Jon_in_london
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Mercenaries Third Largest Force in Iraq
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103,412 Federal Jobs In Outsourcing Study
Spurred by Hill, OMB Provides Details
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A10
Federal agencies are studying at least 103,412 jobs throughout the government to see if contractors could do them better and more cheaply, according to a report released yesterday by the Office of Management and Budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A42360-2003Oct3¬Found=true
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power."---Franklin D. Roosevelt
Spurred by Hill, OMB Provides Details
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A10
Federal agencies are studying at least 103,412 jobs throughout the government to see if contractors could do them better and more cheaply, according to a report released yesterday by the Office of Management and Budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A42360-2003Oct3¬Found=true
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power."---Franklin D. Roosevelt
Soldiers And Fortune
Barry Lando is a former CBS producer of 60 Minutes, and has also contributed to CBS News, Time magazine and Time-Life.
Who's the United States' major ally today in Iraq? Hint: it may not be part of the "Coalition of the Willing." You might instead label them the "Brotherhood of the Extremely Well Paid": mercenaries working for private security firms in Iraq. Estimates of their number run from 5,000 to 15,000. And while no one really knows how many there are, thousands more are due to join them.
......
But who is giving the orders?
Under whose military control are those thousands of fighting men? Who tells them when to attack? When to retreat? When to avoid battle? What happens to those private armies after June 30, 2004, when sovereignty is—in theory, at least—transferred to the Iraqi people?
In a firefight, how on earth do Iraqis distinguish between actions of "private civilian contractors" and the U.S. military?
It's an Enron accountant's wet dream: private contractors taking over so much of what used to be considered military duty. How does Congress figure out, not only what the war in Iraq really costs, but what the real troop levels are? Another convenience for the Bush White House is that those contract casualties—and there have been many—are not included in the official military count.
....
By turning such messy tasks over to outsiders—at three or four times the normal military salary—soliders are supposedly freed up to do the real business of fighting. Such humdrum tasks as vehicle maintenance are also contracted out to another private firm; catering and laundry, of course, are handled by Halliburton.
And why shouldn't contractors be used? Well, one reason, Jerry claims, is that the people running his security company really knew nothing about security.
"The first week we got there, I said I'd like to see the Security Plan, and your standard operating procedures. They didn't know what I was talking about. They had non-Special Forces guys running security operations. One of our superiors was an Air Force captain in logistics, another, a guy who had worked in tanks. It was ridiculous, the blind leading the blind. They didn't understand anything."
According to Jerry, although the company made big bucks for its contract, it skimped on vital equipment, "We were out every night patrolling with no night-vision devices. You couldn't see a thing. The machine guns they gave us were much too big. I had to shell out $2,400 for my own body armor. We were always short on ammunition. And we were coming under fire every night." Finally, despite the fancy pay, Jerry quit. Several others have also left recently, he says.
What kind of rules of engagement did they have?
"We had a letter of agreement with the military. If a soldier suspects something, he can move in. If a private contractor suspects something, we have to tell the military. We're only to return fire if first fired upon," Jerry said.
That kind of loose control may work for mercenaries protecting a diamond-mining company in Sierra Leone. But how are those rules of engagement enforced in Iraq? By whom?
Indeed, we discover from the Post's account that "The Defense Department often does not have a clear handle on the daily actions of security contractors because the contractors work directly for the coalition authorities, which coordinates and communicates on a limited basis through the normal military chain of command."
....
"It would be a dangerous precedent," they wrote, "if the United States allowed the presence of private armies operating outside the control of governmental authority and beholden only to those who pay them."
Amen.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10243
Barry Lando is a former CBS producer of 60 Minutes, and has also contributed to CBS News, Time magazine and Time-Life.
Who's the United States' major ally today in Iraq? Hint: it may not be part of the "Coalition of the Willing." You might instead label them the "Brotherhood of the Extremely Well Paid": mercenaries working for private security firms in Iraq. Estimates of their number run from 5,000 to 15,000. And while no one really knows how many there are, thousands more are due to join them.
