New Paradigm

The evidence suggests that the Bushies have realigned the politics of war: They are pro war (and its private contractors), yet anti military. Contractors now includes not only makers of weapons systems, but subs who hire personnel that perform functions of the sworn personnel on an unprecedented scale which includes core functions of the military. The armed services are treated as traditional workers and 'realigned' to the corporate model - to outsource labor to contractors whose hires must sign agreements that they are not employees and therefore have no standing to make a claim for pension and health benefits (not to mention disability). The contractors have been granted immunity by Bremer by executive order, while sworn personnel are exposed to court martial.
The implications of this realignment are many, but in the short political run could (should) result in a legitimate pro military, yet anti war position for many folks who have not worked with the military in the past.
At another level this poses a threat to the traditional governmental monopoly on the use of force, and a threat to U.S. security since for profit companies could or will own strategic information. These issues have not been discussed much in the U.S. but have been discussed in the European press, and it appears that the Iraqis get it as well.

Contractor Immunity a Divisive Issue
Interim Government Resists U.S. Proposal to Exempt Foreigners From Iraqi Law

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 14, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, June 13 -- In an early test of its imminent sovereignty, Iraq's new government has been resisting a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law, in the same way as U.S. military forces are now immune, according to Iraqi sources.

The U.S. proposal, although not widely known, has touched a nerve with some nationalist-minded Iraqis already chafing under the 14-month-old U.S.-led occupation. If accepted by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, it would put the highly visible U.S. foreign contractors into a special legal category, not subject to military justice and beyond the reach of Iraq's justice system.

The U.S. request, confirmed Sunday by Allawi's office, is one of a number of delicate issues revolving around government authority that will confront the incoming U.S. ambassador, John D. Negroponte, when Allawi's interim government assumes formal sovereignty June 30.

Although the Bush administration repeatedly has promised that Iraqis will receive authentic sovereignty, the U.S. military has made it clear that U.S. officers will remain in charge of security, the country's top concern. People here widely assume that U.S. influence will remain decisive for a long time in almost every domain.

The in-control status of U.S. troops and officials -- from Humvee drivers who demand priority in traffic to civilian administrators intervening in the choice of Iraqi leaders -- often has been cited by Iraqis who oppose the occupation on nationalist grounds. The civilian contractors, particularly armed security personnel, have generated similar resentment from Iraqis, many of whom long ago tired of having foreigners tell them where they can and cannot go.

The question of the contractors' status also has arisen because of two U.S. contract employees at Abu Ghraib prison who were accused in a Pentagon report of participating in illegal abuse of Iraqi prisoners. The two -- Steven Stephanowicz of CACI International, an Arlington-based defense firm, and John B. Israel of the Titan Corp. of San Diego -- have not been charged with any crimes in Iraq or the United States, although some of their Army colleagues face military tribunals.

As an occupying army, the 138,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq have been outside Iraqi law since U.S.-led forces took over the country in April of last year. The troops will remain exempt in the future on the basis of a June 8 U.N. Security Council resolution and an accompanying exchange of letters between Allawi and the U.S. government in which Iraq requests their continued presence, according to a senior U.S. military official.

As a result, there will be no need for an immediate status of forces agreement -- the kind that usually governs U.S. military presence in foreign countries, the official said. U.S. soldiers will continue to be subject to U.S. military justice only.

"We will continue to operate more or less as before," the official added.

But the status of civilian contractors has become a special question because the contractors are not covered by the Security Council resolution or the letter from Allawi requesting that U.S. forces remain in Iraq for an undetermined time. Moreover, they do not come under U.S. military jurisdiction because they are not part of the military, although some are hired by the Pentagon.

In that light, the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority has asked Allawi to grant the contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraq similar to that granted soldiers, said George Sada, Allawi's spokesman. "They have made that demand," Sada said. "We think it is a bit too much. It is under discussion."

The Coalition Provisional Authority did not respond to questions for comment on the proposal.

The number of foreign contractors in Iraq has fluctuated greatly over the months. Many civilians working in the reconstruction effort have left in the last few months because of rising violence and the taking of foreign hostages. But many have remained, particularly security guards, who are highly visible around Baghdad and other cities with their armored four-wheel-drive vehicles, automatic rifles and flak jackets.

