Mercenaries Are Not Needed

That's the conclusion of (this article).




This topic of "mercs" being hire by various companies in Iraq as well as several nation's own military has been popping up in many places lately. I decided to showcase this one because of the bold-face type below:

According to a report released today by the charity, War on Want, the number of British security guards currently employed by private companies in Iraq is almost three times the number of British troops in the country. The report asks how Britain, and presumably the United States, can hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while they allow mercenary armies to operate outside the law.

It is a valid question. The anarchy that currently plagues so much of Iraq owes much to the many militia forces the lack of security has spawned. Unless these militias can be brought under control, either by being disarmed or by being incorporated in a national army, there is little hope that order can be restored. The last thing, it might be thought, that Iraq needed now was a proliferation of additional armed groupings, run by foreign companies. The fragmentation of authority in Iraq is bad enough among Iraqis, without a dissipation of outside authority adding to the mess.

In other words it isn't enough Bushco is fighting for Haliburton, Exxon, Cal-Tex and the others. These companies have their own armies, thus cutting out the middle man.

And this isn't really new. The following comes from April, 2004:

Incapable of ever admitting a mistake, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that he will continue to look for ways to "outsource and privatize" the U.S. military. The U.S. is relying on a growing army of soldiers from private military contractors, such as Blackwater USA--the employer of the four American "civilian contractors" killed and mutilated by enraged Iraqis in Falluja.

These troops are mercenaries--Chileans trained under the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, South Africans who defended the former apartheid state, and ex-British SAS and U.S. Special Ops soldiers--now earning a bundle killing Iraqis on behalf of the U.S. government. Whereas the average combat soldier in Iraq earns $16,000 a year (more than 25,000 military families are eligible for food stamps), private security firms pay up to $1,000 a day for soldiers to fight high-risk battles in Falluja and Najaf.

The magazine cover is also from 2004.

Another thought on this. What does it do for troop moral if mercenaries are hired at far higher wages than the troops are being paid and then many are used to secure the green zone? They hang out inside the barricades and make sure no one gets in? And they get all their meals which troops out on patrol often often miss? Just asking.