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War Dogs

The situation in Iraq, and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan and other Third World military deployments, that is of most immediate concern to the private military and security companies. Sources in Baghdad talk about thirty to fifty thousand of these people active throughout Saddam Hussein's former domain. Every one of them costs money and the United States is paying for much of it. The concept of private military or private security companies is a modern-day phenomenon that has taken hold within the international security establishment.

Few governments are willing to pay the financial and political price of diverting resources from domestic health, education and social priorities in order to enhance military capabilities in an era of unprecedented peace in Europe. As a result, the bulk of the EU's soldiers may be ill-prepared both technically and psychologically for the kind of high intensity combat that might be necessary during an expeditionary operation.

The Clinton administration broke new ground when it hired the Virginia-based DynCorp to supply ceasefire monitors for Kosovo in 1998. In an unprecedented venture for a PMC hired by a Western government, contractors were deployed in a potential combat area instead of regular soldiers, although there was no question of the DynCorp employees taking part in even defensive military operations, not least because, like those of DSL, they were unarmed.

As non-linear battlefields and asymmetrical methods of warfare characterize contemporary armed conflicts, the distinction between combatant and non-combatant has become increasingly blurred. Although none of the PMCs in Iraq was hired to take part in combat operations, contractors providing military security services such as installation protection and convoy escort have been forced into direct combat with insurgents.

While PMCs in Iraq have demonstrated their competence to fight limited defensive battles in low-intensity conflicts, elsewhere private sector forces have already taken a leading role in offensive military operations in theatres of war as far apart as Macedonia, Colombia and sub-Saharan Africa. It was the successful interventions by the South African PMC Executive Outcomes in the mid 1990s against rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone that brought the issue of the employment of PMCs in direct combat to the forefront of discussion. EO's operation in Sierra Leone in 1995, in particular, is widely viewed as a classic example of what a small force of highly skilled, professional soldiers from a military provider firm can achieve against the more numerous, but ill-trained, irregular fighters that make up the bulk of combatants in conflicts in much of the developing world. The company employed a battalion-sized force of infantry, supported by combat helicopters, light artillery and some armored vehicles, which completely defeated rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in a few weeks.

EO's success contrasted sharply with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone's (UNAMSIL) costly and ineffective operation and launched much debate about the possibilities of privatized peacekeep ing and enforcement. An Adelphi Paper of 1998 argued for governments and international institutions to begin a "constructive engagement" with military companies that might allow them to supplement international and regional peacekeeping activities.

Many other established PMCs such as DynCorp and International Charter Inc. could offer combat services, but are not currently in this market. Nevertheless, the Anglo-American firm Northbridge Services Group has claimed to be able to deploy a fully equipped brigade, including full logistical support, anywhere in the world within three weeks. The same PMC, he says, offered to provide a battalion of peacekeepers for Liberia in 2003 to halt the fighting around Monrovia and arrest the indicted war criminal President Charles Taylor.

As with Sandline, some of the company's business activities have courted controversy and undermined its claims to respectability. In April 2003, the British Foreign Secretary publicly accused the firm of jeopardizing the peace process in Cote D'Ivoire by reportedly recruiting personnel to intervene in the fighting. Currently, the absence of competition in the military provider field means that any government seeking these capabilities has few reliable options. It also remains to be seen whether many well established PMCs would want to enter the high-risk business of direct combat even if such a role was viewed as legitimate."

Such enterprises provide a source of employment for retired officers and soldiers, who often leave the armed services in the prime of life, with not only years of military experience but also a profound understanding of the norms of military behavior, civil military relations and the laws of war. PMCs can provide a means by which the expertise of these military personnel can continue to be leveraged on behalf of a state, albeit at a price.

Recruitment by PMCs could have a negative impact on retention and morale in national armed forces, especially if private sector "soldiers" were to be deployed on a battlefield alongside regu lar troops performing the same tasks, but with lower pay and greater liabilities. The high salaries on offer in Iraq have already caused elite soldiers from armed forces on both sides of the Atlantic to retire prematurely in record numbers.

