Research Essay

 Combat Zones are for Uniformed Soldiers, Not Cowboys from the Wild West

Aaron Galvan

ENG 1A Dixon

July 30, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outline

 

        I.            Introduction

A.      Hook: 24 December 2006 incident

1.      Blackwater employee kills Iraqi Vice President’s bodyguard

2.      Blackwater’s reaction and how they handled aftermath

3.      Iraqi government reaction

B.      Thesis: Private military companies should have little to no involvement in foreign combat zones.

 

      II.            Arguments in favor

A.      Contracts awarded for private military companies

1.      Protecting personnel from the State Department

2.      Protecting structures/buildings for the State Department

B.      People in Favor

1.      Former Secretary of Defense: Donald Rumsfeld’s speech

 

    III.            Major Private Military Companies (PMC) Overview

A.      Recruitment

1.      Effect this has on military elite forces

2.      How they lure personnel away from Armed Forces

B.      Leadership

1.      Most top officials are former retired officers

2.      They have lots of experience and high level training

 

    IV.            How PMCs Effect Foreign Governments/Forces

A.      Negligence towards host nation citizens

1.      Incidents and controversial issues

2.      Host nation citizen’s reaction

B.      Negligence towards host nation governments

1.      Incidents and controversial issues

2.      Government’s reactions

3.      Punishment

 

      V.            PMC Effects on U.S. Military, and Military’s View of PMCs

A.      Supervision

1.      Problems U.S. Commanders face with PMCs

2.      Ground troop interference and troop’s views of PMCs

B.      Accountability

1.      Who bears the burden of PMC mistakes?

2.      Hinders winning the hearts and minds of citizens

 

    VI.            Laws

A.      International laws

1.      Are they mercenaries?

2.      Are they combatants?

B.      United States policies

1.      Policies established in Iraq conflict

C.      Iraqi Law

1.      New policies in reaction to PMC negligence

 

  VII.            Cost of PMC vs. U.S. Troops

A.      Pros and cons of daily cost in combat zones

1.      Cost of PMC personnel

2.      Cost of U.S. troops

B.      How government budgets could be better used on U.S. troops

1.      More money used for better recruitment methods

2.      More money used for re-enlisting current soldiers

3.      Better advertising

 

VIII.            Conclusion

A.      Natural disasters uses of PMCs

1.      Effectiveness

2.      Take place of National Guard

3.      Not the message to send to Americans

B.      Connect to all stated problems

1.      Armed forces can make better use of money

2.      Troops less likely to have incidents

C.      Incidents draw unneeded attention to occupation in Iraq

1.      Troop responsibilities

2.      Makes troops jobs harder

3.      PMC are bad representation of the United States

4.      PMC are wild gunslingers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Christmas Eve 2006 a Blackwater employee and former U.S. paratrooper, shot Raheem Khalif, the bodyguard of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, three times. He later died the next morning in an American hospital. To make the matter worse, Andrew J. Moonen, the identified former employee of Blackwater was fired “Within hours of the Christmas Eve shooting…[for] violating company policy against possessing a firearm while drunk”, fined  and was immediately removed out of the country (Broder). The Iraqi government has called the killing “murder” and it’s a “textbook example of the way foreign contractors operate with impunity in their country” (Broder). Blackwater officials have said they will make no attempt to “incarcerate him [Moonen]. That’s up to the Justice Department” (Broder).  In another tragic event FBI agents determined that in September of 2007 as many as five Blackwater employees shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians and determined “at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq” (Johnston and Border).

There are many other events, disastrous towards the U.S. government and military’s efforts, reported from Iraq, that result from private military companies; also known as private military firms/contractors. The more common name for these privatized soldiers is mercenaries. They tend to hinder winning hearts and minds efforts more than they help. When tragic events occur from their doing, the U.S. government and the U.S. military usually receive the repercussions. Private military companies should have no involvement in foreign combat zones, like Iraq, due to their lack of responsibility and because of the negative effect they have on U.S. troops, foreign governments, and foreign citizens.