......
But who is giving the orders?
Under whose military control are those thousands of fighting men? Who tells them when to attack? When to retreat? When to avoid battle? What happens to those private armies after June 30, 2004, when sovereignty is—in theory, at least—transferred to the Iraqi people?
In a firefight, how on earth do Iraqis distinguish between actions of "private civilian contractors" and the U.S. military?
It's an Enron accountant's wet dream: private contractors taking over so much of what used to be considered military duty. How does Congress figure out, not only what the war in Iraq really costs, but what the real troop levels are? Another convenience for the Bush White House is that those contract casualties—and there have been many—are not included in the official military count.
....
By turning such messy tasks over to outsiders—at three or four times the normal military salary—soliders are supposedly freed up to do the real business of fighting. Such humdrum tasks as vehicle maintenance are also contracted out to another private firm; catering and laundry, of course, are handled by Halliburton.
And why shouldn't contractors be used? Well, one reason, Jerry claims, is that the people running his security company really knew nothing about security.
"The first week we got there, I said I'd like to see the Security Plan, and your standard operating procedures. They didn't know what I was talking about. They had non-Special Forces guys running security operations. One of our superiors was an Air Force captain in logistics, another, a guy who had worked in tanks. It was ridiculous, the blind leading the blind. They didn't understand anything."
According to Jerry, although the company made big bucks for its contract, it skimped on vital equipment, "We were out every night patrolling with no night-vision devices. You couldn't see a thing. The machine guns they gave us were much too big. I had to shell out $2,400 for my own body armor. We were always short on ammunition. And we were coming under fire every night." Finally, despite the fancy pay, Jerry quit. Several others have also left recently, he says.
What kind of rules of engagement did they have?
"We had a letter of agreement with the military. If a soldier suspects something, he can move in. If a private contractor suspects something, we have to tell the military. We're only to return fire if first fired upon," Jerry said.
That kind of loose control may work for mercenaries protecting a diamond-mining company in Sierra Leone. But how are those rules of engagement enforced in Iraq? By whom?
Indeed, we discover from the Post's account that "The Defense Department often does not have a clear handle on the daily actions of security contractors because the contractors work directly for the coalition authorities, which coordinates and communicates on a limited basis through the normal military chain of command."
....
"It would be a dangerous precedent," they wrote, "if the United States allowed the presence of private armies operating outside the control of governmental authority and beholden only to those who pay them."
Amen.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10243
one of my concerns is why are they getting paid more than the soldiers they are working with.
won't this tell soldiers to quit and take the same job with a private company to make more money.
I think this is diverting a large amount of money away fromreconstructing Iraq. I think some mercs could be used. but with oversight. how many of these groups are high quality groups and how many are the bottom of the barrel.
Virgil
won't this tell soldiers to quit and take the same job with a private company to make more money.
I think this is diverting a large amount of money away fromreconstructing Iraq. I think some mercs could be used. but with oversight. how many of these groups are high quality groups and how many are the bottom of the barrel.
Virgil
And few of the hired guards are grizzled veterans. According to Jerry, another major contractor also provided security at his location. Many of his employees, he says, lacked the right kind of experience: "Navy SEALs and former Marines, a bunch of hot rodders, wild cowboys, all they want to do is kill people. They had their machine-gun mentality. A little too young, a little too green. Not enough combat experience in my opinion. They had launched bullets, but never had bullets coming back at them."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10243
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10243
$4.5 Billion For Mercenaries In Iraq
....
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.
With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias — by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle," Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.
The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25 percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants, electric lines and oil refineries.
....
The authority initially estimated that security costs would eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's program management office.
But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials now say a much higher percentage will go to security companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for their most skilled operators.
.....
Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between the military and private security companies has already outrun the planning for it.
There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower, training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate communication links with military commanders and of security guards stranded and under attack without reinforcements.
....
Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for private security companies. The rules would require all the companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of Interior. They would also give them the right to detain civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times.
Several security companies have themselves been pressing for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere. One company has even enlisted a former West Point philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.