Given that most major security firms recruit former personnel of American and other Western special forces or elite combat units, it is hardly surprising that these personnel-including those from security firms such as Control Risk Group, Triple Canopy and Hart Group Ltd-acquitted themselves well under fire. In some cases, private contractors proved to be more professional and effective than coalition troops. Triple Canopy's operatives fought for three days to protect civilian members of the Coalition Provisional Authority in a facility in Kut after Ukrainian soldiers apparently retreated from their positions.

Other companies have the potential to fill the gap left by the demise of Executive Outcomes and Sandline. The important factor in the business of hiring guns is that military provider firms and top flight security companies hire from the same pool of elite soldiers.

A consistent media theme on the increase in violence in Iraq is that some private military contractors appear to be out of control, or at the very least, not subject to the same kind of discipline that regular forces maintain. There have been accusations of indiscriminate fire from people working for some of the major PMCs. While this might be true and verifiable in certain circumstances, the majority of these accusations simply do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, each one of the firms I approached specifically stressed that every single infringement by staff was investigated. The consensus was that if somebody was found to have exceeded his or her mandate, they would not only be sent home immediately, but could conceivably be charged under civil law.

"The fact is that the industry is multi-faceted. Delineation into its different service components is helpful from a conceptual standpoint for both the government and the industry for four reasons. First, it will assist the shared goal of refining regulatory mechanisms to address only those companies to which they should be made applicable. Second, the government will become a better client in that it will be more aware of what it is purchasing and more capable of relaying that information to taxpayers in a transparent manner. Third, understanding the fine distinctions of the private sector will allow for more thorough and meaningful assessments of its field implications. Finally, such review will improve war planning, as it will be easier to figure out when and under what conditions outsourcing to the private sector is appropriate and cost effective.

According to Washington's International Peace Opererations Association a trade association of private contractors working in conflict/post-conflict environments: Cleaning latrines and cooking meals is a vastly different task than guarding the head of the Provisional Coalition Authority in Iraq, but both act as crucial force multipliers that allow the military to focus on what it does best-to fight the insurgency. It does a great disservice to the industry and to consumers of news when reports do not clarify the service provisions of these companies. Private contractors should be encouraged to clarify their service role.

The diversity of services in the industry is not new. What is new, is the sheer volume of actors and the increased reliance on the private sector to assist in the different facets of military life. It is therefore all the more pressing to put forth an effort to make the industry more effective and accountable. A sober dialogue divorced from pundit-driven analysis is long overdue. A sophisticated understanding of the service provisions is an important first step to yielding a safer, more effective, accountable, and ultimately successful operation that will spare the lives of coalition forces, civilians, and the Iraqi people while ultimately minimizing the length of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Contractors are in Iraq (and Afghanistan, the Sudan, Algeria, Angola, Colombia and a host of other states) to provide airlift capabilities, run mail and food services, build camps, procure equipment, supply armed security personnel, and provide many other essential tasks that have traditionally been carried out by the military. In this way, says Wright, private contractors act as "force multipliers" for the military campaign by allowing the military to focus its talents on fighting the war instead of spreading its already limited resources to other, non-combat duties. (One definition of a modern mercenary.)

There are other wars where the great military establishments of the West - supported by the limitless largesse of their governments - fail to engage. Though the Mideast has become a newly fertile playing field for PMCs, there have been, and always will be, many battles where freelance fighting companies will need to effect decisions by themselves. Whether this means operating a lone gunship against homicidal rebel hordes, stalking through the deepest jungles to root out ambush positions, or defending crucial resources in the savannah, the only alternative to success for these professionals will frequently be death, and in the event of their failure the deaths of countless civilians. In those future conflicts in which the great powers of the West decline to become involved, others will from necessity look to the "war dogs" - that most inscrutable, and to many, admirable-breed of men.

David Shearer. Private Armies and Military Intervention (Adelphi Papers). . Oxford University Press. 1998.

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