Is there a new growing wave of big corporate backed mercenary soldiers in America’s future that may begin replacing the old traditional military ranks that would favor a dark heinous Neocon mentality of high paid killers?

Please list articles, commentaries, reports, and opinions of mercenary’s connections and operations related to and with the US military. This is quietly kept under the radar about such known hired killers and contractors who operates on behalf and along side our military around the world without accountability. This needs made aware of among common citizens of the USA about such rouge operations concerning the likes of PMC. Mercenaries have grown into being a big business operation while courting the military and Neocon govt.

[They are sometimes the mercenary security teams who are hired and paid by the contractors. Other times they are young American men and women in the US Army.]



http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...a/mercenary.htm

Mercenary / Private Military Companies (PMCs)

Estimates of the number of private international security personnel range from 15,000 to 20,000. That is as much as 15 percent of the total US presence of about 130,000 soldiers. These private contractors -- who most often work for corporations, diplomats, or journalists -- have no accountability to the US military. These private security contractors can earn up to $1,000 a day. NATO forces have used private soldiers for security in the Balkans. But the proportion of private security personnel to regular military soldiers was no greater than 10 percent.

Is the battlefield contractor, in a sense, a corporate soldier and is the U.S. military becoming increasingly commercialized, privatized, and outsourced? The presence of civilians accompanying the force on the battlefield has legal and ethical ramifications and raises troubling questions relating to issues of chain of command, authority, accountability, force protection, and, ultimately, mission effectiveness. That presence, too, provokes discussion about the growth of the privatized military industry and the reliance on civilians in the realm of military training, international security missions, and peacekeeping operations.

[Part of the US Occupation force in Iraq, the in-country commander, LTG Sanchez decreed that federal civilians will not carry weapons.][They are sometimes the mercenary security teams who are hired and paid by the contractors. Other times they are young American men and women in the US Army.]

The demand for private military services is likely to increase. The cases that attract most attention are those where a government employs a private military company to help it in a conflict – as the governments of Sierra Leone and Angola have done. Such cases are in practice rare and are likely to remain so; but we may well see an increase in private contracts for training or logistics. Some of this demand may come from states which cannot afford to keep large military establishments themselves. But demand may also come from developed countries. It is notable for example that the United States

Iraq mercenaries recruited
Mon, 08/15/2005 - 16:51.

The US company Epi Security & Investigation says it has hired some 1,000 Colombian military and police veterans to work as mercenaries for the US occupation in Iraq. Epi is operating from a house near a US air base in the Ecuadoran city of Manta. The Bogota daily El Tiempo reported on Aug. 12 that the Colombian mercenaries receive salaries of between $2,500 and $5,000 a month--less than half the salary charged by their US counterparts. Most of the mercenaries are retired military officers or police agents who were trained by the US military and are accustomed to working with US troops. (La Jornada, Mexico, Aug. 13)

Ecuador's minister of government, Mauricio Gandara, responded on Aug. 13 by announcing he will order an immediate investigation into Epi Security's activities in Ecuador. Speaking from New York, where he was on a private visit, Gandara described the company's recruitment of mercenaries as illegal and immoral. More than a year ago, the Latin American Human Rights Association revealed that Dyncorp, another US company which recruits mercenaries for US military projects, was operating in Manta. Two other competitors, Blackwater and Halliburton, also have representatives in Colombia and in Manta. (Prensa Latina, Aug. 13)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Aug. 15

http://www.ww4report.com/node/941

US Mercenaries Spill Blood Over Afghan Opium

It was the first day of Afghanistan's new opium eradication program and the quiet town of Maiwand in Kandahar province had been chosen for action.

Hundreds of Afghan eradicators under the command of American private security contractors were going to head into the fields around the town and destroy the beautiful red and white blooms days before they could be harvested for their narcotic sap.

But instead of the peaceful, model operation that was promised as an example to demonstrate the Kabul government's serious intentions, Maiwand and its surrounding villages exploded into violence in what could be a foretaste of resistance to Western-backed efforts to bring Afghanistan's opium industry under control.

By the end of yesterday four government soldiers had been wounded by gunfire from farmers, American security contractors were said to be sheltering behind razor wire in a protected camp, and Afghan police and counter-narcotics forces had fought fierce battles which local people said left five dead. Plans to eradicate poppies were temporarily shelved in the area as political bigwigs shuttled to and fro trying to ease tensions and broker some kind of deal with the angry opium farmers.

Dense clouds of black smoke hung over the town from burning barricades, hundreds of shots rang out from gun battles, and American helicopter gunships flew low overhead.

One policeman said he had seen five bodies, but it was difficult to tell from the ambulances speeding out of the town towards hospitals one hour away in Kandahar how many had been injured in the disastrous operation.

The poppy eradication force had driven out of Kandahar two days earlier on their way towards Maiwand in a motley collection of Jeeps and trucks, bristling with firepower and wearing a remarkable array of uniforms and ethnic dress.

Friendly looking Americans chewing cigars - most of them are retired policemen hired by the security company - had waved lazily as the convoy thundered past.

Maiwan was being targeted first for eradication because it was regarded as a relatively peaceful area with effective government control. The hard cases have yet to be tackled.

Driving across the desert from Kandahar, the first sign of trouble was the pall of black smoke from burning tires pulled across the road, blocking it to traffic. Tall men in turbans could be seen standing next to them chanting. As we wondered whether to chance the blockade, a driver speeding out of town leant out of the car window and shouted at us in English: "Don't go in there or you'll never come out again." As he vanished at high speed into the distance dozens of shots rang out.

Local people told us to go no further, and a passing police commander ordered three of his men to guard us. They assumed macho poses with their AK-47s and gave us bubble-gum.

One of them said the fighting had been so fierce it must have been the Taliban helping farmers to fight back.

A local man heard there were journalists near by and rode out of the town on his moped past the burning tires to voice the passions being violently expressed within it.

"The farmers are angry with the Americans and the Kabul government," said Ahmed Weil. "It is only the fields of the poor that are being destroyed, not the fields of the rich." Afghans complain that wealthy warlords keep their stockpiles of opium while poor farmers are stopped from growing the crop or have their fields cut down.

There are also persistent claims that farmers are spared eradication if they can afford to bribe teams, or if they share the clan background of eradicators.


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0413-01.htm

The Rising Corporate Military Monster
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
and ROBERT WEISSMAN

A corporate military monster is being created in Iraq.

The U.S. government is relying on private military contractors like never before.

Approximately 15,000 military contractors, maybe more, are now working in Iraq. The four Americans brutally killed and mutilated in Fallujah March 31 were part of this informal army of occupation.

Contractors are complicating traditional norms of military command and control, and challenging the basic norms of accountability that are supposed to govern the government's use of violence. Human rights abuses go unpunished. Reliance on poorly monitored contractors is bleeding the public treasury. The contractors are simultaneously creating opportunities for the government to evade public accountability, and, in Iraq at least, are on the verge of evolving into an independent force at least somewhat beyond the control of the U.S. military. And, as the contractors grow in numbers and political influence, their power to entrench themselves and block reform is growing.

Whatever the limitations of the military code of justice and its in-practice application, the code does not apply to the modern-day mercenaries. Indeed, the mechanisms by which the contractors are held responsible for their behavior, and disciplined for mistreating civilians or committing human rights abuses -- all too easy for men with guns in a hostile environment -- are fuzzy.

It is unclear exactly what law applies to the contractors, explains Peter W. Singer, author of Corporate Warriors (Cornell University Press, 2003) and a leading authority on private military contracting. They do not fall under international law on mercenaries, which is defined narrowly. Nor does the national law of the United States clearly apply to the contractors in Iraq -- especially because many of the contractors are not Americans.

Relatedly, many firms do not properly screen those they hire to patrol the streets in foreign nations. "Lives, soldiers' and civilians' welfare, human rights, are all at stake," says Singer. "But we have left it up to very raw market forces to figure out who can work for these firms, and who they can work for."