Because no central authority registers foreign contractors, their presence has not been tallied with precision, according to security consultants. Estimates of the total number of foreigners working here -- from Americans to South Africans to Chileans -- have ranged from 20,000 to 30,000. "But no one really knows," said a civilian security executive.

The U.S. proposal was believed to cover only U.S. citizens. The senior military official said that after June 30 it would be up to the embassies of each country to work out arrangements for their own nationals. "Every foreign citizen will have a certain status in Iraq," he said.

A civilian official in the U.S. occupation authority said some security contractors have begun to ask about their status after June 30, particularly since the campaign of violence by insurgents that, over the last two months, has made life here more dangerous for foreigners. But it is unlikely that the interim Iraqi government would seek to arrest civilian security personnel or interfere with their work, the official said.

"Are some Iraqi security people going to move in and arrest our cooks and bottle washers?" he said. "I don't think so."

Sada, Allawi's spokesman, said the U.S. proposal was put forth, along with other issues, in regular meetings Allawi had with L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority; David Gompert, a senior Bremer aide for national security issues who is about to leave; and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

Allawi, a secular Shiite who headed a CIA-funded exile group that opposed former president Saddam Hussein, has said repeatedly since assuming office June 1 that he wants to cooperate with the United States and believes U.S. troops should remain in the country to help restore security. In line with U.S. thinking, he has qualified Iraqis who fight U.S. occupation troops as terrorists and dismissed their claims to be Iraqi nationalists.

At the same time, he and other members of the 36-member interim government have Iraqi constituencies to think about as well as the United States. Any move likely to bruise Iraqi sensibilities -- or stoke the bloody rebellion against U.S. occupation troops -- carries a political price they would be reluctant to pay.

Moqtada Sadr, a militant young Shiite Muslim cleric who has opposed the U.S. occupation with his Mahdi Army militia, said Friday, for instance, that he would lay down his arms and support Allawi's government only if it sets a timetable for ending the occupation.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

•  Very interesting reading

  and I missed this one in the WaPost today. Thanks for highlighting it.  It reminds me that this administration gave lip service to military personnel while cutting and privatizing the construction/maintenance of military base housing. The self same administration that sought to cut hazardous duty pay, until the press got wind of that plan. And, the same outfit that charged soldiers and marines for meals during recuperation. If that weren't enough the Pentagon pays out for contracts with private "warlords" like Titan, Caci et.al. who pay big five figure salaries while the enlisted personnel guarding the security guards get practically nothing. Now, the soldiers are liable for their actions, but the private "armies" aren't held responsible for theirs.  It makes me cringe when I hear the Goppers trot out the "support the troops line." We are supporting them, now it would be nice if the White House did as well.

  by greatbasin2 on Sun Jun 13, 2004 at 09:22:08 PM PDT

•  They're not the military to Bush

  They're the help.

  After all, if they were professionals, they'd be mercs, right?

  SCHMUCK!

  Not even Schmuck.  There is no word in Yiddish for this *******!

  by Ptolemy on Sun Jun 13, 2004 at 09:53:18 PM PDT

•  just googling

  Democratic National Convention.

  by munster truck on Sun Jun 13, 2004 at 10:27:52 PM PDT

•  pro-war but anti-military

  is a great description. If only there was a way that Kerry could really argue and demonstrate that this kind of privitazation of the military is, at the end of the day, scandalously unpatriotic.

  by awol on Mon Jun 14, 2004 at 03:08:56 AM PDT

•  Starve the beast

  These guys think government is bad, that it's evil.  Outsourcing to private contractors solves this.  

  But really all it does is line their pockets and those of their buddies.  Even if one truly believed in free market military operations, it's all bullshit because there is zero competition, only no-bid contracts.  

  I also read somewhere that the private contracting is costing our military big bucks.  It is much cheaper to run a mess hall with grunts as opposed to contracting Halliburton to cater.  

