An Army undersecretary testified September 2006 that Blackwater did not provide protective services to Halliburton or KBR. Well, everyone pretty much knew the name Blackwater and their role after four of their guys were massacred in Fallujah in 2004 in an event that possibly changed the personality of the conflict (see Pelton’s Licensed to Kill for an excellent forensic analysis of what happened; Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco sheds additional light on the impact of the response).

Well, now the Army finally figured out that yes indeed Blackwater was subcontracted to provide security.

Continue reading “The Army just confirmed what everybody knew
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I recommend reading David Phinney’s blog because I’m betting he’s going to have some juicy stuff appearing in the near future as hearings on PMCs in Iraq kick off later this week.

If you’re interested in the Christmas Eve shooting, I made a brief and quiet mention of it in my commentary on the UCMJ changes January 3rd:

It is folly to say the reason contractors haven’t been prosecuted for things ranging from the so-called ‘Aegis Trophy Video’ to [a] possibly killing an Iraqi Presidential Guard in the International Zone on Christmas Eve is because Iraq is a “contingency operation.”

Just a note on this, my sources gave me some good information before then, which I followed up on, including with a query to CENTCOM via phone and email. At first CENTCOM thought it was non-sense but when I provided some additional detail their public affairs liaison stopped responding to my email. This and others will be interesting test cases indeed.

As Bush, as well as the Pentagon, reverses some of the former SecDef Rumsfeld’s plans for the military, what will happen with what has become routinized outsourcing of shooters? Based on the President’s response to a question on private military companies in April 2006 and declaring changes to the military in his mea culpa last night that completely go against Rumsfeld’s vision (upsizing the force, so-called “nation-building”, and basic understanding and requirement of counterinsurgency), something should change with regards to the ad hoc, loosely monitored, possibly illegal, and maybe nothing more than ghost and rumor:

Tina Ballard, an undersecretary of the Army, testified in September that the Army had never authorized Halliburton or its subcontractors to carry weapons or guard convoys. Ballard testified that Blackwater provided no services for Halliburton or its subcontractors.

Not too surprisingly, President Bush did not mention the contractors in Iraq. It’s too much like a line item issue, politically hot, and unnecessary to bring into the discussion from the Administration’s point of view. However, I suspect that without Rumsfeld, along with a Congress that’s getting its balls back and looks to see to its responsibility of military oversight.

In 1812, both were in short supply when the US went to war against Britain. With a navy outnumbered by almost 10 to 1, Congress granted the President the authority to “issue to private armed vessels of the United States commissions or letters of marquee and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, and under the seal of the United States.” Congress, in granting the President this authority, gave specific instructions on compensation and, more importantly, monitored the privateers as Congress was keenly aware of the impact on public diplomacy and foreign policy these raiders would have. We need to have this participation and awareness today to return to a democratic use of force.

Between the oversight Congress may reclaim, reactions to contract abuse, the further erosion of the “surge” argument, smart counterinsurgency taking root, and other “distasteful”, in the mind of the former SecDef, things, I would be surprised that the next go ’round we have the same heavy reliance on contractors, but I don’t think we’ll see a wholesale cut back in Iraq now. While some contractors have expressed joy with the President’s speech, hopeful for more contracts, I doubt these will materialize. But that will be the test, won’t it?

From P.W. Singer, writing at DefenseTech:

Amidst all the add-ins, pork spending, and excitement of the budget process, it has now come out that a tiny clause was slipped into the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2007 budget legislation. The one sentence section (number 552 of a total 3510 sections) states that “Paragraph (10) of section 802(a) of title 10, United States Code (article 2(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), is amended by striking `war’ and inserting `declared war or a contingency operation’.” The measure passed without much notice or any debate. And then, as they might sing on School House Rock, that bill became a law (P.L.109-364).

I’m amazed at Singer’s hyping of these five little words. It is folly to say the reason contractors haven’t been prosecuted for things ranging from the so-called ‘Aegis Trophy Video’ to possibly killing an Iraqi Presidential Guard in the International Zone on Christmas Eve is because Iraq is a “contingency operation.” Seriously.

