Business of war
Privatised violence
The chaos in Iraq reveals the unprecedented scale at which the United
States government has outsourced functions to private military
companies. They make it easier to project force abroad, extend the
technological influence of the great powers, elude the control of
elected assemblies, increase the deniability of dirty tricks and replace
shrinking standing armies. In developing countries their use reflects
diminishing state power because of slashed budgets.
Le Monde diplomatique
November 2004
By Sami Makki
Just a few months after the fall of Saddam Hussein there were some
20,000 people working in private security in Iraq. Their presence is
mostly the result of United States troops' inability to maintain law and
order, but they also cater for a rising demand from international
organisations and US investors. As security has deteriorated private
military companies (PMC) from western countries have proliferated. In
Security Companies Doing Business in Iraq, published in May, the US
State Department lists more than 25 firms, mainly from Britain or the
United States. They are in practice the acceptable aspect of a murkier
world.
Outsourcing by US armed forces has expanded since the end of the cold
war, driven by an increasingly global market in arms and military
services, and by troop cuts and defence budget rationalisation.
Outsourcing is just an advanced form of subcontracting. In exchange for
large sums of money, states share some of the risks of conflict with
industry. In loftier terms military outsourcing is yet another
application of the new public management methods that have been dictated
by neo-liberal policy (1).
Such public-private partnerships (PPP) are supposedly a response to
budget restrictions, releasing funds to modernise armed forces and to
develop and purchase new weapon systems. In 2002 the US Defence
Department claimed that outsourcing would save $11bn between 1997 and
2005. However, its main concern was to distract attention from the
consequences of the changes in defence organisation and funding caused
by cutting the number of federal employees and shifting responsibility
to the private sector.
There was sharp criticism of the US Army decision in October 2002 to
outsource more than 200,000 jobs as part of its third privatisation
phase. Many experts are convinced that such radical measures will not
bring a corresponding gain in efficiency (2). According to Bobby
Harnage, national president of the American Federation of Government
Employees: "The contractor workforce now [early 2003] outnumbers the
civilian workforce by four times. So this is not about saving money.
It's about moving money to the private sector. It's not about
eliminating jobs, it's about eliminating accountability" (3).
As part of the drive to outsource army departments to external bodies,
successive administrations have signed more than 3,000 contracts with
PMCs such as DynCorp, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), and
Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) over the past 10 years. Their emergence has
led to a gradual increase in private-sector personnel operating
alongside US armed forces on the battlefield, with responsibility for
logistics, maintenance, engineering and weapon-system support tasks.
During the Gulf war in 1991 the average ratio was about one private
employee to 100 soldiers. By 2003 it had risen to one in 10. In the
current military deployment in Iraq, PMC staff are the second-largest
contingent, equivalent to 20% of US forces.
In economic terms, and despite budget savings of $4.5bn-6bn forecast by
the Pentagon's Defence Science Board, the plan has failed to deliver. In
several cases the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has shown that
the real cost exceeded estimates by several million dollars and that
abuses led to serious overcharging for certain services (4). In 2003
Halliburton (the multinational directed by Vice-President Dick Cheney
until 2000) and its subsidiary KBR won contracts worth more than $1bn.
Halliburton is suspected of involvement in malpractice that affected the
award of contracts, suggesting there have been conflicts of interest
between the Bush administration and US defence procurement firms (5).
A major strategic rethink is under way, reaching far beyond issues of
budget rationalisation and the ideological pros and cons of outsourcing.
The US is involved in a long-term, low-intensity war on terrorism. At
the same time it must prepare its forces for major conflicts. It cannot
afford to weaken its leadership by completely withdrawing from
strategically less important theatres and must delegate certain tasks,
leaving its armed forces free to concentrate on duties vital to national
security.
Another aim of recent programmes has been to optimise the flexibility
and speed with which forces can be deployed by eliminating
time-consuming administrative checks and red tape. This also gives
foreign policy greater leeway, bypassing Congress, which must approve
overseas assignments for ground troops and clandestine operations. There
is also scope for operations that are not consistent with official
strategy. The Clinton administration made a show of its neutrality on
Bosnia and became involved in peacekeeping operations with the
Implementation Force. But behind the scenes it let MPRI facilitate arms
trafficking, in violation of the UN embargo, and train the
Croatian-Muslim federation's army in preparation for the decisive 1994
invasion of Krajina (6).
During the 1990s US firms (Vinnell Corp, MPRI, Cubic or Logicon) trained
forces from more than 40 countries under military cooperation programmes
(7). The resulting networks have been an ideal vector for building
alliances, as circumstance dictates, and disseminating US military
standards in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. In Africa PMCs
take charge of US military logistics and manage experts supporting
emergency operations. They have not neglected emerging markets in Europe
and developing countries.
