But as this article in today’s Washington Post makes clear, what’s perhaps even more worrying are the actions of the 20,000 or so private security contractors in Iraq, who fall under no legal system whatsoever and a few of whom apparently like to get their kicks by taking target practice on elderly taxi drivers. (It’s also worth noting the racist employment policies of the security companies: American nationals get paid $600 a day, “third state” nationals, that is non-American, non-Iraqis, get paid..$70.)
I remember a journalist friend, who had gone to live in Baghdad from pretty much day one of the invasion, telling me years ago about contractors killing Iraqi civilians–and each other!–pretty indiscriminately. I’ve always wondered why the batallion of contractors in Iraq and their actions wasn’t a bigger story.
It truly becomes troublesome when security gets privatized. How do you claim responsibility and from whom? Of course the company can fire or the state can prosecute the person committing the crime, but how does that happen? Which state?
If an employee commits a crime in a foreign country, he is not military personnel so I guess he doesn’t obey by ‘rules of war’, yet is not a civilian either. It’s the limbo… Another sign of the change in how we see war and how our ‘rules’ have not followed. It’s a good question, why isn’t this a bigger story?
It wasn’t a bigger story because a) no one really wanted to know and b) no one understood the magnitude (except for a few people). Check out Corpwatch.org- especially Pratap Chatterjee’s pieces. I am sending you my piece that I put togethyer several years ago: Meet Your Local Contractor.
Security contracting — like the rest of Iraq’s kick back scandal– seems shrouded in mystery. Its sort of like the theory of relativity; everyone knows its there, but most are pretty hazy on the details.
I had friends translating for the British Army in Iraq who were being paid as government employees because they were part of the Territorial Army (weekend soldiers). A few months down the line, the system changed and they had to go sign on with an American firm that had won the contract to provide her Mag’s forces with “linguistic interface services” — or something. On the new contract they were paid much more, so they were happy but who in the ministry of defence thought it was a good idea to suddenly start paying their British translators triple through an American firm? This goes on while you hear army people complaining about how bad their equipment and pay is. There should defintely be more stories on this sort of thing.
Chris – why is he not a civilian?
Real problem is, that Iraqi public and government is much more employed with everyday suicide bombings at the moment, although for you guys those may not seem more troublesome than foreign security contractors’ acts. in any stable country similar behavior would not be tolerated even if it was Bush’s personal bodyguard.
For me logic is quite simple. If i am a foreign citizen, employed by whoever except military and perhaps diplomacy, than it’s local law what is applied on me. Problem in Iraq nowadays is that there is noone to apply it. If there is someone to blame for this lawlessness, than those who have been attacking any iraqi state institution that tries to do its job properly.
He is not a civilian because he performs task that have been until now (?) provided by military personnel.
If there were no differences between the status of civilians and soldiers, why do we have special military courts etc (and now I’m not primarilly referring to the Egyptian -and elsewhere- misuse of military courts)?
Secondly, I think its a simplified picture to say that the only/bigger problem is suicidebombers. The problem in Iraq is the multiplicity of problems, on many levels and where lack of accountability due to contractors is one of them.
[…] in The Arabist, Ursula Lindsey is concerned “the actions of the 20,000 or so private security contractors in Iraq, who fall under no […]
Always struck me as curious that these contractors bridle when you refer to them as mercenaries. Isn’t that what they are? They’re there purely for profit, and are issued weapons and authorized in many cases to kill.
chris: so say Mr X who is a British citizen goes and works in the US – he is not a civilian? Of course he is, even by the rules of war that you refer to. The problem in Iraq is that the level of lawlessness and the national government’s seeming inability to keep it under control is what is at issue. If there was the need for such private security, say in Britain, then those who went about killing willy nilly would without a doubt be prosecuted as civilians. It is no more than a business transaction, and I don’t see how, unless there is statute to the contrary of course, they would not be regarded as such. These security contractors need regulation, and sadly as with much else in the US campaign there was no foresight or larger plan.
You all do realize that most security contractors are from South Africa, right?
I don’t know about most, but there are definitely quite a few South Africans there. Do you have statistics on the nationalities of the contractors? It would be interesting. Blackwater, Dynacorp seem to prefer US employees. I talked to contractors there, many of them came to Iraq with the army in 03/04, and then came back as a private contractor in the next year for ten times the salary.
The scary thing about contractors is that they can drink alcohol — unlike the US army. there was a south African outfit that would periodically show up at our hotel and have drunken barbecues, which is a little scary when everyone is so heavily armed. I also heard stories of bust ups in Green Zone bars involving drunken contractors.
The US soldiers resented the hell out of them.
to chris:
i think that from the point of law, it is irlevant what tasks do they perform. what’s important is what status they have. unles they belong to military or diplomatic personel, they are civilians.
i have never said there is no difference between soldiers and civilians. just that those contractors are not soldiers, but civilians, apparently employees of private companies. in normal countries, special military courts are for soldiers. the fact that egypt is not the case doesnt change much in principle.
It may seem more atractive to search for more complicated explanations for current iraqi situation, but its contraproductive. We cant complain about lawlessness during the war. As in all other conflicts, war trials come after arms calm down. And in this case i dont think it is US who wants killings to continue.
Could you tell me a meassure, according to which suicide bombings are less problem than contractors misbehavior?
“For me logic is quite simple. If i am a foreign citizen, employed by whoever except military and perhaps diplomacy, than it’s local law what is applied on me.”
Ideally local law should be applied to them, but the problem here is, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, is that Bremer made all mercenaries exempted from Iraqi law.
I don’t know why your asking people here why suicide bombings are less of a problem than contractors. Of course both is a problem, and when it comes to murder, misery and the like there is really no reason to take out the scales to see which is worse than the other. The end result is the same, civilians are killed by both suicide bombers and mercenaries.