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.