President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and dozens of
pundits reacted with outrage last week when a U.S. diplomatic convoy
traveling through Gaza was hit by a bomb attack, claiming the lives
of three security guards. What few bothered to mention was that the
victims -- John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Linde, Jr. --
weren't U.S. soldiers or State Department staff. They were employees
of Dyncorp, a Virginia-based defense contractor hired to provide
security to U.S. diplomats in Israel.
State Department officials downplayed that fact after the attack,
referring to the slain security men as "part of the Embassy and part
of the team." Still, the attack in Gaza highlighted a growing trend
in federal contracting -- Washington's reliance on "private military
companies" to perform tasks once reserved for the military.
Dyncorp's contract in Israel is just one small part of a diverse
portfolio that makes the Falls Church, Virginia company the tenth largest government contractor in the nation.
Dyncorp is also busy in Iraq, training a new Iraqi police force, and
in Afghanistan, providing security to President Hamid Karzai.
Washington has long outsourced work to private firms. What's new
is the size and variety of contracts being doled out, particularly
by the Pentagon. Private military companies now do more than simply
build airplanes -- they maintain those planes on the battlefield and
even fly them; construct detention camps in Guantanamo Bay, pilot
armed reconnaissance planes and helicopter gunships to eradicate
coca crops in Colombia; and operate the intelligence and
communications systems at the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado --
work that brings the various companies an estimated $100 billion a
year.
That figure will have to be revised upward this year, thanks to
the occupation of Iraq, which is proving a bonanza for U.S. private
military companies like Dyncorp, Vinnell, and of course, Dick
Cheney's Halliburton.
In the May/June issue of Mother Jones, reporter Barry
Yeoman detailed the U.S. military's increasing use of private companies. Yeoman found
that private military companies were playing a key role in preparing
the war with Iraq, supplying essential support to military bases in
the Gulf, operating mess halls and delivering meals, providing
security and maintaining weapons systems. In an all-out war against
Saddam Hussein, the military was expected to use as many as 20,000
private contractors in the Persian Gulf. That would be 1 civilian
for every 10 soldiers -- a 10-fold increase over the first Gulf
War."
And so it has proved. In late August the Washington Post
reported that as much as one third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is
going to independent contractors.
Proponents of military "outsourcing," like Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, say using private contractors saves money and frees
up the military to concentrate on its core mission. Critics say the
use of private companies introduces a host of problems, stemming
above all from the fact that private companies are not as
accountable as military personnel. Operating outside the bounds of
military command and justice, employees of private companies, if
they feel an environment is too dangerous, are under no obligation
to put themselves at risk. Hence the problem of "no-shows," already
seen in Iraq.
In July, Lt. Gen. Charles S. Mahan Jr., the Army's top logistics
officer, complained that many civilian contractors had refused to deploy to particularly dangerous parts of
Iraq, meaning soldiers had to go without fresh food, showers, and
toilets for months. ''We thought we could depend on industry to
perform these kind of functions,'' Mahan said. But it got ''harder
and harder to get [them] to go in harm's way.''
Doug Brooks, president of International Peace Operations
Association, the industry group for private military companies, says
the problem of no-shows is overblown. " I'm sure there must be some
no-shows," he says. "But I think this is a myth that's been built
up. It's not a real issue; it's only an issue in the press. These
are risky environments, but these guys are all former military, they
know what they're getting into. They're getting paid to do this."
And anyway, says Brooks, there are some jobs that are best left to
the private sector. "The United States has the best military in the
world, but they're not peacekeepers. It's a waste of talent to have
these guys, say, guarding a museum. And it's demeaning to have
soldiers, with all their training, cleaning toilets."
Hard information isn't easy to come by, but there's at least
anecdotal evidence that private military companies are causing
headaches in the field. "Iraq is a great illustration of the growth
in the scope of activities of private contractors," says Peter
Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of
Corporate Warriors, a book about private military companies.
" Before the war, they were involved in training and war gaming.
During the war they're involved in feeding, housing, maintaining
weapons systems. In the post-Saddam occupation, their role is even
greater. They're involved in training the police, paramilitary,
army. How well are they performing? We honestly don't know, thanks
to a lack of accountability and bad accounting. There's a lot of
attention on the question of whether soldiers are getting proper
support of the kind they got in the past. Soldiers are still eating
MREs [meals ready to eat] months after the president declared
victory."
It's not clear how the experience in Iraq will shape how the
military use private contractors in other contexts in the future."
In Iraq they planned for the best and the military is paying the
price," says Singer of Brookings. "Look at other scenarios, like
North Korea. Iraq is dangerous but you don't have massive casualty
figures. If they're having issues with Iraq, maybe the military is
getting overprivatized."
But some critics aren't at all optimistic that the correct
lessons will be drawn. "I have no confidence that there'll be a
reassessment based on the lessons of Iraq," says Deborah Avant, a
professor at George Washington University and an expert on private
military companies. "The administration is committed to a greater
number of private contractors, civilianizing up to 250,000 jobs. The
guys sitting there waiting for meals aren't the ones doing the
reassessment."
Herewith an updated roster of the contracts awarded to U.S.
private companies for work in Iraq:
Aecom Government Services Inc., a Los Angeles-based
company, heads a joint venture company called Combat Support
Associates, which employs 3,000 workers at Camp Doha, Qatar, a key
staging area for the Iraq invasion.
DynCorp won a $50 million one-year contract to send 1,000
ex-cops and security guards to Iraq to help train a new police
force. Only a few firms were allowed to bid for the contract.
CNN reported that DynCorp's federal contracts in 2002
amounted to just over $2.1 billion, up $700 million from the
previous year.
Halliburton, through its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown &
Root, landed two contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under
Operation Iraqi Freedom, for such services as building and managing
military bases, providing logistical support for the 1,200
intelligence officers hunting Iraqi WMDs, delivering mail, producing
millions of hot meals, and repairing oil-fields. Much of the money
comes from an exclusive, no-bid contract. "Halliburton employees and
contract personnel," reported the Washington Post in late
August "have become an integral part of Army life in Iraq."
And Forbes recently reported that "As U.S. involvement in
Iraq grows longer and more expensive, Halliburton stands to reap bigger profits."
Vinnell, a subsidiary of Northrop Grummann, has been hired
for $48 million to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army. 
What
do you think?