A reasonable argument to employ private companies is because they alleviate occupied troops forces and free those troops to be utilized in other areas. Private companies usually have better trained personnel since they are smaller in force and more concentrated on a specific task than U.S. armed forces. The Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan organization, “reported that since 1994, the Defense Department entered into 3,601 contracts worth 300 billion with 12 U.S. based PMCs” (“Private Military Company”). The major firms include Blackwater Worldwide, DynCorp International, and Triple Canopy Inc. Blackwater Worldwide is the largest private military company contracted by the U.S. who were initially contracted to protect L. Paul Bremer the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and now protect government officials all over the world (“Blackwater Worldwide”). According to the magazine, Sojourners, the “Approximate value of contracts between Blackwater USA and the U.S. State Department” is 594 million dollars. Eric Prince the head of Blackwater contributed $200,000 of that 594 million to republican causes (Berger and Vaughan). Maybe that’s why Blackwater leads the way in money received from the government for security contracts overseas. Blackwater and DynCorp are also contracted to guard buildings and compounds both in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

The biggest government official in support of PMCs is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who in his “The Future of Iraq” speech said, “It is cost effective to have contractors for a variety of things that military people need not do, and for whatever reason other civilians, government people, cannot be deployed to do” (“Private Military Company”). This was Rumsfeld’s response when he was given a question speaking of PMCs following the rules of engagement and working outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Clearly the U.S. government is willing to employing private military companies at these risks.

These major private companies get their personnel from Special Forces units from all around the globe. This plays a major role in depleting the ranks of elite forces’ units from the United States, Canadian, and British military’s, affecting them severely. The countries of these elite forces are also not able to keep up with the higher salaries offered by private companies, plus the personnel employed by PMCs can be deployed for longer periods of time, resulting in higher salaries, which are greatly desired by any soldier with that level of training (“Private Military Companies”). Most of these companies employ well experienced officers in their leadership ranks. DynCorp employs retired generals, Triple Canopy has retired Delta Force operators, and Blackwater has former Navy SEALs at the top of their companies (Elsea and Serafino CRS 6-7). Since these companies have well-experienced and well-trained personnel at both the top and bottom, they are attractive for government contracts and to lure veteran soldiers away from the U.S. forces.

Like the bodyguard shooting, incidents have occurred often, with most of the incidents occurring in Iraq. The Iraqi citizens seem to be helpless to what happens out of negligence or error, and their government does not have any jurisdiction on the punishment of the personnel that create these unfortunate incidents. That’s not to say that punishment goes undone, in March 2004, four Blackwater employees were ambushed, killed, and their bodies hung from a bridge in retaliation to a previous attack against Al Fallujah (“Blackwater Worldwide”); or in October 2007 a DynCorp security guard killed a Baghdad taxi driver who posed no threat at all (“DynCorp International”). Andrew Moonen who killed the Iraqi V.P.’s bodyguard still hasn’t been charged, and his lawyer, Stewart P. Riley, has “been in contact with federal prosecutors, but cautioned that no charges had been brought and that none may ever be brought” (Broder). This shows the severity and the free reign that private contract employees seem to have, they’re guaranteed to lose their jobs but not their freedoms through incarceration.

Private security contractors can be a nuisance on the battlefield and can create confusion for both commanders and soldiers. Many American officers have voiced their disproval of these private contractors and their actions in combat zones. The biggest obstacles American generals have to face are having no supervision over PMC personnel and generals having to deal with the mistakes from PMC employees when they make them. The periodical Foreign Affairs, states “Incentives of private company do not always align with its clients’ interests–or the public good…this problem could be kept in check through proper management and oversight; in reality, such scrutiny is often absent” (Singer). Brigadier General Karl Horst has said in response to actions from members of private security firms operating in Iraq, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force…They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place” (“DynCorp International”). The troops who conduct combat operations everyday have to bear the real burden when private contractors break engagement rules.

Being a combat veteran of two years in Iraq, I heard numerous complaints from the Iraqi civilians in my area of operation; they would complain about Americans dressed in civilian clothes with weapons like soldiers, stealing, destroying, and abusing when they would pass through the area. Then we would have to undo all the damage which usually meant medical treatment and supplying them with food and water. Certain times required some type of money compensation for damaged homes, facilities, or livestock.

But PMCs also attack American forces, as in an incident in March 2005 when “16 American contractors with 3 Iraqi aides from Zapata Engineering…were detained following two incidents in which they allegedly fired upon [a] U.S. Marine checkpoint” (“Private Military Company”). With the growing numbers of PMCs in combat zones the American soldier now has to be cautious of the threat from the private security employee, while still trying to accomplish the task of winning hearts and minds towards America’s cause in the Middle East.

Contractors to United States forces in Iraq operate under three levels of legal authority: (1) The international order of the laws and usages of war and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council; (2) U.S. law; and (3) Iraqi law, including orders of the CPA that have not been superseded (Elsea and Serafino CRS 11). The CRS report also goes on to say that under international law, contractors working with the military are labeled as non-combatants whose conduct can be attributed to the U.S. and Iraqi courts will not have jurisdiction to prosecute them for their conduct without permission from the United States (CRS 11-12). There is still debate to determine whether civilians accompanying the military are combatants or mercenaries. They fall under both distinctions but the law says otherwise. International law says contractors are combatants when taking an active part in hostilities and:

Only members of regular armed forces and paramilitary groups that come under military command and meet certain criteria (carry their weapons openly, distinguish themselves from civilians, and generally obey the laws of war) qualify as combatants (CRS 13).

