Retired Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes served in Iraq in early 2004. He interacted with civilian contractors as part of his job managing the bases and facilities for the training of Iraqi armed forces. "I think contractors are best used for mundane, repetitive tasks that are clearly defined with a legal structure," he tells FRONTLINE. Hammes argues that using private contractors for security can be counteractive to the mission's overall goals.
He points to Blackwater's contract to protect Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority as an example.
"Blackwater's an extraordinarily professional organization and they were doing exactly what they were tasked to do: protect the principal," he says. "The problem is in protecting the principal they had to be very aggressive, and each time they went out they had to offend locals, forcing them to the side of the road, being overpowering and intimidating, at times running vehicles off the road, making enemies each time they went out. So they were actually getting our contract exactly as we asked them to and at the same time hurting our counterinsurgency effort."
Hammes is also critical of the construction of the large comfortable bases with big-screen TVs and multiple flavors of ice cream. "Someone's risking their life to deliver that luxury," he says. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on March 21, 2005.
Hammes Interview