"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq. "You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and enforceable."
.....
Company executives argue that their services have freed up thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.
But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of their most experienced Special Operations people at the very time their services are most in demand.
Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no precise tally of how many private security guards are being paid with government funds, much less how many have been killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest that the Bush administration is relying on these companies to both mask the cost of the war and augment an overstretched uniformed force.
...
William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official, said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my suit," so he took it off.
But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic, with contracting companies and allied personnel alike hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles, co-founder of the security company Custer Battles. "Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."
One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation claims for deaths and injuries among among contract employees working for the military in war zones.
Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for 94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries. No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.
.....
When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went back to our subcontractors and told them you want to sharpen up on your vetting."
....
In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being treated as illegal combatants if they support military units in hostile engagements.
....
It is in those engagements, several security executives said, that the distinctions between defense and offense blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf. The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned Blackwater helicopters for more.
In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were conducting a security operation," he said.
"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."
.....
"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr. Faulkner said.
....
Even routine encounters between allied forces and private security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers had "lit up" — fired on — security companies' convoys.
No one was killed, but standard identification procedures might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.
Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent contractors" by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency.
In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often mean that the governmental authorities have no real oversight of security companies on the public payroll.
....
For more than a decade, military colleges have produced study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.
....
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html?pagewanted=1&8br
....
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.
With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias — by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle," Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.
The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25 percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants, electric lines and oil refineries.
....
The authority initially estimated that security costs would eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's program management office.
But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials now say a much higher percentage will go to security companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for their most skilled operators.
.....
Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between the military and private security companies has already outrun the planning for it.
There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower, training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate communication links with military commanders and of security guards stranded and under attack without reinforcements.
....
Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for private security companies. The rules would require all the companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of Interior. They would also give them the right to detain civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times.
Several security companies have themselves been pressing for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere. One company has even enlisted a former West Point philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.
"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq. "You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and enforceable."
.....
Company executives argue that their services have freed up thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.
But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of their most experienced Special Operations people at the very time their services are most in demand.
Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no precise tally of how many private security guards are being paid with government funds, much less how many have been killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest that the Bush administration is relying on these companies to both mask the cost of the war and augment an overstretched uniformed force.
...
William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official, said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my suit," so he took it off.
But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic, with contracting companies and allied personnel alike hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles, co-founder of the security company Custer Battles. "Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."
One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation claims for deaths and injuries among among contract employees working for the military in war zones.
Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for 94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries. No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.
.....
When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went back to our subcontractors and told them you want to sharpen up on your vetting."
....
In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being treated as illegal combatants if they support military units in hostile engagements.
....
It is in those engagements, several security executives said, that the distinctions between defense and offense blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf. The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned Blackwater helicopters for more.
In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were conducting a security operation," he said.
"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."
.....
"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr. Faulkner said.
....
Even routine encounters between allied forces and private security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers had "lit up" — fired on — security companies' convoys.
No one was killed, but standard identification procedures might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.
Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent contractors" by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency.
In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often mean that the governmental authorities have no real oversight of security companies on the public payroll.
....
For more than a decade, military colleges have produced study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.
....
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html?pagewanted=1&8br
Is that enough issues for everyone?
Note in particular the costs, the ethics, the workers' compensation, the drawing of talent from the true military, the non-uniformed confusion, lack of defined rules of engagement, who's protecting whom, etc, etc.
Note in particular the costs, the ethics, the workers' compensation, the drawing of talent from the true military, the non-uniformed confusion, lack of defined rules of engagement, who's protecting whom, etc, etc.
subgenius said:
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword; He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored; He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored; His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps; I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps -- His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal; Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel; Lo, Greed is marching on!"
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat; Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat; O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! Be jubilant my feet! Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch, With a longing in his bosom -- and for others' goods an itch. As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich -- Our god is marching on.