There are already more than a few examples of what can happen, notable among them accusations that Dyncorp employees were involved in sex trafficking of young girls in Bosnia.

In general, the performance of the private military firms is horribly under-monitored.

Sometimes the lack of monitoring is a boon to the government agencies that hire the contractors. Although there are firm limits on the kinds of operations that U.S. troops can conduct in Colombia, Singer notes, "it has been pretty loosey-goosey on the private contractor side." The contractors are working with the Colombian military to defeat the guerilla insurgency in Colombia -- unconstrained by Congressionally imposed limits on what U.S. soldiers in Colombia may do.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, a problem of a whole different sort is starting to emerge.

The security contractors are already involved in full-fledged battlefield operations, increasingly so as the insurgency in Iraq escalates.

A few days after the Americans were killed in Fallujah, Blackwater Security Consulting engaged in full-scale battle in Najaf, with the company flying its own helicopters amidst an intense firefight to resupply its own commandos.

Now, reports the Washington Post, the security firms are networking formally, "organizing what may effectively be the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and pooled, sensitive intelligence."

Because many of the security contractors work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, as opposed to the U.S. military, they are not integrated into the military's operations. "Under assault by insurgents and unable to rely on U.S. and coalition troops for intelligence or help under duress," according to the Post, the contractors are banding together.

Private occupying commandos? Corporate military helicopters in a battlefield situation? An integrated occupation private intelligence network?

Isn't this just obviously a horrible idea?

Given the problems that have already occurred in places like Colombia and Bosnia, the scale and now independent integrated nature of the private military operations in Iraq is asking for disaster, beyond that already inflicted on the Iraqis.

Making the problem still worse is that the monster feeds on itself.

The larger become the military contractors, the more influence they have in Congress and the Pentagon, the more they are able to shape policy, immunize themselves from proper oversight, and expand their reach. The private military firms are led by ex-generals, the most effective possible lobbyists of their former colleagues -- and frequently former subordinates -- at the Pentagon. As they grow in size, and become integrated into the military-industrial complex (Northrop Grumman has swallowed a number of the military contractors, for example), their political leverage in Congress and among civilians in the executive branch grows.

Over the last decade or so, the phenomenon of private military contracting has grown unchecked. We're now at a precipice, with action to constrain the contractors about to become far, far more difficult than if the madness of employing mercenaries had been averted in the first place.

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/us_military/162741.html

Corporate Soldiers: The U.S. Government Privatizes Force
by Daniel Burton-Rose and Wayne Madsen

The latest stage in the privatization of military functions is the contracting out of training of Third World armies. The U.S. military establishment is relying not just on rag-tag groups of mercenaries, or front groups that do the bidding of the CIA or other intelligence agencies, but on genuinely independent corporations.

The Department of State has turned to Arlington, Virginia-based Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a self-described "corporation of former military professionals ... ranging from commanders to tank gunners" to carry out its African Crisis Responsive Initiative (ACRI). At State Department prodding, seven nations, spanning the African continent, have already signed up for the program.

The ostensible purpose of ACRI is to create an indigenous peacekeeping force in Africa. Military forces from nearly all of the seven nations currently participating -- Benin, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Uganda and, most recently, the Ivory Coast -- have already received some training from the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based 3rd Special Forces.

In March 1999, Ghana received the first "follow-on training" of ACRI, with U.S. Special Forces overseeing the MPRI-conducted event. Senegal is to follow soon after.

Why use a private corporation to conduct military trainings? Government officials say privatization can save taxpayers money. In the case of ACRI, the State Department says MPRI and LOGICON, a huge Arlington-based electronics company, can do the advanced training cheaper, and more effectively, than the Army.

But whatever the cost savings, the privatization of military and quasi-military functions raises huge questions of accountability and the misuse of force that are sure to loom large as MPRI and other military service companies like South Africa's Executive Outcomes and the U.S. Dyncorp grow.


PRIVITIZED PEACEKEEPING

Some of the potential dangers even in a privatized peacekeeping training operation are foreseeable in the still-in-its-infancy ACRI program and in MPRI's former operations.

The State Department is quick to emphasize that the ACRI program does not transfer lethal equipment, but quality training by definition builds a residual lethal force -- soldiers -- and can alter regional balances of power. MPRI, whose motto is "The Greatest Corporate Military Expertise in the World," has provided clear illustration of the value of good teachers. Within months of receiving expert tutelage from MPRI, Croatia launched a series of intense, well-planned and successful offensives against ethnic Serbs. Military experts noted that the Croatian military machine was vastly improved in a just a few short months, an up-grade that likely contributed to its decision to go on the offensive.

Before MPRI entered the picture, ACRI had already begun compiling a similar record. Uganda and Senegal, each of which received Special Forces trainers as part of ACRI's initial deployment in July 1996, have become deeply involved in wars with bordering nations. ACRI equipment has been found on Ugandan soldiers fighting against Kabila in the Congo. Human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have also linked ACRI-trained battalions to murders, rapes and beatings committed against Ugandan civilians in areas of the country contested by rebels. Senegal is supporting Guinea-Bissau rebels, against authoritarian General Asumane Mane.

The quandaries posed by ACRI and MPRI are just the tip of the iceberg, for MPRI is at the top of the military training field. The U.S. government sees the firm's much-vaunted roots in the highest levels of the Pentagon as something like a stamp of purity. "Committed to ethical business practices," is written prominently on the firm's promotional pamphlet. MPRI has been very careful to avoid connections to the violence it has facilitated.

More hard-boiled mercenaries express disdain for the distance MPRI keeps from the guts and gristle of battle. "MPRI is so desperate to avoid being called mercs that they just scratch the surface," says Tom Marks, a contributing writer to the quintessential mercenary magazine, Soldier of Fortune. "They're a glorified transportation corps, as opposed to being a military outfit. They're almost like the FedEx of government service."

Some government officials' descriptions of MPRI almost make the firm seem like a high-quality job-placement agency. Phil Egger of the State Department's African Affairs bureau says MPRI quickly and effectively recruits in response to State Department requests for trainers, utilizing both a large database of retired military and web-advertising. As the United States trained most of the people MPRI hires, they are ideally suited to fulfill U.S. missions. "Most of the people they've hired for us are retired colonels," says Egger. "All have African experience -- some at embassies."

I can see the possibility of abuse here, but the same can be said for UN trained and backed forces. Pick your poison.

My choice of poison would be slappin' the entire Bush regime and "ALL" it's supporters in fatigues and send them to their wars in place of who wishes not to be over there. Since that will never happen, and this possibility of abuse is actually fact in reality when it pertains to death squads and mercs on the loose, it's the lack of accountability that becomes a major problem along with the esculation of hatred against the countries who supply these mercs. Even though our own military sometimes lack in it's own accountability for their actions, they still practice more accountability over the likes of mercs.

Politics - USA
MERCENARY FIRMS & WAR PROFITEERS

http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book73q.htm

This has been my suspicion about the motivation for the whole Iraq adventure. What is freedom compared to a couple hundred billion to these people?

LOL Brookie - point well made Bro'!

The "SHRUB" and his Neocon Bro's will do anything to hear the Ka-ching of the register ! LOL

Blood, Death of American G.I.'S and Iraqii Civvies means sheet to these pukes Bro'!

Hang Tough~

More info here on PMCs. When you hear the word 'advisors' being sent into a country by our military and Pentagon, think death squads! this article here explains the set up very well.... worth your time reading it.... but don't think that you'll come away with a warm fuzzy feeling once you truly realize who the real terrorists of this planet is.

