A mercenary is defined as any person who is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict. What do contractors do in Iraq? In Iraq, they are sometimes nearly indistinguishable from soldiers. Civilian contractors have been hired to destroy captured Iraqi weapons, clear unexploded ordnance from military bases, transport armored vehicles into the country, and train the new Iraqi army.
How many private contractors are there in Iraq? As noted previously, there are roughly three contractors 28, for every U. In Iraq today, 7, contractors support U. How much do PMC make? The individual contractors who worked for PMCs rarely speak of it because their clients include organizations such as the CIA, and their contracts require silence. How many US contractors are in Iraq? In December , there were estimated to be at least , contractors working directly for the United States Department of Defense in Iraq which was a tenfold increase in the use of private contractors for military operations since the Persian Gulf War, just over a decade earlier.
What American was killed in Iraq? How many private contractors are there in Afghanistan? This case took a tremendous amount of coordination to bring over a large number of foreign witnesses in support of this prosecution. The verdicts came on the 28th day of jury deliberations and followed more than two months of trial. Lamberth ordered that the four defendants be detained pending sentencing. A sentencing date has not yet been set. The murder charge against Slatten calls for a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Each of the voluntary manslaughter counts against the other defendants carries a statutory maximum of 15 years in prison. Each of the attempted manslaughter counts carries a statutory maximum of seven years of incarceration. The weapons offense carries a mandatory year prison sentence.
Another Blackwater security guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, pled guilty in December to voluntary manslaughter and attempt to commit manslaughter. Ridgeway, who testified as a government witness in the trial, has not yet been sentenced. Then there are the firms such as Blackwater that have played armed roles within the battle space.
They use military training and weaponry to carry out mission-critical functions that would have been done by soldiers in the past, in the midst of a combat zone against fellow combatants.
As it has been planned and conducted to date, the war in Iraq would not be possible without private military contractors. Contrary to conspiracy theories, the private military industry is not the so-called decider, plotting out wars behind the scenes like Manchurian Global. But it has become the ultimate enabler, allowing operations to happen that might otherwise be politically impossible.
The private military industry has given a new option that allows the executive branch to decide, and the legislative branch to authorize and fund, military commitments that bypass the Abrams Doctrine.
It is sometimes easier to understand this concept by looking at the issue in reverse. If a core problem that U. Rather, it is that each of them was considered politically undesirable. One answer to the problem of insufficient forces would have been for the executive branch to send more regular forces, beyond the original , planned. However, this would have involved publicly admitting that those involved in the planning — particularly then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — were wrong in their slam of critics like Army Gen.
Eric Shinseki, who warned that an occupation would require far more troops. Plus, such an expanded force would have been onerous on the overall force, creating even more tradeoffs with the war in Afghanistan, as well as broader global commitments. Another option would have been a full-scale call-up of the National Guard and Reserves, as originally envisioned for such major wars in the Abrams Doctrine. Some proposed persuading other allies to send their troops in to help spread the burden, much as NATO allies and other interested members of the U.
However, this would have involved tough compromises, such as granting U. Plus, much of the world was vehemently opposed to the war, so it was unlikely that NATO allies or the U. The private military industry was an answer to these political problems that had not existed in the past. It offered the potential backstop of additional forces, but with no one having to lose any political capital.
Plus, the generals could avoid the career risk of asking for more troops. That is, there was no outcry whenever contractors were called up and deployed, or even killed. If the gradual death toll among American troops threatened to slowly wear down public support, contractor casualties were not counted in official death tolls and had no impact on these ratings. By one count, as of July , more than 1, contractors have been killed in Iraq, and another 13, wounded.
Department of Labor. These figures mean that the private military industry has suffered more losses in Iraq than the rest of the coalition of allied nations combined. The losses are also far more than any single U. Army division has experienced. That debate over the ultimate costs of Iraq is one for historians to weigh now. What is clear, however, is that the enabling effect of the military contractor industry is not simply in allowing the operation to occur, but also in how it reinforces our worst tendencies in war.
Lobbyists for military contractors like to talk up how the U. The operation is one of the most lavishly supported ever, and most of that has been due to contractors to whom we have outsourced almost all the logistics, and the protection of that enormous supply chain. But it has proven to be remarkably inefficient, all the while undermining our counterinsurgency efforts. When putting other wars into current dollar amounts, the U.
Army has claimed Halliburton overcharged or failed to document is almost double the amount in current dollars that it cost the U. Turning logistics and operations into a for-profit endeavor helped feed the Green Zone mentality problem of sprawling bases, which runs counter to everything Gen.
As retired Marine Col. Basically, the bigger the bases, the more fast-food franchises, the more salsa dance lessons — and the more money the firms make, while wrapping themselves in the flag. But while bigger bases may yield more money for stockholders, they disconnect a force from the local populace and send a message of a long-term occupation, both major negatives in a counterinsurgency. Moreover, it puts more convoys on the roads, angering the Iraqis and creating more potential targets for insurgents.
For all the hubbub over the recent Blackwater incident, the American public remains largely unaware of the private military industry. While private forces make up more than 50 percent of the overall operation in Iraq, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, they have been mentioned in only a quarter of 1 percent of all American media stories on Iraq.
Yet, at the same time, contractors are one of the most visible and hated aspects of the American presence in Iraq. It is also important to note that Iraqi civilians do not differentiate the acts of the private military contractors from the overall U.
Most are highly talented ex-soldiers. However, their private mission is different from the overall public operation. Those, for example, doing escort duty are going to be judged by their corporate bosses solely on whether they get their client from point A to B, not whether they win Iraqi hearts and minds along the way. Ann Exline Starr, a former Coalition Provisional Authority advisor, described the difference between when she traveled with a U.
While the uniformed soldiers kept her safe, they also did such things as playing cards and drinking tea with local Iraqis. The private contractors had a different focus. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad. In an effort to keep potential threats away, contractors drive convoys up the wrong side of the road, ram civilian vehicles, toss smoke bombs, and fire weaponry as warnings, all as standard practices.
They use their machine guns like car horns. I knew two of them but not as well as others did. I walk to a couple of areas, say very little, and listen to funny stories about the deceased.
Each story begins with laughing and ultimately ends with the entire group crying. Alcohol dulls the pain. I return to my room to check my email. I have one reply to my earlier email telling my family I was alive. It feels like a slap to the face. No one worried that I was one of the dead. I realize no one at home gives a shit as I lie in bed unable to sleep. The next day we walk to the nondenominational U.
Embassy chapel. There is an elevated platform and a podium where a pastor can stand and give a jeremiad based on the religious service of the day. My body attempts to sweat out the toxins consumed the night prior. I take a seat next to George, who is on the Quick Response Force team with me. Who brings a suit to a combat zone? He speaks in platitudes about how important this mission is and how we are integral to both the State Department and the effort to rebuild Iraq.
The people of Iraq are indebted to us. He speaks glowingly of the dead. I doubt he ever met them. I listen to his drivel and feel disdain for him, for the mission, and for the people of Iraq.
Fully automatic MB. She jumps on the lap of the driver.
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