PMCs now play a vital role in US defence, particularly in support of
expeditionary forces (8). Several firms have lobbied hard in recent
years to establish themselves as reliable partners for the management of
peace operations. In so doing they have blurred the already hazy
distinction between development aid, humanitarian assistance and
military operations.
The past five years have also seen major restructuring in the US defence
industry, with many mergers and acquisitions (9). Drawing on their
service activities, multinational firms promoting information and
communications technology as the way to dominate tomorrow's battlefields
have penetrated this lucrative market.
When L-3 Communications took over MPRI in 2000, CEO Frank Lanza said:
"MPRI is a growth company with good profit margins and competitive
advantages that no other training business can match and its services
are complementary to our products. MPRI is also active on the
international front, as changing political climates have led to
increased demand for certain services. These programmes tend to expand
and to lead to other opportunities" (10).
However a GAO report has highlighted the lack of control over PMCs,
since there is no centralised system capable of keeping track of the
innumerable outsourcing contracts passed by US agencies (11).
International law is unequal to the task of combating abuses by private
armies. In the US, though sales of military services are subject to
controls, government agencies may exploit loopholes, particularly for
the needs of intelligence and special operations (12).
The Bush administration sees these loopholes as a way of responding
effectively to terrorism. But by depriving Congress of a say in military
spending, outsourcing opens the way for the use of mercenaries. The
budget-conscious, free-market front to this t rend may conceal serious
abuses (13). The growing use of civilian resources to support drawn-out
military interventions, making the greatest possible use of reserve
forces and private firms, threatens the stability of the professional US
army that was introduced after the Vietnam war. This year the employees
of two US PMCs, CACI and Titan Corporation, were involved in the scandal
surrounding the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
In an interview on 30 April Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human
Rights Watch, said: "If the Pentagon seeks to use private contractors in
military or intelligence roles, it must ensure that they are subject to
legal restraints. Allowing private contractors to operate in a legal
vacuum is an invitation to abuse." In 2000 a report by the National
Defence University in Washington had acknowledged that privatisation was
perhaps less expensive than military intervention but that the quality
of results and respect for human rights might be compromised (14).
A distinction is usually made between outsourcing army support services
and operational battlefield functions. But since the 9/11 attacks the
dividing line has grown fuzzier. As a result of political and strategic
decisions in Iraq, outsourcing and the use of mercenaries are merging
into new operational doctrines, with private workers being involved in
combat on several occasions.
After the defeat of the Iraqi army the US military quickly entrusted the
security of sensitive sites in the country to private firms, although it
lacked any real means of controlling their work. In September 2003 the
US government announced that Erinys Iraq Ltd would be taking charge of
training thousands of Iraqis to guard the facilities on the
Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which were often under attack. Many former elite
police officers left South Africa for Iraq to take up executive
positions and train recruits for Erinys (see Africa: the frighteners,
page 10).
Western military and security organisations are being seriously affected
by this trend. Drawn by the promise of a tenfold increase in pay,
members of the special forces resign to join the private sector (15). In
the long term the drain on highly qualified human resources may lead to
the loss of specialist skills (maintenance of sophisticated weapon
systems, training of pilots) to the private sector.
An increasing number of US officers are concerned about the absence of
any unity of command or control and the lack of standardised procedures
for recruiting PMC personnel. Kidnapping and murder of corporate
personnel are increasingly common and the military is in no position to
protect these civilians; the four men lynched and burned by a mob in
Falluja in March were employees of Blackwater Security.
The plan to disarm and demobilise former Iraqi soldiers was
ill-conceived and disastrously implemented, creating a security vacuum.
At the end of 2003 the Pentagon nevertheless announced that it had
signed a $48m contract with Vinnell Corp to create and train the nucleus
of a new Iraqi army. Other firms, such as MPRI, are involved in the
programme as subcontractors. In April 2003 the State Department had
awarded a similar contract to DynCorp Aerospace Operations to train the
Iraqi police force.
With the increasing number of local militia groups and the
intensification of what the US describes as an insurrection, Iraq is in
a spiral of violence in which interventions by private security
operatives are worsening instability. Iraq's security has become an
extremely lucrative market, with individual salaries as much as $1,000 a
day. Several thousand former soldiers are working under security
contracts for western civilian agencies. Kroll and Control Risks are
respectively responsible for protecting the staff of the US Agency for
International Development and British diplomats and aid workers.