If you can, try imagine yourself in a 3rd world country, without law... without protection and struggling enough to stay alive... and you fall prey to outsiders who carry weapons whether as a direct target or caught in crossfires. They have only one thing on their minds.... KILLING..... despite their 'other' claims for being there.


http://www.fortliberty.org/military-librar...companies.shtml

Private Military Companies (PMC's)

Outsourcing: Private Military Companies (PMCs): One of the ways the U.S. government has been able to carry out its rapid growth in military and police training around the globe over the past decade has been to outsource many training operations to private contractors. This practice reduces pressures on the deployment schedule of U.S. forces. It also permits U.S. involvement in certain situations without risking the deaths of U.S. soldiers—a high political cost since the deaths of U.S. Rangers in Somalia in 1993. Post-cold war reductions in the size of U.S. military forces led to a glut of out-of-work military personnel. Many of them were absorbed into long-established private military companies (PMCs) that expanded their operations in the 1990s; others created their own start-up firms. Among the American companies providing training to foreign forces in the 1990s were Cubic, DynCorp, Logicon, Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), and Vinnell Corp. The privatisation of warPrivate corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.

Due to the breakdown of state ability to contain or counter internal violence in the developing and newly emerging states after the end of the Cold War, States are increasingly rely on private military armies to maintain their security. These private forces have taken on the guise of profit making enterprises that offer military advice as well as providing fighting forces. This is a break from how they were traditionally as "mercenaries" and "soldiers of fortune". Though the development of states hiring "companies" to preform the tasks that were once the domain of govrenments may seem new, in fact the outsourcing of private military armies states has a long history dating back to ancient times in the Greek, Roman and Chineses civilizations. What has changed has been the level of sophistication of operations and the acceptance from industrialized and developed states for the uses of "legitimate" companies. There have even been recent suggestions that private armies could be used in peacekeeping missions for the UN to replace the fear and fatigue of member states to involve government forces in an increasingly dangerous operations.

Due to the breakdown of state ability to contain or counter internal violence in the developing and newly emerging states after the end of the Cold War, States are increasingly rely on private military armies to maintain their security. These private forces have taken on the guise of profit making enterprises that offer military advice as well as providing fighting forces. This is a break from how they were traditionally as "mercenaries" and "soldiers of fortune". Though the development of states hiring "companies" to preform the tasks that were once the domain of govrenments may seem new, in fact the outsourcing of private military armies states has a long history dating back to ancient times in the Greek, Roman and Chineses civilizations. What has changed has been the level of sophistication of operations and the acceptance from industrialized and developed states for the uses of "legitimate" companies. There have even been recent suggestions that private armies could be used in peacekeeping missions for the UN to replace the fear and fatigue of member states to involve government forces in an increasingly dangerous operations. Leash the Dogs of WarPrivate militarycompanies are, in some ways, the modern-day equivalent of the colonial exploration companies that, in the name of empires, went out into the world and colonised vast parts of the globe. They are often compared with the mercenaries of the 1960s, the demobilised and disgruntled western soldiers who fought for all sides in the chaos of decolonisation. But to tar mercenaries and today's private soldiers with the same brush misses the point.

U.S. Companies Hired to Train Foreign ArmiesWhen the Pentagon talks about training the new Afghan National Army, it doesn't mean with its own soldiers. The Green Berets and other elite U. S. troops are needed elsewhere. Instead, the Defense Department is drawing up plans to use its commandos to jump-start the Afghan force, then hire private military contractors to finish the job. It would be the most vital role yet taken on by a somewhat clandestine industry accustomed to operating on the fringe of U. S. foreign policy by training foreign armies. As the United States pushes its antiterrorism campaign beyond Afghanistan, the role of these private companies promises to grow right along with it.

In Iraq, private contractors do just about everything a soldier would do. They sling Spam in mess tents. They tote guns along base perimeters. They shoot. They get shot. Sometimes they get killed. And it's not just in Iraq, but around the world - in conflict zones from Liberia to Kosovo to Afghanistan - that the United States is putting hired help behind the front lines to ease the burden of its overworked armed forces. By paying civilians to handle military tasks, the Bush administration is freeing up U.S. troops to fight. Dogs of War Take to Suits

The growing number of private military companies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan point to far-reaching changes in the business of war since the 1990s, experts say.

Contractors always have supported the Army and will continue to do so in the future. As contractor use becomes more institutionalized, more and more functions will be contracted out. Commanders and their planning staffs must be prepared to receive significant support from contractors in all military operations and under virtually all conditions.

Contracting Support on the Battlefield FM 3-100.21U.S. Army Field Manual 3-100.21: Contractors on the Battlefield Army Regulation 715-9Army Regulation 715-9: Contractors Accompanying the Force

Busy little killers now aren't they? [ two-year investigation by ICIJ identified at least 90 private military companies, or PMCs (as some of these new millennium mercenaries prefer to be known), that have operated in 110 countries worldwide.]




http://www.publicintegrity.org/bow/report.aspx?aid=148

Privatizing Combat, the New World Order

By Laura Peterson

WASHINGTON, October 28, 2002 — In 1998, unbeknownst to most Americans, the United States had a military presence in a remote African war that drew little attention from the media. Unlike other U.S. interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo, there was no hand-wringing over whether a deployment was justified by U.S. national interests, whether troops would be spread too thin, whether American men and women should be put in harm's way in a fight that had little to do with Main Street America, or whether the level of barbarity justified, on its own merits, the deployment of U.S. troops on humanitarian grounds.

n fact, a nearly [ two-year investigation by ICIJ identified at least 90 private military companies, or PMCs (as some of these new millennium mercenaries prefer to be known), that have operated in 110 countries worldwide.] Most of these companies – defined as providing services normally carried out by a national military force, including military training, intelligence, logistics, combat and security in conflict zones – are headquartered in the United States, Britain and South Africa, though the vast bulk of their services are performed in conflict-ridden countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Eleven of the companies identified by ICIJ are no longer active, and the operational status of 18 others could not be determined.

"Mercenaries" are officially outlawed under Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, which defines them as persons recruited for armed conflict by or in a country other than their own and motivated solely by personal gain. However, few modern PMCs fit that definition and, indeed, spokesmen for such companies insist they rarely engage in combat and provide military skills only to legitimate, internationally recognized governments. The ICIJ investigation found that a wide range of companies – from large corporations that offer military training, security, landmine clearance and military base construction to start-up entrepreneurs offering combat services and tactical training – are in what has become the complex and multibillion-dollar business of war.

Since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 of the 24 U.S.-based PMCs identified by ICIJ, a review of government documents showed. Pentagon records valued those contracts was more than $300 billion. More than 2,700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root and Booz Allen Hamilton. Because of the limited information the Pentagon provides and the breadth of services offered by some of the larger companies, it was impossible to determine what percentage of these contracts was for training, security or logistical services.

Now here's something very interesting... our man 'the wad' Cheney and his Halliburton gang... dealing in the mercs too. Sure why not, they are just about everywhere around the planet..... taking what's not theirs and making all those $ millions and $billions.... gratus tax payer's monies also.


http://www.publicintegrity.org/bow/report.aspx?aid=148


Vice President
Richard Cheney
(Reuters)

The U.S. Defense Department has increasingly turned to outside vendors for logistical support, one of the most heavily out-sourced sectors for the armed forces in both peacekeeping and wartime. In Bosnia, for example, the ratio of contractors to American soldiers has ranged from one in 10 to nearly one-to-one, according to various defense analysts. The trend gained momentum after the 1991 Gulf War, in which troops were heavily supported by a panoply of private contractors. A 1995 report of the Defense Science Board, a standing committee that advises the Pentagon on technological, scientific, and other issues, suggested that the Pentagon could save up to $6 billion annually by 2002 if it contracted out all of its support functions to private vendors, except those that deal directly with war fighting. The trend has persisted, as evidenced by a 2002 state-of-the-military review in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized the success of the department's outsourcing of non-core responsibilities, stating that he would "pursue additional opportunities to outsource and privatize."


