While not guilty of fiscally defrauding the US Government, a US private military company is guilty of defrauding the American project in Iraq to almost treasonist depths by contributing to the recruiting messages of our enemy: Americans don’t care and are just here for the money.

A favorite and appropriate poster child of corruption in Iraqi Reconstruction — the private military company Custer Battles — has just had its $10 million damage verdict overturned. Before you go rioting (and looting) in the streets demanding “No Justice, No Peace”, the judge was, unfortunately, right. In the effort to reinforce the image of the Coalition of the Willing, the Bush Administration successfully firewalled war profiteers from accountability. This resulted not only in wasted and misdirected resources (time and money) but also further trashing of our image of the commited democracy-builder. Where are our priorities?

Continue reading “Custer Battles is Guilty, maybe not of fraud, but at least of treason
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Briefly, we saw SOCOM do it, now we’re seeing it in the UK. From Timesonline.co.uk:

DEFENCE chiefs have increased the pay of the SAS and other special forces by 50% in an attempt to cut defections to private military companies, writes Michael Smith.

The increases, recommended earlier this year by the armed forces pay review body, were seen as crucial when the special forces are stretched by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Security firms operating in Iraq and elsewhere are prepared to pay up to £100,000 a year for soldiers who have served in the Special Air Service or the SBS, its marine equivalent.

One of the many issues surrounding contractors in war is the lack of transparency. The recent FOIA denial of contractor names (individuals and firms) involved in incidents — which some argue grants more privacy than soldiers enjoy when involved in the same or similar incidents — highlights a lack of institutional accountability. Civilian control of these private military forces (to call them a single force is misleading) is largely lost as these (private) military units slip further from the bonds of the civil-military relationship on which this country is based.

It is fascinating that when we talk about "military science" and the "art of war" — the new "hot topic" with the latest ‘distraction’ of Israel & Lebanon — the calculus of effectiveness includes killed and wounded. However, in Iraq, because the government didn’t fully rally the American public into war (how has life been interupted if you don’t fly commercially?), to prevent and deflect media attacks, and so on, KIAs (not to mention wounded) have been hidden. Understanding and getting "into" the ‘science’ and ‘art’ requires a complete picture on the ground and KIA’s are important to this. As agents of our mission in Iraq, there is — intentionally — only one real system to track what is happening to the contractors, a law requiring insurance coverage oddly enough.

Is this a detriment of the contractor (shooter or truck driver)? Yes. Is this a detriment to the US citizen who is screened from the actual scope of mission? Yes. Is this detrimental to the overall project in Iraq? Most definitely. We have excluded a substantial number of agents (combatants and non-combatants alike… i.e. the contractors who carry weapons and those who do not) from our calculations on how we are doing and how we are to proceed.

With this in mind, Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch compiled this report (Contractor Deaths) based on the only real tool available to track contractors in Iraq. This tool is the Defense Base Act of 1941. From Pratap:

You may be interested in the total number of contractor deaths and injuries in Iraq broken down by company to date. The grand total is 608 and another 6,000 plus injured. Quite a few of them are probably Iraqi, especially for Titan corporation Titan/L-3 who supply the translators. Their total number of deaths is at 199.

These are Department of Labor figures based on the company requests for compensation and are generally considered to be lower than the real figure. For example KBR/Halliburton’s figures on this list indicates that Halliburton (represented here by their Cayman island subsidiary, Service Employees International) has suffered 40 deaths, while the company considers its total to have exceeded 77 for all operations (includes Afghanistan and Kuwait, although these are generally low caualty theaters) as of November 2005. (see http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/deaths.html)

For a more detailed breakdown by name and incident go to Iraq Casualty Count (note that they only have 342 versus 608): http://icasualties.org/oif/Civ.aspx

In case you are curious, note that the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq stands at 2592 today according to DoD stas gathered by Iraq Casualty Count. Other country deaths stand at 230 (not including Iraqis). See http://icasualties.org/oif/PieCountry.aspx

Explanation of acronyms in the list:

NLT = no lost time
LTO = lost time 3 days or less
LT4 = lost time 4 days or more
DEA = death
COP = salary continuation
OTH = other or unknown

Note: The report is for Iraq only from 3/03 to 7/06. The data is sorted using the "Rule of 7" (6 or less omitted by name but counted toward the total) to protect privacy of the claimants.

Briefly from the: Washington Post:

The Defense Department may not have enough staff to adequately monitor the performance of contractors hired to build and run weapons programs, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The Pentagon’s workforce devoted to weapons acquisition and oversight declined by 38 percent, to 60,000, from 1989 to 2002, the GAO said. The workforce remained steady even as contract obligations reached $270 billion in 2005, up from about $130 billion in 2000, the agency said. "Increased demands on the acquisition workforce have led to vulnerabilities in contract pricing and competition and in the selection of the most appropriate contracting techniques," according to the report, which was requested as part of this year’s defense budget to assess the Pentagon’s vulnerability to fraud, waste and abuse.

From the perspective of certain offices, it is not too inconvienent to allow poor oversight. This isn’t really surprising however. In 2003, the GAO faulted the Pentagon  for not developing plans to replace civilians in wartime, as prescribed by the DOD itself in 1990.