Let’s look at the Aegis video. After the video broke, there was an investigation that resulted in a lengthy document, half of which was an appendices. The Pentagon declared Aegis to be off the hook. FOIA requests for the document went no where because the document belonged to the contractor, a private enterprise, and not the government. Going to Aegis was a dead-end as Aegis claimed it was proprietary knowledge and wasn’t about it share it. Despite claims no one knew who was in the car, the South Africans, who have tough (and constantly revised and updated) anti-mercenary laws, know how to find out who was in the car and arrested one of the two back seaters who was SA (all Aegis personnel have GPS locators… for example of a competitor system, check out Track24).

Ok, so the Pentagon says “there’s nothing wrong” without UCMJ coverage, you think they’ll change their tune when there is? They already have a more powerful coercive mechanism available they could use if they cared: money.

Singer hits the fault of the logic when he cites the incredible (obtuse? ignorant?) testimony of the Under Secretary of the Army who said “contractors? I don’t see no stinking contractors” (or something similar, I may be paraphrasing here).

There is no gap in the law because there will always be a gap in the law. Look at the application of the UCMJ at Abu Gharib. 

Contractors aren’t held to account (neither are military officers for that matter if want to consider effective and intelligence counter-insurgency… and hey let’s consider the complete abdication of common sense in the CPA while we’re at it…) because of political reasons, which is the whole reason they are there to begin with.

Why were 20,000 contractors serving in Iraq when President Bush donned his flight suit? Because upsizing the force to provide necessary person, convoy, and site protection was politically unattractive, so let’s hire handsome guards to protect the Viceroy (yes, they were screened for their looks) & shooters for the truckers.

It’s about politics. If there is one more prosecution in Iraq of a contractor (which according to Viceroy Bremer’s Order 17, yet to be overturned, is a protected class, immune from Iraqi law), that will be, what, a 100% increase over the duration of the 3+ “contingency operation”. Or is 3yrs of “contingency operations” and a only a few months of “war”?

The conference I reviewed last week, Understanding the Privatization of National Security, had little to say on the domestic realm of private security, save Katrina-like responses. However, in the Washington Post today is an article by Amy Goldstein on privatization of municipal police services.

Just as the federal government outsources national security, cities are turning toward the private sector claiming to be short of financial capital to pay for the security. The reality is one of political choice and a failure to address endemic problems.

Questions: Is it right to privatize police services? What will the impact be on “traditional” police and investigative services?

The disdain serving military have for private military is nothing compared to that of law enforcement organizations (LEOs) and “mall cops”. One thing the private military guys have going for them? Envy from the public military, partly due to pay differentials and partly due to flexibility, creates a different sort of relationship. In a war zone when the military is the law, it is easier for blue on blue conflicts to happen, like the Marines taking down Zapata (thinking they were Cochise) (and more here).

Of course all isn’t roses for private military — medical evac problems, insurance, support problems, honors, etc. — but its better than for private police. Doubtful we’ll have a Zapata-like incident in the US because of all the oversight agencies and groups, but without bright lines of jurisdiction, communication, and accountability, is it worth it to use private law enforcement officers that get to skip the police academy and time with their training officer?

…

With the sleeve patch on his black shirt, the 9mm gun on his hip and the blue light on his patrol car, he looked like an ordinary police officer as he stopped the car on a Friday night last month. Watt works, though, for a business called Capitol Special Police. It is one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina — and part of a pattern across the United States in which public safety is shifting into private hands.

Private firms with outright police powers have been proliferating in some places — and trying to expand their terrain. The “company police agencies,” as businesses such as Capitol Special Police are called here, are lobbying the state legislature to broaden their jurisdiction, currently limited to the private property of those who hire them, to adjacent streets. Elsewhere — including wealthy gated communities in South Florida and the Tri-Rail commuter trains between Miami and West Palm Beach — private security patrols without police authority carry weapons, sometimes dress like SWAT teams and make citizen’s arrests.

Private security guards have outnumbered police officers since the 1980s, predating the heightened concern about security brought on by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. What is new is that police forces, including the Durham Police Department here in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, are increasingly turning to private companies for help. Moreover, private-sector security is expanding into spheres — complex criminal investigations and patrols of downtown districts and residential neighborhoods — that used to be the province of law enforcement agencies alone.