The strong links between the U.S. government and many of the private military companies that contract with them has presented questions regarding the revolving door between government and the private sector. In 1992, the Pentagon, then headed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave Brown & Root an additional $5 million to update the report. Brown & Root (now called Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR) is a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation, which Cheney, the U.S. vice president, headed as CEO from 1995 to 1999. Brown & Root was also awarded contracts in 1995 and 1997 to provide logistical support in the Balkans, where the U.S. military has been enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace accord that ended the war in former Yugoslavia. Those contracts mushroomed to $2.2 billion worth of payments over five years, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Brown & Root is hardly the only PMC that raises questions about the revolving door. Frank Carlucci, who served as defense secretary in the waning years of the Reagan administration, was chairman of BDM when it acquired Vinnell; he is still chairman of the Carlyle Group, a merchant banking firm that owns BDM and counts a plethora of former government officials, including former President George H.W. Bush, his secretary of state, James Baker, and his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Richard Darman, as consultants, advisors, and executives. During Carlucci's tenure at BDM, the company greatly expanded the number of contracts it had with the U.S. government; by 1994, the company had revenue of $774 million, up from the $295 million the company grossed in 1991, the first full year that the Carlyle Group owned the company.

Despite scandals and poor reviews, the contracts keep piling up.

Amid the government lawsuit against Brown & Root – and the critical GAO report – the Army awarded the company a 10-year contract in December 2001 to provide base-support work overseas under its Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, the value of which could run into the billions of dollars.

Some of MPRI's overseas ventures have produced unsatisfied customers. In Colombia, the company was contracted in 2000 to help restructure the Colombian military as part of Washington's war on drugs. But Colombian defense officials called the training useless and said MPRI advisors had "reinvented the wheel," noting that no one on the company's staff in Colombia spoke Spanish. Reportedly under pressure from Colombia, the Pentagon did not renew the one-year contract. Pentagon officials publicly backed the company's performance, and Soyster told the St. Petersburg Times that MPRI had fulfilled the requirements of its $4.3 million contract.

The increasing scope of the war has led to a bonanza for PMCs. For example, ArmorGroup, the services arm of Armor Holdings, was hired by the British government to provide security for British embassies around the world after a diplomat was killed in a bombing believed related to the al Qaeda network. Kellogg Brown & Root has built camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for U.S. detainees and is providing logistical support for U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan. MPRI says it is supporting homeland security in the United States and hopes to be hired to train the newly constituted Afghan army.

Many worry, however, that the inadequate oversight system now in place will never be able to keep up with the sheer volume and geographical spread of the hundreds of Pentagon contracts being issued. The May 2002 GAO report predicted that weak oversight would remain a problem. "With the involvement of contractors in the efforts to combat terrorism, the potential exists for a similar condition (as in the Balkans) in Afghanistan and the surrounding area." At the request of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the agency has begun a review of the oversight of defense contractors in deployment missions worldwide. That report is due out in mid-2003.

IRAQ: MERCENARIES MOUNT OFFENSIVE

Retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary -- certainly better than Army pay.


by John Hanchette, Niagra Falls Reporter

August 23rd, 2005


OLEAN -- There are plenty of aspects about the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq that approach sitting-duck status for criticism. The fighting in Iraq is, as the military likes to define promising battlefields, a "target-rich environment" for journalists, academics, politicians, peaceniks, talking heads and sidewalk opponents of the war alike.
But one important facet of the controversial war -- until recently -- has drawn little attention from the critics.

The Pentagon, using your money and mine, has gone into a costly competition with itself for able bodies to take on dangerous security assignments that include almost routine combat.

If a dunderhead college student submitted this loser business plan in Industrial Management 101, he'd flunk.

We've all heard and read the stories about troubles the Army and Marines are having meeting recruiting goals as the unpopular war rages. In the early part of 2005, for the first time in years, both branches missed recruiting goals by a wide margin for several months in a row. The Pentagon -- which hasn't had the draft to rely upon for new personnel since 1973 -- reacted.

More recruiters were thrown into the breach. Signing bonuses were increased from $6,000 to $10,000 to -- in some cases -- $20,000. College scholarships ballooned from $50,000 to $70,000. Standards were relaxed. The percentage of allowable volunteers without a high school degree was raised dramatically. TV and print commercials were changed to target reluctant parents instead of the sons and daughters. Some recruits were told they'd only have to serve 15 months instead of the normal two years.

Despite the 1,800 dead and 14,000 wounded in Iraq, the new strategies seemed to work. The numbers are up for July -- with the Army and Marines back above monthly goals -- but the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard are all expected to fall below annual recruitment targets by Sept. 30, when the federal fiscal year ends.

But the shortened training times now in force and the hurry-up aspect of shipping new grunts directly to Iraq soon after boot camp have made retention of trained, hardened and skilled veteran personnel -- particularly Special Operations, Delta Force, Navy Seal and Ranger types -- especially important.

This is where the people running this war have painted themselves into a costly corner.

Special Forces personnel -- key to any eventual success in Iraq -- are now being offered re-enlistment bonuses of up to $150,000 each. And these huge amounts are being spurned.

That's because retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary -- certainly better than Army pay.

These men, of course, are mercenaries -- professional soldiers hired for pay in an outfit other than their country's armed forces. The "private security companies" recoil from that designation, but that is what they are, nonetheless. They are private, well-paid gunmen.

In one of its best articles of the year, The New York Times Magazine of Aug. 14 detailed the quiet expansion of these new hybrid forces in Iraq. Author Daniel Bergner writes there are about 80 private firms, maybe 100, with approximately 25,000 armed men -- about 15 percent of the weapons-carrying allied personnel in Iraq -- guarding big American corporations that are reconstructing Iraq. They, side by side with American troops, shield American compounds from attack, keep safe workers who are rebuilding power stations and sewage plants, guard generals, protect military bases, and hold off insurgents so supplies can be delivered.

Some of the private gunmen -- not all Americans -- are drop-outs from law enforcement and soldiers of fortune who participated in other global conflicts in past decades. Many come from Chile, Ukraine, Fiji, Great Britain, Romania, South Africa, even Iraq itself.

No one seems to be keeping track of how many there really are, or of the totals being paid these firms, or who authorized them, approved them, or signed the contracts. The Pentagon, after promising these details to The New York Times, stiff-armed the newspaper and "detoured fully around the questions," according to Bergner.

The Defense Department would only state that "private security companies" are not being used "to perform inherently military functions." (That word "inherently" carries a lot of freight. The private armed firms, all by themselves, have already held off unexpected full-scale insurgent attacks upon regional Coalition Provisional Authority compounds in the Iraqi towns of Kut and Najaf.)

But one can do the math. One of the biggest private firms -- Triple Canopy (headquartered in the United States), with about 1,000 men in Iraq -- receives about $250 million a year from the Defense Department, and is so highly regarded in Washington that the State Department has designated it one of three such companies that will divide $1 billion a year in new protection work in powder-keg nations around the planet -- formerly a job the Marines usually performed. That's just one firm.

The North Carolina private security firm Blackwater USA (the firm whose four employees in Fallujah last year were killed, and their charred body parts hung from a bridge) is thought to receive at least as much.

The above number of private personnel on the ground in Iraq doesn't even include the 70,000 more unarmed civilians -- some of them Iraqis -- working for American firms and agencies that provide former military duties in Iraq, the most notable of which is Halliburton and subsidiaries, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

Halliburton, which received incredibly mammoth no-bid federal contracts at the start of the war for things like providing food, laundry, soft drinks, equipment washers and gasoline deliveries to the troops in Iraq, has recently been accused by Senate Democrats, whistle-blowers, Army auditors and the Pentagon's own Defense Contract Audit Agency of billing taxpayers more than $1.4 billion in questionable unsupported charges. (One food manager for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root told Pentagon investigators that KBR officials threatened to dispatch any workers who talked to federal auditors to more dangerous zones of Iraq.) These daily duties now outsourced to private firms used to be handled by members of the Armed Forces themselves. At least a general or other high officer could crack down on waste and corruption in those saner days without fighting bureaucrats and needing a congressional investigation to get started.

The high pay for our armed mercenaries in Iraq is probably necessary to attract such danger-loving security workers.

Triple Canopy employees -- in just half a year in 2004 -- were attacked by insurgents at least 240 times and got in about 40 firefights. The company stopped keeping track, but estimates the frequency of assaults is about the same this year.