Mark Twain
Kodiak
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subgenius said:
How true. Wow. I never thought I'd hear such an unbiased remark from you. Have you ever read his personal notes and letters from when he had his weekly radio addresses before he became President? Excellent stuff....
subgenius said:
Well written and informative. Is there some "big deal" I'm missing that I'm supposed to be commenting on?
aerocontrols
Illuminator
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UN Mercenaries killed in Kosovo.
Kodiak
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aerocontrols said:
From your link:
"DynCorp is a private company that trains and places police, corrections and judicial officers in places such as Kosovo and Iraq. The officers help make up the 3,500-member U.N. police force and work alongside 6,000 local police officers."
...smell the hypocracy...
aerocontrols
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Kodiak said:
...smell the hypocracy...
I've been to busy to read all these posts (too busy to post or read much at all lately) so I'm not sure if there are any hypocrites in this thread or not.
I suspect it would depend on how they react to the news that the UN hires contractors for security.
It seems to me that since the contractors (most of them, anyway) in Iraq don't meet the Geneva definition of 'mercenaries' that they cannot be correctly referred to as mercenaries. To be a mercenary, they would have to be nationals of a country that is not party to the conflict. Since the US is a party to the conflict, US citizens cannot, by definition, be mercenaries.
Geneva definition here. I believe part (d) is the relevant bit.
aerocontrols
Well here we go again, we spent 4 pages quibbling about the definition.....there are many......and some of them fit some of the contractors in Iraq and some don't......all of the contractors aren't armed soldiers, some drive trucks, etc.....I think the NYT article, citing some military people and even military colleges identifies some of the issues with mercs and privatizing in general.....it would be a good starting point for a discussion, but that seems to be elusive here. Doesn't appear anyone wants to so I'm not long for this thread and any further p*****g up a rope.
As far as hypocrites, if that was directed at me, I have said on more than one occasion in this thread, that I don't think its all good or bad per se, but that the issues raised need to be addressed rather than denied.....
As far as hypocrites, if that was directed at me, I have said on more than one occasion in this thread, that I don't think its all good or bad per se, but that the issues raised need to be addressed rather than denied.....
aerocontrols said:
Well s.47 is purely concerned with combatent and P.O.W. status.
It's interesting to note that s.47 produces anomalous results in that a group of people doing the same job and working for the same company under the same contract e.g. protecting an installation, can simultaneously be mercenaries and not mercenaries depending on their country of origin.
This suggests the definition is irrelevant in the Iraqi context.
aerocontrols
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Nikk said:
The Geneva Protocols are generally accepted as the authority on the international laws of war. I know of no other definition of the word in the Protocols, so it's what we have to work with.
Nikk said:
It seems to me that this is because the writers of the protocols consider the distinction of country of origin to be important. The result doesn't seem anomalous to me.
Nikk said:
I don't see why.
MattJ
aerocontrols
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subgenius said:
We don't have to go again. Of course there are many definitions, so in a lay sense one can refer to some of the contractors as mercenaries.
subgenius said:
As with anything, there are trade-offs. Many of the folks that do these jobs are highly trained and I'm glad we can take advantage of them when we need to. It would be prohibitvely expensive to maintain a lot of these guys in our armed forces perpetually, and working for contracting companies instead they can stay sharp by participating in various conflicts around the world.
I also don't begrude a guy who spends 15 years of service in the marines the chance to apply the skills he's learned for profit, whether the US is involved in the conflict he chooses to hire himself out for or not, so long as he does not align himself against the US.
A bomber pilot who takes that skill and puts it to work for United Airlines or a radar technician who goes to work for NOAA has been 'siphoned off' in exactly the same way that the special forces commanders in your article complain about. I really don't think we should have rules against that, nor do I think that the US should have rules against using these contractors, whether they are contracting security made up of former special forces guys or air cargo flown by former Air Force pilots.
In my opinion, the trade-off between having a smaller peacetime military that can call on the private sector for these tasks during wartime is a good one.
Certainly the DoD, as the one who is hiring the contractors (thus in control of what the contracts say) in the first place could set uniform rules of engagement if it wanted to. So it seems to me, anyway.
MattJ