I will not answer that question. Next.
Posted on 04/20/2004 6:43:51 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
The security business employs between 15000 and 20000 armed civilians to protect installations or escort convoys
March 31 , the American news chains took pains to explain the four killed, charred Americans in Faludja. They had the profile of military officers and had besides gone through the army, but were employed, as civilans, by Blackwater, a security business to some, a private army to others.
Blackwater currently employs 450 persons in Iraq, with a contract of 21 million dollars, to assure the security of Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq, and personnel of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
From protection of installations to the escort of convoys, the war in Iraq gives rise to an unprecedented recourse to private businesses for tasks formerly the job of the army. Last Tuesday, an American journalist heckled George Bush, noticing that if the 17 nations of NATO sent troops to Iraq, «the second largest contingent of soldiers would be est celui des sous-traitants privés, littéralement des flingues à louer, literally shooters for rent» [rent a cops]. The president did not reply.
Difficult to know exactly the effective strength of these private military companies. Between 15 000 and 20 000, says one. "I do not know from which go out these amounts, scoffs the head of one of these businesses, "People not in know nothing because nobody keeps track of their movements."
A part of the privatization of the activities of the American army appeared after the Cold War to compensate for the decrease of its effective strength. Elle s'inscrivait, according to Peter Kuznick, military historian at the University of Washington, «in the antigovernment mentality that began developing under the Reagan administration».
Add economical advantages: «The contractors move themselves quicker, cost less because, even if their employees are paid more daily, there is not structure expenses or of social cover», explains Phillip Crankcase, a former army officer teaching a course on terrorism at UCLA.
Politically, this is also a means of low profile duty. Officially, the rolls of GI's in Iraq remain at 135 000. The private military companies are discreet about their losses.
«For the security businesses, Iraq is squarely a growth market. There is for this sector opportunities that never existed elsewhere», says Kenn Kurtz, the president of Steele Foundation, a business that assures among others the protection of the Haitian ex-président John Bertrand Aristide and counts currently 500 persons in Iraq.
The deterioration of the security conditions does not seem to have discouraged them. To the contrary, Peter Singer, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, author of a book on the rise of the private military companies, relates that, in the days that followed the attack on the four Americans of Blackwater, in Faludja, two businesses contacted him for counsel on installing themselves in this market. «The one of them never had operated in a combat zone.» Kenn Kurtz indicates that the Steele Foundation recorded an increase in spontaneous applications of 30% during the last month.
Employees such as the four Blackwater operators killed in Faludja are paid between 100 000 and 200 000 dollars per year. «Why would there be a decrease in the number of candidates? », asked Tim Meyer, who prefers not to say how many his Texan business, Meyer and Associates, employs. «The people that work for us know that they will meet again in hostile environments. This are not called for.»
Controversies over the recourse to these businesses seem inevitable. How to consider the employees taken prisoners?, questions the former officer Phillip Crankcase. Their statute is not covered by the Geneva Conventions. «They are not non-fighters since they are armed, but more than this they are not fighters since they do not wear any uniform and do not answer to a military hierarchy.» They are not subject to military tribunals in case of bad conduct.
In the Balkans, employees of DynCorp, one of the corporations today present in Iraq, were accused of having soaked in the markets of drugs and prostitution. Associations of human rights criticize their recruitment, asserting that they employ Chileans of the former army of Pinochet and South Africans of the former system of apartheid.
But it is especially the privatization of the army that poses problems to numbers of career military officers, such Noel Koch, in charge of the fight against terrorism at the Pentagon between 1981 and 1986 and today at the head of a risk analysis corporation. This recourse to «the equivalent of armies of mercenaries» for military missions arises from the «same tendency to count on the National Guard and on the reservists to carry on this war». Result: «This that is happening now is largely improvised.»
Without counting the coordination problems. Military officers and private businesses do not always share their information, do not obey necessarily the same orders. The Americans discovered two weeks ago when the Washington Post did the narrative of the manner in which Blackwater had defended the CPA headquarters in Nadjaf. The military reinforcements delaying, Blackwater had to send three of its helicopters to deliver munitions and evacuate an injured Marine, a task well beyond its mandate.
After the slaughters of the four men, thirteen democrat senators cosigned a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. «The shocking deaths of four employees of of American securities contracteurs in Faludja revealed the growing role that private military companies play in Iraq. This would be an unprecedented danger if the United States authorized the presence of private armies operating outside the check of governmental authority and indebted only to those that pay.» They demand the Pentagon adopt rules that the businesses should follow and to furnish an accounting of the security corporation employees in Iraq. The letter remained without response.
The corporations complain they about to be demonized. «In any case, they fulfill missions that the army does not like to do. The military officers prefer to devote themselves to the fight», underlines Doug Brooks, president of the international Peace Operations Association.
Pressed by the reactions to the lynching of the employees of Blackwater and to the execution, Wednesday, of an Italian employee of a security corporation, the provisional Iraqi Governing Council is said to be working on a law requiring all these businesses to be registered, to list their employees, their weapons, and to furnish copies of their work contracts. Noel Koch, formerly of the Pentagon, is perplexed. «In any case, how do you want to apply this law? For Iraq, this already is too late.»
Anybody that actually parleyvoos Fronsay?
This is the best me and my trusty 'puter could figure out.
He was US Military as a Helicopter pilot for 17 years.
I asked him what happens if you get shot down "We are on our own, but don't have to play by the "rules, and we have good stuff to defend ourselves".
I hugged him when he left, and hope he comes back.
A true American soldier.
I will not answer that question. Next.
Phil Carter of INTEL DUMP fame is mildly amused at being called Phillip Crankcase.
How does Carter translate as Crankcase?
This also happened in many other countries. The Prince of kuwait has American guards that were paid even more.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.