The Pentagon's difficulty in trying to retain Special Ops experts with non-competitive bonuses was evident in the article when the Times garnered a quote from a Delta Force veteran of 15 years who ignored the fervent pleas of his commanding officer and joined Triple Canopy instead of re-upping: "There was no way. Here (in the private security company) I get to be with the best and make so much more money."

Using mercenaries to fight your wars was basically outlawed by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and pretty much ended after centuries of use in the 1700s, when sovereign nations came to the fore and better weapons required less professional skill. Nations found it easier to train any simple clod to fight and become cannon fodder rather than pay big sums to hire professionals. (We all were taught in grade school how dastardly and conniving King George III was in hiring 30,000 Hessians to spare British lives in fighting our brave boys in the American Revolution.)

But after 9/11 and even before we invaded Iraq, the Bush administration hired about 40 private gunmen from the U.S. company DynCorp to guard new president Hamid Karzai once we took over Afghanistan. Once we invaded Iraq in 2003, the commanding general, now retired, Jay Garner, immediately hired Nepalese Gurkhas and South Africans from a British security company to protect himself and his staff. It was off to the races.

No one has raised much of a fuss. Almost a year ago, Congress asked the Pentagon to provide a detailed plan for listing, managing, accounting for, and overseeing private contractors, but despite repeated promises, the Defense Department has yet to provide it.

One obvious reason the Pentagon and Bush administration warriors like the idea of mercenaries who don't draw much attention is that it allows them to pretend we have far fewer war fighters on the ground in Iraq than we really do. If any mode of operation makes it easy to fudge the figures or cloud the costs, the Bush White House and Pentagon like it.

Army chief of staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said in a Kansas City speech over the weekend there are now 138,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, and that plans to keep such a force there until 2009, if need be, are already drawn up. That number swells when you consider all the private armed gunmen.

There are a couple of dire conclusions here.

One -- It's going to be quite difficult in the near future to appeal to a sense of duty and patriotism in young Americans, as we have for two centuries when it came to fighting wars, when on the other hand we are using pure monetary gain as the main cudgel in keeping our people on the battlefield and showing up at boot camp.

Two -- This dangerous conundrum is merely a symptom of a larger and more deadly cultural problem: corporate greed. For the Iraq war, when you think about it, is being conducted by the Bush administration on the same crippling and wrongheaded strategy that has become so popular with the big business greedheads who are ruining our economy and the nation for their own personal gain: drastically downsize the workforce to free up billions of untrackable dollars, then outsource the vital production services to like-minded privateers, whether they be American or foreign.

Oh, and while you're at it, close down scores of military bases, shipyards and airfields in the name of economy, promise false savings, and ruin local economies across the nation.

Do American citizens and taxpayers get screwed in the end? Of course.

Do our leaders of government care? Of course not.


http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12565

There it is Bro.... good article! Look at the paycheck these mercs get for guarding oile wells in Iraq. Up to $4000 a mth!



http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/...8464637030.html

US hires mercenaries for Iraq role

By Jonathan Franklin
Santiago
March 6, 2004

The US is hiring mercenaries in Chile to replace its soldiers on security duty in Iraq.

A Pentagon contractor has begun recruiting former commandos, other soldiers and seamen, paying them up to $US4000 ($A5300) a month to guard oil wells against attack by insurgents.

Last month Blackwater USA flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of whom had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a 970-hectare training camp in North Carolina.

From there they would be taken to Iraq, where they were expected to stay between six months and a year, the president of Blackwater USA, Gary Jackson, said. "We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system."

Chile was the only Latin American country where Mr Jackson's firm had hired commandos for Iraq.

The privatisation of security in Iraq is growing as the US seeks to reduce its commitment of troops. At the end of last year there were 10,000 hired security personnel in Iraq.

Recruitment in Chile began six months ago and brought criticism from members of parliament and military officers, who fear that it will encourage serving personnel to leave.

Chilean Defence Minister Michelle Bachelet ordered an investigation into whether paramilitary training by Blackwater violated Chilean laws on the use of weapons by private citizens. She asked for its recruiting effort to be investigated after it was alleged that people on active duty were involved.

Many soldiers are said to be leaving the army to join the private companies.

Mr Jackson said that similar issues were bedevilling the US forces. The private sector paid experienced special forces personnel far more than the armed services.

"The US military has the same problems," he said.

"If they are going to outsource tasks that were once held by active-duty military and are now using private contractors, those guys (on active duty) are looking and asking, 'Where is the money?"'

The number of hired soldiers in Iraq is estimated to be in the thousands.

Squads of Bosnians, Filipinos and Americans with special forces experience have been hired for tasks ranging from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Their salaries can be as high as $US1000 a day, the news agency AFP recently reported. Erwin, a 28-year-old former US army sergeant working in Iraq, told AFP: "This place is a goldmine. All you need is five years in the military and you come here and make a good bundle."

Responding to a fear that any of its recruits who might suffer traumatic battlefield stress might be simply dumped back into Chilean society without mental health schemes, Mr Jackson said Blackwater USA had extensive psychological counselling programs.

"I personally come from a special operations background and I feel comfortable that we have the procedures in place that will allow them to handle the stress," he said.

"We didn't just come down and say, 'You and you and you, come work for us.' They were all vetted in Chile and all of them have military backgrounds. This is not the Boy Scouts."

GEORGE BUSH’S SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE

With no public debate, to compensate for inadequate troop strength in Iraq, the Bush Administration has contracted with tens of thousands of mercenaries, who operate outside U.S. control and undermine military morale.

http://www.opednews.com

One of the most underreported – and disturbing – aspects of the Iraq War is the United States reliance on so-called “private security companies” to perform traditional military functions in battling enemy insurgents.

A cover-story in the August 14 New York Times Magazine reports that, while the Department of Defense will not disclose figures, one rough estimate is that 60 to 80 companies, operating under DOD contract, have provided at least 25,000 armed soldiers to assist the U.S. military in Iraq. These private soldiers offer protection from enemy insurgents to both U.S. military installations and to American companies carrying out reconstruction protects.

The Times article reports that the private companies and the U.S. government bristle at the “mercenary” label to describe these soldiers because of the unsavory “gun-for-hire” connotation. The soldiers, they counter, are merely providing “protection.” However, according to facts outlined in the article, the mercenary label fits like a glove.

The DOD “private security” contracts run into unknown billions of dollars. The companies are cleared by DOD to stockpile weapons. The companies recruit largely from the ranks of ex-military. They pay their American employees $400 to $700 per day. Many of the soldiers hail from third-world countries (and are paid considerably less). The soldiers interviewed by the Times make no bones about it: they are in Iraq for a hefty payday.

The soldiers are heavily-armed, most often carrying assault rifles and belt-fed light machine guns. Of course, in carrying out their “protective mission”, the soldiers invariably find themselves in fire fights with U.S. enemies. While no officials figure exists, about 160 to 200 of them are believed to have died fighting – more than the total number of all non-U.S. coalition soldiers killed.

How did the policy to use mercenary forces develop? In preparing its article, the Times failed in repeated efforts to obtain an explanation from DOD. One thing though is clear: despite being a departure from established U.S. military policy, the mercenary policy was not subject to any type of public debate. There was no Congressional authorization, nor even an Executive Order. Incredibly, as far as the public knows, the policy just happened.

General Jay Garner, who initially led American forces in Iraq, told the Times that the “genesis” for the private security forces happened in spring 2003 when they were hired to guard him and his staff. Garner candidly went on to say what everyone knows but the government refuses to admit: that when the insurgency exploded, large numbers of private soldiers were needed because the U.S. fighting force on the ground was much too small to handle the job. This issue is touchy for the Bush Administration which continues to reject any criticism that it failed to adequately prepare for the war.

So what are the consequences? Any important policy that is conceived and implemented in secrecy lacks legitimacy, as well as undermining democracy by intentionally depriving the electorate of information it needs to form an informed opinion. Moreover, if the issue was thrown open to healthy democratic debate, many reasons exist for the public to oppose the use of mercenaries. And that is precisely why the Administration has been so reticent on the subject.

