Given the manpower shortage, it's no surprise that
private for-hire armies are filling the vacuum.
The US has so far spent $20bn on reconstruction in Iraq. The companies which have won these contracts currently expect to spend about 10% of their budgets on providing personal security planning and protection for their workers.
Industry insiders say the war has proven a godsend for British security firms - which have picked up much of the work. Their revenues are estimated to have risen fivefold, from around $350m before the invasion to nearly $2bn.
And why is this a problem?
The field of private security is unregulated, and alongside the more reputable companies, gun-slinging, cowboy contractors - whether foreign or Iraqi - are reported to be setting up shop Iraq.
Established companies dislike competition from smaller entrepreneurs, but also worry that their reputations may be damaged by the gung-ho approach of some of the newer firms.
The lack of regulation means mercenaries can often act with impunity.
Stories abound of heavy handed and trigger-happy behaviour. There are reports that some private security companies claim powers to detain people, erect checkpoints without authorisation and confiscate identity cards.
Impunity.
The four merceneries killed yesterday worked for Blackwater Security Consulting. They claim they were in the area "protecting food conviys", but "declined to provide further deails.
Even Tacitus, my good friend on the Right, doesn't buy the cover story:
The question is: what were they doing in Fallujah? The Blackwater press release states that they were part of an operation to guard food deliveries in the area. This strikes me as likely false: Iraqis aren't starving, guerrillas have not targeted food supplies in any case, and thievery is much more likely to strike transports of manufactured goods. Furthermore, even if food shipments did need armed guards, what's the chance that the CPA has hired highly-trained (and quite expensive) ex-SEAL-types to do it? About zero. Cheaper, and probably as effective, to have Iraqis on the job [...]
This, though, does not explain what four of these personnel were doing sans convoy, traveling through the town proper. Lost? Reckless? On their way to a meetup with a client? En route to a hit? One may justly wonder.
As Tacitus notes, there should be no room for merceneries in war, especially since the rules of war
forbid it. If we don't have the forces to take care of our own convoys and maintain local security, that just one more indictment of this administration's pathetic post-war planning.
Update: More on Blackwater:
Blackwater has about 400 employees in Iraq, said one government official briefed by the company. Its armed commandos earn an average of just under $1,000 a day.
Although most of their work is to act as bodyguards for corporate, humanitarian or government employees, they sometimes perform more precarious jobs that are inherently riskier -- escorting VIPs, doing reconnaissance for visits by government officials to particular locations.
The mercenaries weren't delivering humanitarian supplies. They were supposedly delivering supplies to a private company, Regency Hotel and Hospitality.
No one pays $1,000 a day per mercenary to deliver humanitarian supplies.