The need for civilian contractors to assist the military is clearly established, albeit unfortunately. Increasing dependence from outsourcing food and laundry services to logistics to has led to outright subing out for boots on the ground in the form of the private security contractors in Iraq today (and lest we forget wings in the air with the "pilots" of the larger UAVs now carrying weapons). Failing oversight is convienent when obfuscation of projected military power is politically necessitated.

What is the cost of the Iraq War? The cost to the US military is significant and not quantifiable in dollars…

GoogleVideo has CBC "The Hour" review of Shadow Company. The interviewer starts off with the standard "guns are cool" and sterotypical "mercenary" spiel. He misses the point pretty much throughout the interview, but the producer must’ve understood as the interview clips from the movie are well-chosen. While the interviewer didn’t, the clip of Robert Young Pelton set the tone of the purpose of the movie with expected eloquence: "[from the Coalition of the Willing it became the] Coalition of the Billing, which means that the coalition partners that have pulled out are being replaced by private security."

We asked by on CBC, Nick Bicanic shares his motivation for making the movie, which included the Fallujah incident with the Blackwater contractors (earlier commented on here). Specifically, Nick keyed on the American military response to the deaths and mutilation of the American civilians and not military personnel. (Not said was the decision to delay the Marine response was made at the "highest levels".) The severe and significant military response had lasting impact and seemingly more on par of a counter-attack than a punitative response to an attack on civilians.

The seperation we think we achieve by privatizing force — not US Armed Forces, Government, or OGA personnel but civilians — is clearly not accepted by others. Shadow Company notably has an interview with an insurgent saying the Fallujah ambush (against Blackwater) was an attack on the CIA.

Foreign policy by proxy? Clearly. The US government think there’s at worse a relationship with an agent through contracting by by the US government or private corporation (notably as part of Reconstruction). However, others (generally those outside the US government, US media, and US public) see a direct relationship and thus an attack on either is an attack against America.

Making a play on the US Army’s recruiting campaign of an "Army of One" (which is essentially based on the idea of acquiring skills for post-Army life versus an institution of commitment to the few and the proud… why are the Army recruiting numbers down again?), EA (ERTS) helps bring private security operatives into the mainstream. From an EA press release:

Army of Two™ will throw gamers into hot spots ripped from current day headlines where they will utilize unique TWO man strategies and tactics while seamlessly transitioning between playing with intelligent Partner AI (PAI) and a live player. When one man is not enough, it will take an army of two to fight through war, political turmoil and a conspiracy so vast it threatens the entire world.

Alain Tascan, VP and General Manager of EA Montreal has been serving as Executive Producer on the title. Tascan comments, "Army of Two is a first for EA in many ways. This is the first EA studio to be built entirely from the ground-up. This is EA’s first original title for the next-gen systems. Army of Two is the first game to put players inside tactical warfare involving Private Military Corporations."

Linking two players, live or AI, via audio & text commands to keep the world safe should be compelling. The rise of the private warrior sector, an extension of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower famously warned against in his outgoing speech may just a get a boost here.

While the US Army has its own very popular video game, America’s Army, and GI Joe action figures, the private sector is catching up with commercial games and its own action figures.

DynCorp, one of the many private military companies, is now being covered by analysts. Analysts Initiate Coverage on DynCorp, in my inbox via the WepsTrade list, brings DynCorp into the real business world of reviews in the financial press. We can look forward to such gems as Credit Suisse’s Robert Springarn bullish attitude toward DynCorp because of a "unique investment opportunity." Springarn gave DynCorp an "Outperform" rating.

Peter Barry of Bear Stearns is more pragmatic, noting the "highly unpredictable" market sector DynCorp operates in. Barry also noted DynCorp "won more than 80 percent of the aggregate value of the contracts on which it has bid — an extraordinary success rate". The investment risks that caused Barry to give only a "Peer Perform" include the real ""politically charged, often clandestine" environments DynCorp operates in, something perhaps others are too enthusiastic to notice.

DynCorp is on a roll. Earlier in June, Moody’s upgraded DynCorp "citing a consistently improving performance and benefits from the company’s recently completed initial public offering."

Things look good for DynCorp and the industry. Wait until the reality sets in.

Briefly, Companies turn to private navies to combat pirates of the Malacca Strait:

As many as five companies have set up in the last year, including three British firms and an American security company. Other security firms are now trying to get into the lucrative new market, where the price of missions to protect cargo ships starts at US$50,000.

Heavily armed special forces veterans are among the Western ex-military personnel, some with experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, who will either ride shotgun on the vessel or patrol alongside it in their own craft. Some even claim to be able to rappel out of helicopters to recapture ships or oil rigs hijacked by pirates.

Nobody doubts the risk to shipping. The Malacca Strait isn’t a lazy backwater; the waters run past the glittering sky scrapers of Singapore and carry around half the world’s oil, making it perhaps the most important strategic seaway in the world.

Piracy is the lingering fault line of international commerce, trade, and state capacity. It is the opportunity that invites both states / IGOs and guerrillia / terrorist organizations to move in and launch operations.