The crisis in Iraq shows that these private firms, involved in key
phases of the conflict and its aftermath, are fulfilling a vital role in
the US exercise of force. The proliferation of western PMCs in Iraq is
the result of a deliberate policy to experiment with new types of
intervention. But the policy has ignored the scale of the difficulties
involved. In a tacit admission of failure the US Defence Department
awarded a $293m contract to Aegis Defence Service in May (a PMC
incorporated in 2003 and directed by a former British Guards officer,
Tim Spicer). Its mission is to coordinate all the security operations of
more than 50 firms and protect contractors working on reconstruction.
Many US and British diplomats are still unconcerned by rampant
privatisation. At a conference in Paris in May a high-ranking civilian
coalition official, speaking anonymously, claimed that the proliferation
of PMCs was perfectly healthy and could be repeated elsewhere if it
proved successful in Iraq. The privatisation of peacekeeping continues
rapidly, constantly widening the limits of military outsourcing.
When Paul Bremer, the former civilian administrator of Iraq, framed the
country's new legal system he deprived it of any control over private
security firms. In the US the boom in private civilian and military
service providers may serve the nation's strategic interests (and
considering the volume of federal contracts, PMCs must display some
loyalty to the government). But in countries such as Iraq it is a recipe
for chaos and continuing conflict. Privatising violence jeopardises
Iraq's future sovereignty.
It also highlights the impossibility of reconciling US economic aims
with the political reality on the ground. PMCs offer specific solutions,
from consultancy services to deployment in the field (which has been
made necessary by the increasing concentration of expertise and the dual
nature of computerised weapons systems). But their overall approach to
conflict inevitably stresses technical factors and altogether disregards
political considerations.
PMCs upset the balance of power between legislative and executive
bodies, between politicians and the civil and military authorities, both
in countries in crisis and in the West. Blurring the distinction between
civil and military, private and public, these hybrid organisations often
operate through informal networks that foster corruption and crime. The
US strategic system of global intervention, in which PMCs play an
increasingly pivotal role, generates instability, even chaos. It is
insidiously legitimising the unilateral exercise of US power, globally
and specifically in unsettled areas of the South where the CIA, US
special forces and PMCs are waging low-intensity wars.
PMCs have emerged in response to a new form of conflict and a
corresponding decline in the international influence of states. Although
they cater for the needs of government policy, they foreshadow the
spread of conflicts on the fringes of the global market. Privatisation
of violence will play a decisive part in this process. For the leaders
of the coalition the Iraqi experiment has provided an opportunity to
test large-scale outsourcing of military functions. The next step is to
make it a systematic process.
NOTES
(1) Frank Camm, Expanding Private Production to Defence Services, Rand
Report MR734, Santa Monica, 1996.
(2) John Deal and James Ward, "Second Thoughts on Outsourcing for the
Army", Army Magazine, Association of US Army, Arlington (VA), May 2001
and Michael O'Hanlon, "Breaking the Army", Washington Post, 3 July 2003.
(3) Quoted by Maya Kulycky, "How Far Can a War be Outsourced?
", MSNBC News, 14 January 2003.
(4) US GAO, "Contingency Operations: Army Should Do More to Control
Contract Cost in the Balkans", NSDIAD-00-225, Washington DC, October 2000.
(5) Walter Roche Jr and Ken Silverstein, "Iraq: Advocates of War Now
Profit From Iraq's Reconstruction", Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2004.
(6) See Sami Makki, Sarah Meek, "Private Military Companies and the
Proliferation of Arms," Biting the Bullet Briefing 11, International
Alert, London, June 2001.
(7) Deborah Avant, "Privatising Military Training
", Foreign
Policy in Focus, vol 7, n° 6, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington
DC, May 2002.
(8) See Stephen Perris and David Keithly, "Outsourcing the sinews of
war: contractor logistics", Military Review, US Army Command, Fort
Leavenworth, October 2001.
(9) See Murray Weidenbaum, "The Changing Structure of the US Defense
Industry", Orbis (Foreign Policy Research Institute), Philadelphia,
Autumn 2003.
(10) "L-3 Com Announces Acquisition of MPRI
", Business
Wire, 18 July 2000, quoted by Peter Singer, Corporate Warriors: the Rise
of the Privatized Military Industry, Cornell University Press, Ithaca
and London, 2003.
(11) US GAO, "Military Operations: Contractors Provide Vital Services to
Deployed Forces but Are Not Adequately Addressed in DoD Plans", Report
GAO-03-695, June 2003.
(12) See Eugene Smith, "The new condottieri and US policy
",
Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Carlisle (PA), winter 2002-3.
(13) Thomas Adams, "The new mercenaries and the privatization of
conflict", Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, summer 1999.
(14) National Defence University, Strategic Assessment 1999, Washington
DC, 2000.
(15) See Courrier International, 10-16 June 2004.
Translated by Harry Forster
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