According to the Times article, the private security companies, while receiving boatloads of U.S. cash, operate independently; for example, the U.S. does not prescribe training standards or rules of engagement, or require background checks of company employees. The official U.S. line is that the company conduct is regulated by to Iraqi law enforcement, a laughable notion given that Iraq is an essentially lawless country.

The frightening reality, of course, is that these companies simply govern themselves. In a belated attempt to assert some control, a bill was introduced in Congress last year to require DOD to adopt operating regulations for these companies. In response, DOD promised to produce a plan in six months. According to the Times, that was nine months ago, and no plan has yet materalized.

As with many other aspects of the Iraq War, on the mercenary issue, Congress has largely abdicated its oversight role, and continues to simply appropriate large vast of money for the Administration to spend at will.

The bottom line is chilling: private companies – with scary macho names like Blackwater USA and Triple Canopy – are killing people in a military role in Iraq with massive U.S. financing but without the accountability that accompanies being part of the U.S. military. It was one thing in the Nineties for the government to begin outsourcing non-combat military tasks; it is something quite different to outsource the combat mission.

Mercenaries raise other troublesome issues. They better enables a government to conduct a war that lacks popular support. As documented in the Times article, the high pay scale for mercenaries' pay in Iraq has bred intense resentment within the low-paid military, and in fact the private security companies often lure away top military talent. In short, the Bush Administration has spawned an industry that undermines military recruitment and morale.

Finally, unfortunately, in the future, there is every reason to fear that these flourishing and aggressive new private “security companies” will peddle their services to other governments engaged in armed conflicts elsewhere in the world.

In his book, “Corporate Warriors,” historian P.W. Singer recounts that the long world history of reliance on mercenaries started to fade in the 18th and 19th centuries (the “Age of Enlightenment”) in large part because of new notions of both national pride and the honor of soldiering. “Those who fought for profit rather than patriotism were completely delegitimated,” Singer writes.

It all leaves one to wonder: what ever happened to the Age of Enlightenment?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ri...sh_s_soldie.htm

Now maybe these para-militaries should be the ones that stay in Iraq. I am more afraid of out of work paramilitaries coming back to the US than I am of any Iraqis.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12565


IRAQ: Mercenaries Mount Offensive

Retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary -- certainly better than Army pay.


by John Hanchette, Niagra Falls Reporter
August 23rd, 2005

OLEAN -- There are plenty of aspects about the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq that approach sitting-duck status for criticism. The fighting in Iraq is, as the military likes to define promising battlefields, a "target-rich environment" for journalists, academics, politicians, peaceniks, talking heads and sidewalk opponents of the war alike.

In one of its best articles of the year, The New York Times Magazine of Aug. 14 detailed the quiet expansion of these new hybrid forces in Iraq. Author Daniel Bergner writes there are about 80 private firms, maybe 100, with approximately 25,000 armed men -- about 15 percent of the weapons-carrying allied personnel in Iraq -- guarding big American corporations that are reconstructing Iraq. They, side by side with American troops, shield American compounds from attack, keep safe workers who are rebuilding power stations and sewage plants, guard generals, protect military bases, and hold off insurgents so supplies can be delivered.

Some of the private gunmen -- not all Americans -- are drop-outs from law enforcement and soldiers of fortune who participated in other global conflicts in past decades. Many come from Chile, Ukraine, Fiji, Great Britain, Romania, South Africa, even Iraq itself.

No one seems to be keeping track of how many there really are, or of the totals being paid these firms, or who authorized them, approved them, or signed the contracts. The Pentagon, after promising these details to The New York Times, stiff-armed the newspaper and "detoured fully around the questions," according to Bergner.

The Defense Department would only state that "private security companies" are not being used "to perform inherently military functions." (That word "inherently" carries a lot of freight. The private armed firms, all by themselves, have already held off unexpected full-scale insurgent attacks upon regional Coalition Provisional Authority compounds in the Iraqi towns of Kut and Najaf.)

But one can do the math. One of the biggest private firms -- Triple Canopy (headquartered in the United States), with about 1,000 men in Iraq -- receives about $250 million a year from the Defense Department, and is so highly regarded in Washington that the State Department has designated it one of three such companies that will divide $1 billion a year in new protection work in powder-keg nations around the planet -- formerly a job the Marines usually performed. That's just one firm.

The North Carolina private security firm Blackwater USA (the firm whose four employees in Fallujah last year were killed, and their charred body parts hung from a bridge) is thought to receive at least as much.

The above number of private personnel on the ground in Iraq doesn't even include the 70,000 more unarmed civilians -- some of them Iraqis -- working for American firms and agencies that provide former military duties in Iraq, the most notable of which is Halliburton and subsidiaries, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

Halliburton, which received incredibly mammoth no-bid federal contracts at the start of the war for things like providing food, laundry, soft drinks, equipment washers and gasoline deliveries to the troops in Iraq, has recently been accused by Senate Democrats, whistle-blowers, Army auditors and the Pentagon's own Defense Contract Audit Agency of billing taxpayers more than $1.4 billion in questionable unsupported charges. (One food manager for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root told Pentagon investigators that KBR officials threatened to dispatch any workers who talked to federal auditors to more dangerous zones of Iraq.) These daily duties now outsourced to private firms used to be handled by members of the Armed Forces themselves. At least a general or other high officer could crack down on waste and corruption in those saner days without fighting bureaucrats and needing a congressional investigation to get started.

The high pay for our armed mercenaries in Iraq is probably necessary to attract such danger-loving security workers.

Triple Canopy employees -- in just half a year in 2004 -- were attacked by insurgents at least 240 times and got in about 40 firefights. The company stopped keeping track, but estimates the frequency of assaults is about the same this year.

The Pentagon's difficulty in trying to retain Special Ops experts with non-competitive bonuses was evident in the article when the Times garnered a quote from a Delta Force veteran of 15 years who ignored the fervent pleas of his commanding officer and joined Triple Canopy instead of re-upping: "There was no way. Here (in the private security company) I get to be with the best and make so much more money."

Using mercenaries to fight your wars was basically outlawed by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and pretty much ended after centuries of use in the 1700s, when sovereign nations came to the fore and better weapons required less professional skill. Nations found it easier to train any simple clod to fight and become cannon fodder rather than pay big sums to hire professionals. (We all were taught in grade school how dastardly and conniving King George III was in hiring 30,000 Hessians to spare British lives in fighting our brave boys in the American Revolution.)

But after 9/11 and even before we invaded Iraq, the Bush administration hired about 40 private gunmen from the U.S. company DynCorp to guard new president Hamid Karzai once we took over Afghanistan. Once we invaded Iraq in 2003, the commanding general, now retired, Jay Garner, immediately hired Nepalese Gurkhas and South Africans from a British security company to protect himself and his staff. It was off to the races.

No one has raised much of a fuss. Almost a year ago, Congress asked the Pentagon to provide a detailed plan for listing, managing, accounting for, and overseeing private contractors, but despite repeated promises, the Defense Department has yet to provide it.

One obvious reason the Pentagon and Bush administration warriors like the idea of mercenaries who don't draw much attention is that it allows them to pretend we have far fewer war fighters on the ground in Iraq than we really do. If any mode of operation makes it easy to fudge the figures or cloud the costs, the Bush White House and Pentagon like it.

Army chief of staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said in a Kansas City speech over the weekend there are now 138,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, and that plans to keep such a force there until 2009, if need be, are already drawn up. That number swells when you consider all the private armed gunmen.

There are a couple of dire conclusions here.

One -- It's going to be quite difficult in the near future to appeal to a sense of duty and patriotism in young Americans, as we have for two centuries when it came to fighting wars, when on the other hand we are using pure monetary gain as the main cudgel in keeping our people on the battlefield and showing up at boot camp.