Private contractors do not fall under military command and they do not distinguish themselves from civilians because they do not wear uniforms, so according to law they are not combatants. International laws also state, “A mercenary is any person who…Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces” (CRS 15). Civilian contractors do not fall under this definition because they are Americans apart of the coalition and they are on official business, because of their contract with the U.S. State department. So because our government laws have established PMCs with relaxed laws they can avoid being treated as combatants and mercenaries in courts of law.

“Sometimes they [PMCs] are subject to the laws of the territory in which they operate and other times to those of their home territory, but too often the distinction is unclear” (Avant), but a decline in negligence and improper behavior on the battle fields should change among PMCs since U.S law will prosecute civilian contractors in Iraq in U.S. courts as well as under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000. I was always quite surprised how civilians, employed by PMCs, had such free reign in a combat zone compared to regular military soldiers because they didn’t fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In a telephone interview, Staff Sergeant Daniel Bonilla, a soldier in the Field Artillery Corps who has also spent two years in Iraq says, “They, [PMC employees], basically had a license to kill because they had no UCMJ to follow like us, whereas if I shot a single round from my weapon I would get asked a hundred question to why I opened fire”. This is a common feeling among troops in Iraq of how the American soldier has become almost handcuffed because of the rules of engagement as opposed to the civilian contractor that has looser rules to follow. But a new U.S. law established in the fiscal year of 2007 states “the UCMJ has been amended to allow for [the] prosecution of military contractors who are deployed in a ‘declared war or a contingency operation’” (qtd. in “Private Military Company”). Before this rule was in affect only a declaration of war was established and it only affected soldiers or civilians accompanying them. Now all PMC employees fall under the rules of the UCMJ but incidents have still occurred like the seventeen innocent Iraqis that were gunned down by Blackwater employees.

On September 17, 2007 a day after the 17 Iraqi civilians were shot and killed the Iraqi Government revoked Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq and on the 23^rd of September they referred criminal charges to its courts against the Blackwater guards. A month later the U.S. State Department granted immunity to the guards because they did not believe the American contractors would have gotten a fair trial in Iraqi courts, leaving the Iraqi government helpless to do anything about the incident, but end all immunity for foreign military contractors (“Blackwater Worldwide”). Isn’t it ironic that seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed out of negligence by American contractors and all they could do is deny immunity to all foreign contractors in the future? But all that really means is that Blackwater Officials can no longer grant immunity to their contractors, only the U.S. State Department can, and the civilian contractors will be punished in U.S. courts. So at the end of the day, the families of the 17 Iraqi civilians killed, can only have solitude that the U.S. government will give them their justice by prosecuting the Blackwater guards; as well as receive a payment for the damages caused. I didn’t know the American government can put a price on a human life, also remember that even Moonen, who shot the Iraqi Vice President’s bodyguard, has yet to be punished and his lawyer has it’s unlikely that he will be. Most of the time Iraqi civilians rely on their own justice system, which usually means turning against American troops and joining or helping insurgents.

The cost comparisons between private companies and the U.S. military are another factor into why PMCs should be eliminated in combat zones. The Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reviewed data this year between the pros and cons of relying on private contractors and these were some results: the daily pay range for one U.S. Army sergeant, serving in Iraq, was between $140 and $190, whereas a Blackwater Protective security Specialist made $1,222 a day (Berger and Vaughan). A Blackwater employee who, compared to the Army sergeant, has less responsibility, less restrictions, and doesn’t work as hard, gets paid over seven times more than the Army sergeant even though they have to endure the same amount of danger within any given combat zone.

With the billions of dollars the U.S. government has spent on PMCs and has received incident after incident of negligence in return they could have used some of that money on the armed forces of this country. This money could have been used to better advertise for initial recruits like using bonuses as a draw to attract enlistments from young high school graduates and newly college graduates. The money can also be better served on re-enlistment contracts again with bonuses for currently serving soldiers, especially veteran soldiers that have been to the Middle East combat zones more than once or give the military the opportunity to raise the pay scale for the enlisted ranks. This would have helped ensure the military to retain combat proven and experienced veterans to help train and lead in the future. Plus the military branches could also have used the extra money for research and development of equipment and weapons, as well as buying extra equipment and weapons to be distributed throughout their forces. I spent eight years serving in the Army, I know there is never enough equipment to go around, and sometimes old equipment, like Vietnam era type of equipment, has to be used instead which is not practical to today’s type of warfare being conducted.