The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. The enormous Wackenhut Corp. guards the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and screens visitors to the Statue of Liberty.

“You can see the public police becoming like the public health system,” said Thomas M. Seamon, a former deputy police commissioner for Philadelphia who is president of Hallcrest Systems Inc., a leading security consultant. “It’s basically, the government provides a certain base level. If you want more than that, you pay for it yourself.”

The trend is triggering debate over whether the privatization of public safety is wise. Some police and many security officials say communities benefit from the extra eyes and ears. Yet civil libertarians, academics, tenants rights organizations and even a trade group that represents the nation’s large security firms say some private security officers are not adequately trained or regulated. Ten states in the South and West do not regulate them at all.

Some warn, too, that the constitutional safeguards that cover police questioning and searches do not apply in the private sector. In Boston, tenants groups have complained that “special police,” hired by property managers to keep low-income apartment complexes orderly, were overstepping their bounds, arresting young men who lived there for trespassing.

…

“There is a limit to the amount of law enforcement you can expect taxpayers to support,” said Ron Hodge, Durham’s deputy police chief, who said some of his requests for additional officers have been turned down in recent years. Although, as in most cities, some Durham police work privately while they are off-duty, Hodge said the demand for off-duty police outstrips the supply.

…

Some of the most sophisticated private security operations have expanded in part because of shrinking local and federal resources. The nation’s largest bank, Bank of America, hired Chris Swecker as its corporate security executive last year when he retired as assistant director of the FBI. Even as identity theft and other fraud schemes have been booming, Swecker said, fewer federal investigators are devoted to solving such crimes, and many U.S. attorney’s offices will not prosecute them unless their value reaches $100,000.

Hat tip to IraqSlogger, iCasualties.org, the unofficial and most accurate tracker of the “Coalitions” KIAs in Iraq, shows 3,000 military deaths in Iraq as of Dec 30, 2006. See iCasualties’ Iraq Coalition Casualty Count that also shows, as of Dec 2, 2006, nearly 47,000 non-mortal casualties.

Don’t ignore the contractor casualty count page showing a 377 KIAs, a number they know is not comprehensive.

Earlier this year, the McCormick Tribune Foundation sponsored the conference “Understanding the Privatization of National Security.” Held in Illinois, May 11-12, 2006, it was a discussion between “forty distinguished legal scholars, first responders, military personnel and other representatives of the private and government sectors.” I’ve been reading through the hard copy of the conference report (soft copy available here) thought I’d post some of my observations and thoughts.

I would have liked to be at the conference as I’m sure the report leaves out what I’d consider useful and interesting discussion points. However, the report still gives some insight into some of the thinking on the business of privatizing security.

The focus of the conference was on domestic privatization, but US use beyond the borders was heavily discussed.

In the first chapter of the report, Factors Driving Privatization, a discussion on the changing nature of war brought out the argument of how PMCs (private military contractors, not companies, in this report) are better suited to an environment “where you see crime and war blurred.” I’m interested in hearing their justification on how PMCs are better as I suspect the basis for this statement stems from convoluted and selective take on reality. I’ll get back to this below.

Continue reading “Conference review: “Understanding the Privatization of National Security”
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From the Washington Post comes news that will, or should, dominate the discourse over Iraq for a few days: a CENTCOM census counted “about 100,000” contractors in Iraq. This is up from an estimated 87,000 a few months ago, but this be partially explained by better surveying.

In comparison, there are around 140,000 US troops, and of course very few Coalition troops, save 6,000 +/- UK troops, in Iraq now. Here’s the contractor breakdown WaPo gives:

• DynCorp International: 1,500 (700 training police)
• Blackwater USA: 1,000+ (most as security contractors)
• KBR: 50,000 across Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, although there may be some doublecounting as they won’t give breakdowns.
• MPRI (part of L-3 Communications, NYSE: LLL) , has about 500 employees
• Titan, another L-3 division, has 6,500 linguists in the country.

There are four aspects to this story, two of which are briefly mentioned.

The first is this quote from William Nash of the CFR:

“It takes a great deal of vigilance on the part of the military commander to ensure contractor compliance. If you’re trying to win hearts and minds and the contractor is driving 90 miles per hour through the streets and running over kids, that’s not helping the image of the American army. The Iraqis aren’t going to distinguish between a contractor and a soldier.”

