Iraq occupation 'privatised'

2004-04-02 11:12

Washington - The four security contractors killed and mutilated in Fallujah were part of a big private army playing a key role in the US-led occupation of Iraq.

And experts say the thousands of Americans and other foreigners who are meant to take the strain off stretched US troops risk becoming an even bigger target in Iraq in coming months.

According to some experts the US Defence Department is spending about $20bn, one third of the military operating budget in Iraq and Afghanistan, on contractors.

They defuse roadside bombs, escort food convoys, protect visiting dignitaries and even guard US civilian administrator Paul Bremer.

Not all are prepared for the threats they face, defence experts said.

Civilian security personnel do not get all of the intelligence they need to avoid the many dangers they face.

"In the last month more contractors have been targeted," said Alastair Morrison, a London-based specialist with Kroll Security, an international firm that specialises in corporate security in high-risk areas.

"Because they are foreigners, and because they are assisting the United States, they are becoming targets of people who seek destabilisation," Morrison said.

The four men killed in Fallujah on Wednesday worked for Blackwater Security Consulting, a US firm whose contracts include providing bodyguards for Bremer.

The company was created in 1996 by a former member of the US Marine Corps.

$57m in Pentagon contracts

Since 2002, Blackwater, based in North Carolina, has earned $57m in Pentagon contracts, according to US media citing government sources.

The use of private security companies has grown since the end of the Cold War and has hit a new peak in Iraq, said Lawrence Korb, an assistant secretary of defense in President Ronald Reagan's administration of the 1980s.

"It's cheaper for the government because you don't have all of the overhead costs," Korb said.

"Then it's also easier when the job is over just to end the contract," he said. "You don't need to be worry about firing civil servants or downsizing the military. It gives you more flexibility."

US energy and services group Halliburton, which used to be run by Vice President Dick Cheney, "is feeding the military," Korb said. "No army soldiers need to work in KP, kitchen police, which means more people in the combat units."

Korb estimated that about $15bn of the $18bn in the US budget for Iraq's reconstruction will go on security. He added that about one in 10 Americans working in Iraq is a civilian contractor - between 10 000 and 15 000 people.

The Pentagon does not keep statistics on the number of victims among civilian contractors.

But Peter Singer, author of the book "Corporate Warriors" and an expert at the Washington think-tank Brookings Institution, said at least 30 civilian security personnel have been killed since March 2003 in Iraq and 180 have been wounded.

- AFP