  I think what it's about is the draft.  Our military is starving for cannon fodder, and we cant spare the soldiers to do tasks like supply or KP duty or whatever, if it's non-combat, we call up Halliburton, so every civilian hired to do military work is one extra piece of cannon fodder.

  It's all a very insidious means to run the war machine without political interference.   The masses would wake up if their children were being rounded up for war, sent home a year later in a transfer tube, or maybe no remains 'cause they were vaporized.  The war machine will do ANYTHING to avoid instituting a draft until there is a political mandate to do so, and 911 wasn't quite enough.  Another terra attack and that war machine will finally rev up--then it gets interesting when the rubes figure out that cool TV wars with lots of awesome explosions and wicked AC 130 gunships mowing down swarthy wedding parties, well they aren't so cool when it's their kids shipped off never to return home, or maybe it's even worth it to ditch the Suburban for a Prius if it means sapping the ME of their  political might.  

  A draft could transform America unrecognizably, that's why our military is so dependent upon civilian contractors.

  by Subterranean on Mon Jun 14, 2004 at 03:19:09 AM PDT

  •  No question

    The draft is a factor. But don't rule out ideology. Remember that the 'planners' assumed this would be over quickly so the draft had less weight in their thinking. Rumsfeld has consistently attacked the bureaucracy of the armed services and said he wanted a 'lighter, more flexible force', which may account for the friction with Powell. Many progressives don't do military but they should. See:

    FPIF Commentary
    Rumsfeld's New Model Army
    By Conn Hallinan | November 4, 2003
    Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

    Project Against the Present Danger    www.presentdanger.org

    War is the ultimate test of reality and illusion.
    On the eve of World War I, the French General Staff was convinced victory would go to the attacker, that massed soldiers marching together into battle could overcome technology with courage and élan. German machine guns and artillery swiftly shattered that illusion, along with several hundred thousand young Frenchmen.
    Today, the United States is engaged in a very similar application of theory and warfare, albeit the opposite of the one the French tried.
    Even the final victory in Iraq was not exactly a triumph for the "revolution." It wasn't swift moving, light troops that took Baghdad and Basra, but the conventional, tank-heavy U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, and the British 7th Armored Division. In short, the "old model army." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's military is a swift moving, micro-chipped, killing machine, where electronics turn night into day, and satellites and laser-guided weapons slice and dice enemy armor and artillery. President George W. Bush called it a "revolution," that has "shown that an innovative doctrine and high-tech weaponry can shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict."
    Has it? With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under our belt, isn't it time to tote up the bill and separate reality from illusion?
    On the plus side for the "revolution," we won. On the minus side, it was hardly a fair fight. In Afghanistan it was the 21st century verses the 12th, and we're not out of the tunnel yet. Iraq had a 20th century army, but one hollowed out by a decade of sanctions and with little loyalty to the brutal dictatorship it served. And that war, too, is far from over.

    Military Transformation
    The latest "revolution" in warfare, the brainchild of the late Air Force Col., John Boyd, goes by the name "transformation" and combines high tech and maneuverability. Its model was the German Blitzkrieg. But Rumsfeld's New Model Army is discovering that the very instruments that make it so invincible on a conventional battlefield are of little use in the non-conventional war the Bush administration finds itself embroiled in. As long as the enemy was the Iraqi army, the "revolution" works just fine. It has done less well against roadside explosives, ambushes, and suicide bombs.
    Part of the problem is the "transformation" army itself.
    The U.S. military looks increasingly like a temp agency on steroids: a massive organization of part-time workers armed with the latest in firepower.
    Since Sept. 11, 2001, some 292,000 National Guard and reserve troops have been called to active duty, and more than 190,000 are still serving. The Pentagon just announced a further call-up of 30,000. Reserve and National Guard units now make up 46% of the military.
    Reserves have always been an important component of the U.S. military, but they are only supposed to be called up in times of national emergency. From World War I to Gulf War I--75 years--they were called up nine times. In the past 12 years they have been mobilized 10 times.
    Normally such troops work behind the front lines and serve for shorter periods than regular troops. However, under "transformation," their deployment has been stretched to 12, and sometimes 15 months. And the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan is anyplace a soldier happens to be.