The impact of driving techniques was “addressed” months ago in Afghanistan. More importantly, while we consider the contractors to be less than agents of the US (they are contractors, not American military personnel), locals don’t, as Nash states, see a difference, regardless of nationality of the contractor.

The lack of a strategic vision in Iraq is emphasized by this report. Our frequently ad hoc assemblage of “gap” solutions has resulted in a force not just a few times larger than our nearest Coalition partner, but nearly twenty times.

Interviewing Robert Young Pelton, one here’s numbers upward of 140,000 contractors in Iraq: around 70,000 known plus one unknown for each known.

The second point is the next, and last, paragraph in the article:

The census gives military commanders insight into the contractors operating in their region and the type of work they are doing, [Lt. Col. Julie Wittkoff, chief of the contracting branch at Central Command]said. “It helps the combatant commanders have a better idea of . . . food and medical requirements they may need to provide to support the contractors,” she said.

This is a minor point, but points out the reader the 100,000 +/- contractors are far from an absolute number. There are support services provided by the military (at a cost to the military… i.e. the contractors are not self-contained), there are support personnel the contractors bring to the country that are not yet counted, and there little other “insight into the contractors operating” in the military’s operating areas.

There are multiple levels of control and accountability, not just criminal, that this article only hints at and I’m sure other Post and NYT authors will start to catch on to.

The third aspect of this story, completely absent, is who pays for the contractors. With most of the security contractors under subcontract, awareness and control become increasingly unclear. The impact contractors have on our mission ranges from the daily drives to the guys taken down in Fallujah in 2004 that, as Thomas Ricks points out, weren’t aware of changing conditions and tactics.

But who pays for the contractors? Department of State? Department of Defense? Department of the Interior? All of it from budgets controlled by the executive branch, but funded by Congress? The Custer Battles trial showed that some monies were effectively “hidden” through the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, to what affect?

One of the arguments in favor of contractors is the bang for the buck. How many bucks for what kind of bang is impossible to measure without transparency.

The fourth issue is the most important and completely ignored in the article: the complete absence of these numbers being represented in either General Pace’s or Jim Baker’s study groups. Besides the expected virtual acknowledgement that we can’t go to our allies for help, our paid friends in the country are ignored.

More importantly, we apparently have 100,000 additional forces (not all are shooters) supplementing our mission in Iraq, but coordination is poor and the fact we are just getting a handle on them indicates an incredible lack of strategic vision. But that’s no surprise. These contractors could be helping us, if it weren’t for reconstruction failures and their held to a larger strategic task beyond getting from Point A to B and protecting each of those points.

Last point to reiterate the control and accountability issue. American democracy relies, in part, on a democratic control of force. The Founding Fathers were intimately aware of the power of the military and gave us a Constitution that created a shared control of the armed forces between two masters, the legislative and the executive branches of government. Congress was empowered to “raise and support” the armed forces of the new nation and given the power “To declare War,” and the President was given the power to conduct the war. Further, of the 18 Congressional powers enumerated in the US Constitution 11 relate to security. (for more on this part, see Charlie Stevenson’s book) The contractors in Iraq are generally, if not completely, outside the control and oversight of Congress. This “private army” of the executive branch isn’t held to the same two-master standard as the military. Hence recent GAO and CRS reports on contractors.

There’s more to this issue than the numbers, although they indicate a problem more significant and severe than most are aware.

It seems the media is starting to get a handle on the real issues with contracting. Earlier this month, on the heels of the final nails in the coffin of the Special Inspector (although the nails could be removed by a Democrat Congress), comes the Washington Post article with surprising and ‘new’ awareness of limited accountability in Iraq.

The list of alleged contractor misdeeds in Iraq has grown long in the past 3 1/2 years. Yet when it comes to holding companies accountable, the charges seldom stick.

Critics say that because of legal loopholes, flaws in the contracting process, a lack of interest from Congress and uneven oversight by investigative agencies, errant contractors have faced few sanctions for their work in Iraq.