Two -- This dangerous conundrum is merely a symptom of a larger and more deadly cultural problem: corporate greed. For the Iraq war, when you think about it, is being conducted by the Bush administration on the same crippling and wrongheaded strategy that has become so popular with the big business greedheads who are ruining our economy and the nation for their own personal gain: drastically downsize the workforce to free up billions of untrackable dollars, then outsource the vital production services to like-minded privateers, whether they be American or foreign.

Oh, and while you're at it, close down scores of military bases, shipyards and airfields in the name of economy, promise false savings, and ruin local economies across the nation.

Do American citizens and taxpayers get screwed in the end? Of course.

Do our leaders of government care? Of course not.

Additional info on Triple Canopy, the other army.



http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12542

IRAQ: The Other Army

One of the largest private security companies in Iraq, Triple Canopy, was born immediately after the invasion. Plenty of other companies have done the same, some that were more established before the American invasion, some less.

by Daniel Bergner, The New York Times
August 14th, 2005


When Matt Mann needed to buy armored vehicles, he phoned his brother-in-law, Ken Rooke. Rooke didn't know the first thing about bullet-resistant windows or grenade-resistant floors, but he wasn't 100 percent unqualified to do the buying. At least he knew something about cars. At a speedway in North Carolina, he once called races for a local radio station. He was the closest Mann could come to an expert.

Mann, a retired U.S. Army Special Operations master sergeant in his late 40's, needed the vehicles quickly. And he needed guns. It was early last year, and the company he and two partners created, Triple Canopy, had just won government contracts to guard 13 Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters throughout Iraq. (The renewable six-month deals were worth, in all, about $90 million.) The C.P.A. was the governing body of the American-led military occupation. Triple Canopy -- not the American military -- would be protecting it. So would other companies. With the insurgency spiking, the job of keeping C.P.A. compounds from being overrun, and of keeping the architects of the occupation from being killed, had been privatized.

Yet when Triple Canopy was hired, it scarcely existed. Mann and one of his partners, Tom Katis, an old friend from Special Forces, talked after 9/11 about starting a business that might somehow address the threat of terrorism. They thought they might use their military backgrounds to train government agencies in anti-terrorism techniques. On a Special Forces exercise in Central America (both men were, at that point, in the National Guard, Mann having moved on from the regular Army to work as a civil engineer and Katis having graduated from Yale and begun a career in banking), they dreamed of their unborn enterprise under the jungle foliage -- the layered jungle canopy from which they took their name.

Now here's a group long known for their whacko death sqaud operations.


http://judicial-inc.biz/Mercs_ambush_marines.htm




Mercenaries attack Marine outpost

In Falluja, on May 28, Marines of Regimental Combat Team 8 spotted a convoy of sport-utility vehicles firing at Iraqi civilians. A few hrs later a Marine patrol was fired on . Later in the day, a Marines observation post came under sniper fire. Once Marines realized the firing was related to the civilian convoy the Marines had to take action, Lt. Col. Lapan said.

As the convoy tried to flee Fallujah the Marines laid spike strips on the road exiting Fallujah. Marines from an observation post stopped nineteen employees working for a contract security firm. Marines surrounded the armored SUV, and the mercenaries quickly surrendered. They were handcuffed and vehicles searched.


Marines detained the contractors and later impounded several anti-tank weapons, hand grenades, as well as a AK-47 assault rifle, according to Lt. Col. Dave Lapan. They were brought to Camp Fallujah, where they were questioned about what they were doing in Fallujah, and about the attack on the Marines. They refused to speak and were detained for three days. Their passengers were from the Parsons Corporation.


All of them were deported out of Iraq.


The Mercenaries' story

The Marines dragged us out of our vehicles, kicked us to the ground, called us names and ripped off our religious necklaces (Star of David). "They were calling us a rogue mercenary team."

These particular Mercs are paid $350,000 a year to work in Iraq!

All of the men have since resigned from Zapata Engineering, company executives said.



Who is Zapata Engineering ?

Zapata is into bomb disposal. Zapata got an additional $43.8 million contract with the military to manage ammunition disposal. The company has about 200 security workers, and ammunition experts in Iraq. The DoD awarded them a total contract of $ $1,478,838,958 or $ 1.48 billion.

"The work is inherently dangerous,” said Jay Brown, the vice president of Zapata Engineering. “But these are well-qualified people. They deal with munitions all the time.”

Here is a video of Zapata Engineering's work in Iraq, where it collects and destroys captured ammunition such as land mines and rocket-propelled grenades. Their duties serve as the ultimate cover for carrying out false-flag terror bombings.

All of the men have since resigned from Zapata Engineering, company executives said.



Who are these contractors

They are a mix of mis-fits, ex-Rangers and ex-Seals, but a good portion of the key supervisors are Israeli / American dual- nationals. A substantial portion of the companies that perform private contract work in Iraq are owned by Zionist Jews.

Abu Ghraib prison

That scandal, which infuriated Muslims and made life tougher on Marines, was generated by Israelis hired by CACI. Thanks to our Zionist-controlled press, the images were flashed around the world, thus by doing massive damage to the image of the American military.



Think about this story

Nineteen people, who said they were defusing bombs, of which 8 were said to be Ex-marines, were dragged from their car at gun point, beaten to the ground, had their 'Religious Medallions' ripped off, and were handcuffed. Next, they are taken to Camp Fallujah, stripped, put in orange jump suits, given a Koran, a prayer rug, a bottle to urinate in, interrogated, weapons put to their heads, had dogs put on them, and locked up. Oddly, the contractors wanted Amnesty International to help them.

Would Marines treat fellow Marines like this? Would ex-Marines fire on a Marine outpost and a Marine patrol, or is the truth, that these were dual-citizen Israelis?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html

Shootings may lead to security guard curb
By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad
(Filed: 11/06/2005)

The marines say one of their combat teams came under fire from guards in a convoy of four-wheel-drives belonging to Zapata Engineering, a firm based in North Carolina that is involved in reconstruction projects.

A marine observation post was fired at three hours later by the same convoy, according to Lt Col Dave Lapan, a marines spokesman.

Iraq factfile

The contractors' vehicles were eventually stopped by metal spikes in the road.

Soldiers promptly arrested the security men, including 16 Americans and three Iraqis, who were placed in a detention centre. They have since been sent home.

The Zapata employees have admitted firing at civilian vehicles but deny targeting marines. They said that while in custody they were physically and emotionally abused.

The lawyer, Mark Schopper, who is representing two of the contractors, claims that at one point a marine shouted at the men: "How does it feel to be a rich contractor now?"

Soldiers have for some time been angered by the salaries earned by the estimated 20,000 armed contractors working in Iraq, many of whom are ex-servicemen.

It is common for them to earn £750 a day. They provide protection for senior government officials and reconstruction projects.

They are even more unpopular with Iraqis. Interior ministry officials say at least 12 Iraqi civilians are killed by contractors every week in the capital.

"Enough is enough," said an official at the interior ministry. "We are looking at ways to tighten weapons licenses, and to punish the worst cases. The culture of impunity must stop."

http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/edi.../02/28/war.html

Fortune of Soldiers
Modern mercenaries offer to wage war for profit

The history of mercenaries is as long as the history of warfare. In the ancient world and during the European Renaissance, soldiers fighting for personal gain made up the nucleus of almost every army.

The fighting in Central Africa, where national armies and guerrillas lack training, discipline and the best equipment, has focused attention on the growing role played by modern mercenaries. Serb and Ukrainian soldiers are training Zaire's poorly regarded troops, and French, Belgium, British, Croatian and other free-lancers are rumored to have joined them.

Perhaps the model for the modern mercenary outfit is the South African firm of Executive Outcomes, whose employees have seen combat in Angola and Sierra Leon protecting diamond mines from rebels, renegade government troops and outlaws.

The company's glossy brochures promise effective air support, armored warfare and sniper training. One might almost expect company executives to carry cards reading "Have Gun, Will Travel -- email paladin@ johannesburg.com."

The world's arms makers, euphemistically known as the defense industry, also have adopted modern marketing techniques for the post-Cold War era.

