and available, experts say, there is scant hope of solving the deep and deadly problems that beset Africa, from the brain drain of its most capable people to the huge death toll from HIV-AIDS, which is at its worst in conflict zones.

International organizations and aid agencies stress development can only go hand in hand with disarmament, Hutchful says. But without investment that creates jobs for millions of armed and hungry young men, countries recovering from wars can too easily slip back into conflict.

"If there are no jobs, how can demobilized fighters reintegrate (as civilians)? Only a few can get jobs in private security companies. There is money available for demobilization and disarmament, but once it's exhausted, what do you do then?"

The connection between economic despair and violence was highlighted by a tragic-comic incident in Ghana shortly after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"In the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi, somebody (in a radio station) played an April fool's trick, announcing that anybody interested in fighting in Iraq should go to the football stadium. Thousands of young pe