Doing a fair job of identifying problems, it does drop the ball on the Custer Battles case. The federal judge’s ruling was based on the origin of payments and not on the amount itself. The federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs could only go after the money the US paid Custer Battles and not after monies paid by the CPA, which was ostensibly, if far from reality, an Iraqi or at least non-US entity.

More critical are the examples of incomplete projects.

For example, auditors reviewed 14 projects by one contractor, Parsons Corp., and found that 13 had serious defects. Among the problem contracts was one to build 142 health clinics. Only six have opened.

Yet Parsons will not have to return any of its profit, nor is it likely to face any kind of formal punishment. Its contracts were what are called “cost-plus” deals, widespread in Iraq, in which the government bears much of the risk.

And we wonder how we’re not winning believers that we can make the country a better place.

The article does bring out an interesting point:

Bowen said the government should have been willing to fire contractors when it realized that projects were going awry. “I started pushing for terminations for default, which is how you hold underperforming contractors responsible, in the summer of 2005,” Bowen said.

But his calls were rarely heeded. The reason? “Litigation fear,” he said. “It was viewed as too much trouble.”

Because the contracts are so poorly written and managed, the government is afraid or coerced into not terminating. That may be part of the problem but Griff Witte, the WaPo reporter, gets down to brass tacks and nails one of the problems of endemic outsourcing:

Frederick F. Shaheen, an attorney with the firm Greenberg Traurig LLP who represents contractors, said firing a contractor is difficult because the military is so dependent on them.

If an official were to try to cancel a meal-service contract, for example, “some colonel is going to be on the phone to you ripping your lips off saying, ‘Why aren’t my troops being fed?’ ” Shaheen said.

The threat of canceling a contract “is normally the sharpest quiver in the bag of the contracting officer. But there’s no arrowhead on it any more,” Shaheen said. “So the checks and balances are gone. The system is broken.”

Ah, one of the hidden problems of contracting.

Well, it’s not the quickest they could have acted, but at least the conversation will happen soon. A half-day conference in Brussels next month (7 Dec 06) by the Security & Defence Agenda has two panels on privatization of force:

How Should EU Policymakers see the role of "Private Armies"

The crucial role of private security companies in Iraq looks increasingly like a pointer to the future. Private contractors are offering not only new reserves of skilled manpower but also sophisticated services ranging from intelligence-gathering and infrastructure protection to the provision in Iraq of command-and-control that links reconstruction and counter-insurgency operations. With many of these specialist security companies originating in Europe, how should EU policymakers see their roles developing? As Europe’s defence and security identity takes shape, what should be the inter-relationship between EU member states’ often hard-pressed military and the growing numbers of private sector security operators?

followed by

Are the NGOs and Private Security Companies Allies or Foes?

At first sight, NGOs involved in humanitarian relief or development work are far removed from private security companies. Yet they often pursue the same goals of protecting non-combatants and institution-building. How are private security specialists likely to fit into future EU-led relief and peacekeeping operations, and is there a need for a more clearly defined relationship both with EU battle groups and with the NGOs that administer the Union’s world-leading aid effort?

Both of these 90min sessions ask interesting questions, but the panel titles are intentionally leading. This should not be surprising considering the SDA’s target audience: Brussels-based international press. Still, it should be interesting what is said. I’m not going, but I’ll be interested in their report. The different portrayals of private security contractors by different media is interesting and understudied.

Private Actors and Security Governance looks like an interesting book that may ask the right questions about private forces. Much of the US discourse on non-state actors convienently ignores private security companies and their potential (actual is a better word) to influence foreign policy. The book’s teaser:

"The privatisation of security -understood as both the top-down decision to outsource military and security-related tasks to private firms and the bottom-up activities of armed non-state actors such as rebel opposition groups, insurgents, militias and warlord factions -have profound implications for the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Both top-down and bottom-up privatisation have significant consequences for effective, democratically accountable security sector governance as well as on opportunities for security sector reform across a range of different reform contexts. This volume situates security privatisation within a broader policy framework, considers several relevant national and regional contexts and analyses different modes of regulation and control relating to a phenomenon with deep historical roots but also strong links to more recent trends of globalisation and transnationalisation."

I haven’t read the book, so I can’t give a review but I’d be interested to hear from anybody who has. I’m curious how the book approaches the topic and what, if any, recommendations it makes.