Privatising war

As quelling foreign populations becomes a staple of warfare, private mercenary forces are increasingly relied upon as a tool of foreign policy, writes Galal Nassar

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Al-Ahram Weekly Online, May 29 - June 4, 2008

It is not just government forces, the resistance and sectarian strife that have wrought chaos in Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq and subsequent policies were what triggered the security breakdown and unleashed the chaos. To make matters worse, on the heels of the occupying forces followed thousands of personnel from private firms that offer military services for hire. The corporate mercenary business is a relatively recent phenomenon and this article attempts to probe what function it plays and how it operates in Iraq and elsewhere.

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There are now more than 50 private security firms currently operating in Iraq and their number is likely to increase, according to recent reports. Officially their function is to protect vital facilities (from government buildings to oil wells) and important persons (the US ambassador, for example). Some of these companies have special information gathering and analysis departments whose staff has access to state-of-the-art military and security technologies. Global Risks is one such company. Charged with protecting Baghdad International Airport, it has hired for this purpose 500 Nepalese and 500 Fijian soldiers who are apparently the cheapest of the 30 nationalities of mercenaries currently in Iraq.

The existence of these types of firms in Iraq was first brought to public attention by the London Times, which reported in May 2004 that the number of British employees such firms posted to Iraq had doubled to 1,500 since the previous year. Among these employees were former British police, navy and paratrooper officers and soldiers. Iraqi officials at the time admitted to having no idea of how many mercenaries were operating in the country. A year later, former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that they were by then in the neighbourhood of 100,000 and that they were needed because coalition forces were unable to supply the number of forces necessary to protect foreign diplomats and businessmen. He added that about ¨1 billion was paid out annually to such private security firms.

Continued . . .