    Temping in the 21st Century Army
    The thinking behind all this is simple math: reserve and Guard troops are much cheaper than regular troops. As Christopher Caldwell at the Weekly Standard notes, "it is hard not see a similarity between the army's shift to part-time soldiering and businesses preferences for part-time vs full-time labor."
    "Transformation" has essentially shifted much of the financial burden for maintaining permanent troops to the families of the reserves. Most joined up for the educational grants and small stipends that comes with the job. But reserves are suddenly finding themselves locked into open-ended deployments in very dangerous places. "Weekend warrior, my ass," one sign spotted in Baghdad read. Reservists also charge that they are given second-rate equipment in the field, including inadequate body armor.
    The toll on these temps has been considerable. According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, 75% of the 478 troops shipped home from Iraq for mental health reasons were reservists.
    Wounded reservists returning from Iraq complain they have been "warehoused" at Fort Stewart, Ga. in barracks without showers or bathrooms and sometimes wait weeks to see a doctor.
    Inadequate medical care--another way the New Model Army is trying to save on personnel costs--has touched a raw nerve among veterans as well, many of whom are partially or fully disabled from Gulf War Syndrome. Veterans' groups charge that almost 150,000 vets from Gulf War I have been waiting more than six months to see a doctor, and the wait for a specialist is up to two years.
    Those numbers are likely to climb because solders in Iraq today are being exposed to many of the battlefield toxins that felled some 118,000 veterans in the first Gulf War.
    The Syndrome has been linked to some 345 tons of Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA) used in the 1991 conflict. According to the London Express, the Americans and the British used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons of DUA, much of it in urban areas during the recent war. Radiation 1,000 to 1,900 times normal has been detected in four locations in Baghdad.
    The situation is "appalling," according to Professor Brian Spratt, chair of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body. "We really need someone like the UN Environmental Program or the World Health Organization to get into Iraq and start testing civilians and soldiers for uranium exposure."
    Such testing is unlikely because the Department of Defense denies that DUA poses any health risks.

    Cost-Cutting at the Pentagon
    While spending on high-tech whiz-bangs is at an all time high, the administration has steadily shaved the cost of personnel.
    A recent Pentagon attempt to cut active duty pay was defeated by congressional outrage, but the administration is still attempting to disqualify some 1.5 million veterans from eligibility for disability benefits. The Pentagon has also resisted the Retired Pay Restoration Act that would correct an anomaly that reduces military retirement pay by the amount veterans draw in disability. The measure would level the playing field between Civil Service retirees and 670,000 vets caught in this bureaucratic oddity, but the Pentagon has resisted it as a "budget buster."
    Besides increasingly relying on temp soldiers, the "transformation" army is also trying to apply private industry practices to public service. Rumsfeld is seeking the right to hire, fire, and promote some 700,000 civilian Pentagon employees on "merit" alone, free of government employment regulations. "The risk that this system will be politicized and characterized by cronyism in hiring, firing, pay promotion, and discipline are immense," says Bobby Harnatge, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
    While the manpower crisis on the ground is bad--there are just not enough troops available to match the administration's imperial sprawl--it is likely to get a whole lot worse. A recent poll by the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, found that only 49% of the reserves intend to re-enlist.
    So is this blind folly? Or does "transformation" offer an unseen benefit?
    "The arguments in support of technological monism echo down the halls of the Pentagon," Major General Robert Scales (Ret.) told the House Armed Service Committee Oct. 21, "precisely because they involve the expenditures of huge sums of money to defense contractors."
    In the 2002 election cycle, U.S. arms corporations' political action committees spent $7,620,741, two-thirds of which went to the Republican Party. "Transformation" might not work well once the initial "shock and awe"of battle is over, but it can be a formidable re-election machine.
    When the "Young Turks" of the French Army adopted the doctrine of élan, they were certain it was a formula for victory. The battle of the Marne convinced them otherwise, and the French abandoned the tactic. Of course the French General Staff wasn't running for office.
    (Conn Hallinan is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

    by annalivia on Mon Jun 14, 2004 at 08:31:36 AM PDT