Some supporters of private military companies also believe contractors can be very effective in domestic crises’ like natural disasters. During Hurricane Katrina PMCs flourished in hurricane relief operations in the Gulf Coast region, while providing armed guards for federal, state, and local agencies as well as private clients (“Private Security Firms Pose ‘Challenge,’ NORTHCOM Commander Says”), taking the place of National Guard troops that would normally have that task. Does our government really need to have armed guards in the United States? The USA is not Iraq, and there is no need to go to the extreme of having armed contractors keeping order. Their effectiveness is in their ability as a show of force that intimidates civilians in maintaining order; and local and states law enforcement can do that without the help of armed contractors. A state governor doesn’t deploy National Guard troops every time an earthquake or hurricane hits his or her state; if ever deployed National Guard troops usually provide relief and aid, and to be a show of force so people behave during stressful times. Admiral Timothy Keating, head of U.S. Northern Command warns, “Here’s a guy or a girl [PMC employee] walking around an area that’s been devastated, packing significant heat…Who is that guy or girl? And they may not have the same sort of badge-identification system with which we are somewhat familiar” (qtd. in “Private Security Firms Pose ‘Challenge,’ NORTHCOM Commander Says”). How would Americans react to armed men wearing the same type of clothes they wear, instead of armed men wearing a military or law enforcement uniform?

The American military would make better use of the billions of dollars the government uses on contracts with PMCs and they are less likely to have incidents that hurt the overall mission of peace and stability in Iraq because they held to higher standards. The responsibilities of an occupied area are those of the United States military and not trigger happy civilians with extensive training in different types of warfare. Erik Gustafson from the Education for Peace in Iraq Center said, “Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and his defenders seem to think the only thing that matters is the safe escort of Americans in Iraq, regardless of what happens to innocent bystanders” (qtd. in Berger and Vaughan). This isn’t the type of representation the United States needs in Iraq, which is located in a part of the world that hasn’t been fond of Americans for quite some time. Controlling collateral damage is just as important as accomplishing the overall mission of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi civilians as well as maintaining a democratic state in Iraq for a U.S. soldier. In July 2006, two former Triple Canopy employees filed a law suit claiming that their shift leader “deliberately fired at vehicles and civilians in two incidents, saying it was his last day in Iraq and he was determined to kill” and later the company fired and “blacklisted them from working in the industry” because they reported what happened to the company’s senior supervisor’s incident (“Triple Canopy, Inc”). When deployed in combat there are no such things as war trophies or needing to shoot your weapon because it’s your last day, and it’s absurd to think so. Does America really want wild gunslingers conducting missions in Iraq, instead of American soldiers?

Works Cited

Avant, Deborah. “MERCENARIES.” Foreign Policy 143 (2004): 20-28. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 16. Jul. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>.

Berger, Rose Marie, and Alexis Vaughan. “Wading in Blackwater.” Sojourners Magazine 1 Jan. 2008: 10. Humanities Module. ProQuest. 15 Jul. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>.

“Blackwater Worldwide.” Wikipedia. 4 Jul. 2008. 10 Jul. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Worldwide>.

Bonilla, Daniel. Telephone interview. 20 Jul. 2008.

Broder, John M. “Ex-Paratrooper Is Suspect in a Blackwater Killing.” The New York Times. 4 Oct. 2007. 23 Jul. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/middleeast/04contractor.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin>.

“DynCorp International.” Wikipedia. 22 Jul. 2008. 23 Jul. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp_International#Iraq>.

Elsea, Jennifer K., and Nina M. Serafino. “CRS Report for Congress: Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues.” 11 Jul. 2007. Open CRS. 16 Jul. 2008 <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32419.pdf>.

Johnston, David, and John M. Broder. “F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause.” The New York Times. 14 Nov. 2007. 23 Jul. 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14blackwater.html>.

 “Private Military Company.” Wikipedia. 9 Jul. 2008. 10 Jul. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Military_Company>.

“Private Security Firms Pose ‘Challenge,’ NORTHCOM Commander Says.” Defense Daily 30 Sep. 2005: 1. Military Module. ProQuest. 22 Jul. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>.

Singer, P. W. “Outsourcing War.” Foreign Affairs 84.2 (2005): 119. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 16 Jul. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>.

“Triple Canopy, Inc.” Wikipedia. 25 Mar. 2008. 24 Jul. 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Canopy%2C_Inc..