Advertisements in trade publications tout to buyers everything from attack helicopters and "compact, easy-to-use" 57mm cannon to "the Goalkeeper -- the ultimate in missile defense." Shipyards offer the latest in frigates and submarines and promise to fill "all your naval fire protection needs."

In the absence of ideological struggles by superpower blocs, contests for regional power and the desire for commercial profit may be the forces that keep alive the world's worst habit -- waging war.

This is how MPRI advertises invasion and killing under a corporate guise. Click in job opportunities to recognize some of it's area's of 'interest'.


http://www.mpri.com/


Our Mission

MPRI's mission is focus the experience, expertise and values of our workforce to develop and implement comprehensive, imaginative programs that build security, justice and well-being within the United States and around the world.

We serve the national security needs of the U.S. government, selected foreign governments, international organizations and the private sector with programs of the highest standards and methodologies of proven effectiveness.

Our core competencies center on security sector reform, institution-building, the development of leaders at all levels, training, education and emergency management.

Our primary resources are our people – men and women of courage and commitment who have devoted their lives to the nation and who now apply their skills, experience and deeply-held values to the challenges of a rapidly changing international and national security environment.

MPRI

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id442/pg1/

war is hellishly profitable

by Preston Peet (ptpeet@cs.com) - October 18, 2000
There is a new breed of cold-blooded soldier-of-fortune fighting in a multitude of countries in Africa and other hot war-zones around the world, a corporate version, which kills for a much higher, somewhat legal price tag.

The career choice of 'mercenary' has a long and colorful history. What does one do after being trained to kill a thousand different ways, blow things up, use anything as a weapon, then retires from military service? There aren't many job opportunities for someone like that. Luckily for these killers, rulers throughout history have hired soldiers-of-fortune to defend them, or do their dirty work, or when he/she simply didn't want too many subjects killed, and/or not paying taxes while campaigning.

Alexander the Great hired Phoenicians, 224 ships in all, to help destroy ancient island Tyre, in 322 BC. In the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD, the Roman military was made up in large part of Barbarian mercenaries.

During the American Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin hired Prussian Friedrich von Steuben to train Colonial troops. Chennault's famous Flying Tigers in China at the beginning of World War II were mercenaries. There is the infamous French Foreign Legion, which still takes any and all comers with or without identity.

The CIA has hired plenty of mercenaries, from Cuban exiles for the bungled 'Bay of Pigs' affair and the 'Air America' operations in South-east Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, to spending over US$1 million in 1975 in Angola to put together mercenary forces.

According to William Blum in his brilliant and disturbing Killing Hope (Common Courage Press, 1995), the CIA also financed British mercenaries in Angola, including the psychopath Costas Georgfou (Colonel Tony Callan), who once lined up and shot fourteen of his own men for attacking the wrong side.

In the Congo in 1960-64, the CIA had an army of mercenaries made up of Americans, Cuban-exile Bay of Pigs veterans, South Africans and Rhodesians, both grunts and pilots.

It was in mercenary 'Mad Mike' Hoare's South African home that CIA agent Donald Rickard spoke of turning in Nelson Mandela in August of 1962, a year after the great activist and freedom fighter's arrest and incarceration, resulting in Mandela's 28-year prison sentence. Blum calls Hoare a "long-time CIA mercenary." CIA-hired mercenaries have seen action in Guatemala, El Salvador, Indonesia, Seychelles, Zaire as well.

The days of Hoare, and Colonel Bob Denard, two of the most infamous of the white mercenaries that fought throughout the world's conflicts, are now for the most part over. Private military companies such as Executive Outcomes, Sandline, Dyncorp, and Military Professional Resources, Inc have eclipsed them. These companies offer insurance and benefits for their employees, often operating under contract from corporations and governments, training and equipping troops, protecting potentates, crushing rebellions, and doing some intelligence work on the side, in exchange for cash, and/or shares in national natural resources, oil and diamonds and the like.

While the South African office of Executive Actions was closed down in January 1999, the others are still going strong, with the US using MPRI and Dyncorp in the Balkans, and in Latin America.

MPRI actually helped draw up the US$1.3 billion military aid package, 'Plan Colombia,' from which they will profit by providing logistical support, and training.

Dyncorp currently has in excess of US$200 million with over 900 full time employees. MPRI is made up of retired military officers, with 160 full-time employees, a database of 11 000 former American military officers, and its spokesman, Ret. Lieutenant Harry Soyster, is the former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

If there is one lesson learned from history both modern and ancient, it is not that "war is hell," but that "war is hellishly profitable."

Concerning: Blackwater

http://www.alternet.org/story/18193

There are currently thousands of mercenaries serving in Iraq. Their high salaries and shorter terms of employment will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget -- and soldiers' morale.

While Blackwater USA is not nearly as well known as Halliburton or Bechtel -- two mega-corporations making a killing off the reconstruction of Iraq -- it nevertheless is doing quite well financially thanks to the White House's war on terror. The company specializes in firearm, tactics and security training and in October 2003, according to Mother Jones magazine, the company won a $35.7 million contract to train more than 10,000 sailors from Virginia, Texas, and California each year in 'force protection.'

Business has been booming for Blackwater, which now owns, as its press release boasts, "the largest privately-owned firearms training facility in the nation." Jackson told the Guardian, "We have grown 300 percent over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones. We have a very small niche market, we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."

The practice of using mercenaries to fight wars is hardly new, but it is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. Currently there are thousands of Bosnian, Filipino and American soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq. Their duties range from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

This is one thing that may make me support the endless war in Iraq. I don't want them coming back here unemployed looking for a fight. It is a new twist on the fight them there rather than fight them here. If killing is their craft and they are used to making big bucks they can turn on us when the come back and need to keep fighting.

In a sense you are right in what you stated. They are and do become a breed that continues to thirst for killing, and usually they do not shy away from drinking, and we know how we can get with a gut full of booze and lookin' for any kind of action. Usually though, these mercs are kept in foreign lands a lot, not only hot war zones. There's many places in Asia, Africa, and South America that these kinds are covertly inserted. There are many stories not reported of their actions in such places as they quietly go about their reign of terror on unsuspecting locals. They do kill some bad guys in this process but they also rack up a good amount of innocents also. Then, unfortunately, there's other crimes committed, like rape and other human sufferage incidents that developes in these types of operations. The normal mindset of most Americans are as long as they do not hear about these things, then there's no real harm being done. The out of sight out of mind mentality. Same same most Bush mentality.

Yes I forgot about the booze factor. If some come back to no equivalent job -one of the first responses --especially if you have to drown unpleasant memories is to get drunk. Mehtamphetamine and steroids also are very common adjuncts to prop up anger and blood lust.

Bro' got beaucoup merc's here in the good ol' U.S. of A. --believe that! Where there is money to be made there is always someone that will grab it--no matter the cost or deed!

Overkill in New Orleans

By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo, AlterNet. Posted September 12, 2005.


Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world. What are they doing prowling the streets of NOLA?

Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for its work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the U.S. occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.

"This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq."

Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as two weeks ago.

What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal government and the state of Louisiana. Blackwater is one of the leading private security firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several U.S. government contracts and has provided security for many senior U.S. diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations. The company rose to international prominence after four of its men were killed in Fallujah and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004. Those killings sparked the massive U.S. retaliation against the civilian population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees.

Who Sent In the Mercs?

As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that, "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

Officially, Blackwater says its forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane relief effort." A statement on the company's website, dated Sept. 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by two Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals."

That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety," he said.

But in an hour-long conversation with several Blackwater mercenaries, we heard a different story. The men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana governor's office and that some of them are sleeping in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. They told us they not only had authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force.

Where the Real Action Is

We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter. We were talking with two New York City police officers when an unmarked car without license plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were three men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers responded, "There are a bunch of them around here," and pointed down the road.

"Blackwater?" we asked. "The guys who are in Iraq?"

"Yeah," said the officer. "They're all over the place."

A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon Street, we ran into the men from the car. The