America's For-Profit Secret ArmyBy LESLIE WAYNE
 ith
the war on terror already a year old and the possibility of war against Iraq
growing by the day, a modern version of an ancient practice — one as old
as warfare itself — is reasserting itself at the Pentagon. Mercenaries, as
they were once known, are thriving — only this time they are called private
military contractors, and some are even subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies. Advertisement
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The Pentagon cannot go to war without them.
Often run by retired military officers, including three- and four-star generals,
private military contractors are the new business face of war. Blurring the
line between military and civilian, they provide stand-ins for active soldiers
in everything from logistical support to battlefield training and military
advice at home and abroad. Some are helping to conduct training exercises
using live ammunition for American troops in Kuwait, under the code name
Desert Spring. One has just been hired to guard President Hamid Karzai of
Afghanistan, the target of a recent assassination attempt. Another is helping
to write the book on airport security. Others have employees who don their
old uniforms to work under contract as military recruiters and instructors
in R.O.T.C. classes, selecting and training the next generation of soldiers.
In the darker recesses of the world, private contractors go where the Pentagon
would prefer not to be seen, carrying out military exercises for the American
government, far from Washington's view. In the last few years, they have
sent their employees to Bosnia, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia and other global
hot spots. Motivated as much by profits as politics, these companies
— about 35 all told in the United States — need the government's permission
to be in business. A few are somewhat familiar names, like Kellogg Brown
& Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company
that operates for the government in Cuba and Central Asia. Others have more
cryptic names, like DynCorp; Vinnell, a subsidiary of TRW;
SAIC; ICI of Oregon; and Logicon, a unit of Northrop Grumman. One of the
best known, MPRI, boasts of having "more generals per square foot than in
the Pentagon." During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, one of every 50
people on the battlefield was an American civilian under contract; by the
time of the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia in 1996, the figure was one in
10. No one knows for sure how big this secretive industry is, but some military
experts estimate the global market at $100 billion. As for the public companies
that own private military contractors, they say little if anything about
them to shareholders. "Contractors are indispensible," said John J.
Hamre, deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. "Will there
be more in the future? Yes, and they are not just running the soup kitchens."
That means even more business, and profits, for contractors who perform tasks
as mundane as maintaining barracks for overseas troops, as sophisticated
as operating weapon systems or as secretive as intelligence-gathering in
Africa. Many function near, or even at, the front lines, causing concern
among military strategists about their safety and commitment if bullets start
to fly. The use of military contractors raises other troubling questions
as well. In peace, they can act as a secret army outside of public view.
In war, while providing functions crucial to the combat effort, they are
not soldiers. Private contractors are not obligated to take orders or to
follow military codes of conduct. Their legal obligation is solely to an
employment contract, not to their country. Private military contractors
are flushing out drug traffickers in Colombia and turning the rag-tag militias
of African nations into fighting machines. When a United Nations arms embargo
restricted the American military in the Balkans, private military contractors
were sent instead to train the local forces. At times, the results have been disastrous.
In Bosnia, employees of DynCorp were found to be operating a sex-slave ring
of young women who were held for prostitution after their passports were
confiscated. In Croatia, local forces, trained by MPRI, used what they learned
to conduct one of the worst episodes of "ethnic cleansing," an event that
left more than 100,000 homeless and hundreds dead and resulted in war-crimes
indictments. No employee of either firm has ever been charged in these incidents.
In Peru last year, a plane carrying an American missionary and her infant
was accidentally shot down when a private military contractor misidentified
it as on a drug smuggling flight.
TRW Seen Near Deal To Sell Auto Unit For About $5 Billion (August 27, 2002)
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Northrop Said to Consider Raising Bid for TRW (June 26, 2002)
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TRW to Shed Unit Amid Hostile Takeover Threat (June 20, 2002)
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A Unit of BAE May Extend Offer for TRW (June 10, 2002)
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