"Making a Killing" - Private security firms in Iraq

[Oddball]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1824220,00.html


The Sunday Times October 23, 2005

Making a killing

The American government is hiring private security firms to stabilise Iraq — and paying them a fortune to do it. But many of them are unregulated and operate outside the law. Jon Swain joins the hired guns on the streets of Baghdad — and assesses the real cost of privatising war

To the men who patrol it every day, the stretch of highway from the international airport to downtown Baghdad is the most dangerous street in the most dangerous city on Earth. Nothing reflects the perils of Iraq's brutal insurgency more powerfully than a journey along this treacherous stretch of road to the centre of the capital.

In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks. The US Army is forced to move people along it at night in steel-clad buses, with no lights, escorted by armoured Humvees and with helicopter gunships clattering overhead to reduce the chances of suicide bombers or sniper fire killing them.

I last made the eight-mile journey more than a year ago. It was when there were suicide bombings and roadside explosives, but before kidnappings and throat-cutting made the capital of Iraq a world of horrors. It was possible then to roam the streets relatively freely, to travel unprotected in an ordinary car with Ali, my brave Iraqi colleague, and to enjoy a bottle of red wine and traditionally cooked mazgouf fish from the Tigris river in a pavement cafe.

Now, on my return visit, I eye the streets through the bulletproof glass of a purpose-built, heavily armoured white Land Cruiser, a reinforced steel box. It is preceded and followed by two more armoured Land Cruisers (known as gunships) equipped with light machineguns.

Next to me in the back seat is a man with a tanned, confident face and intense eyes staring out of the window. He is cradling an American M4 automatic rifle, has a Glock handgun strapped to his hip and is constantly looking for any suspicious activity.

My companion is Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Spicer, former Scots Guards officer and Falklands war veteran. Spicer, who is 53, made national headlines in 1998 when his private military company Sandline International was accused of breaking UN sanctions and selling arms to Sierra Leone. He was labelled a notorious mercenary by the press and the Establishment. They sought to turn him into an outcast. In the end, Spicer believes he was vindicated by a parliamentary inquiry that found that Foreign Office officials had known in advance about the arms shipment. Today his involvement in murky wars in Africa is history. Sandline is defunct. Spicer now heads Aegis Defence Services, created in 2002, a powerful British risk-management and private security company, or PSC. Its London headquarters are almost bang next door to New Scotland Yard; it has a former chief of the general staff on its board and has landed a whopping contract with the American government to run security operations to aid American authorities in stabilising Iraq. In a significant development for the future, the UN also hired Aegis to run security for this month's referendum and end-of-year elections. Spicer has hired nearly 200 expatriate bodyguards and 1,000 Iraqis for the task. That the security of UN staff organising Iraq's critical elections should be put in the hands of a PSC is a highly significant development. Formerly, many UN officials equated them with mercenaries. Iraq has forced a UN change of heart. Spicer believes there is a template here for future UN-PSC co-operation in world trouble spots.

Aegis, together with the more than 50 foreign security companies licensed to operate in Iraq, is the new face of warfare. For as the western world's armed forces have shrunk from government defence cuts in the post-cold-war era, the business of war has been progressively privatised. Nowhere more than by America in Iraq, where the overstretched US military has had to hand over tasks it would normally perform itself to these PSCs.

Historically, there is nothing new about the military's use of private contractors. But Iraq has seen the subcontracting-out of war on an unprecedented scale. Whereas in the first Gulf war there was one private contractor serving on the ground for every 50 American soldiers, it is estimated that there is now one contractor for fewer than 10 servicemen, probably saving the Americans the cost of fielding an entire extra division, according to Spicer.

The truth is that the US can no longer manage a war like Iraq without private contractors. Its military has shrunk from 2.1m to 1.4m since the end of the cold war, creating a severe shortage of manpower in wartime.

The American forte in warfare is firepower. But in Iraq, the tradition of fighting through the massive deployment of troops and armour which had applied since the second world war went out of the window. The American defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, argued for "invasion lite" where air power, information dominance and speed would favour a small, agile force packing a big punch.

He was proved right with his "shock and awe" campaign. A small American force quickly overwhelmed the Iraqi army and captured Baghdad. But the 140,000 uniformed American troops who remain behind have proved insufficient and inadequate to deal with the explosive complexity of the post-invasion period. The Americans have found using PSCs is convenient, affordable and apparently effective.

The threats these foreign security companies are asked to meet, however, provide a grim summary of the dangers American and British forces still face 2½ years after President Bush declared the main fighting in Iraq over. A typical PSC contract says they have to be prepared to deal with all manner of dangers: vehicles containing explosive devices, improvised explosives planted on roads, direct fire and ground assaults by upwards of 12 personnel with military rifles, machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, indirect fire by mortars and rockets, individual suicide bombers, and employment of other weapons of mass destruction in an unconventional warfare setting.

These PSCs saturate the highways of war-torn Iraq, their armoured Land Cruisers and Chevrolet Suburbans packed with armed men brandishing rifles to clear traffic in which a suicide bomber may be lurking out of their way. They are doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: escorting convoys, guarding diplomats and officials, and protecting infrastructure from attack.

The companies employ as many as 25,000 armed foreigners and Iraqi civilians; many are special-forces veterans from the British and American armies. They also recruit many soldiers from South Africa and ex-Gurkhas.

"The ex-paras are almost invariably Scottish and have a lot of attitude. The marines tend to think a bit more about things. The guards are always on time and always smart. The [Royal] Green Jackets have always got something to say," says Spicer of his men.

[Beppo]

...it is estimated that there is now one contractor for fewer than 10 servicemen, probably saving the Americans the cost of fielding an entire extra division, according to Spicer.
This part I don't get. How is paying one guy 3 to 5 times as much as a regular servicemember for doing the same job "saving government money"? Not just the PSDs, but I mean cooks, laundromat people, admin clerks, forklift drivers, etc...
Sure, I may be, as the kids say, "hating", but the fact that in Iraq, a soldier driving a forklift makes maybe $2000 a month, is doing the exact same job as a contracted forklift driver who gets paid $7000 a month, seems to me to be a waste of money, and is the main reason the budget for the war is so high, killing the taxpayers. Earlier this year when I went home for R&R from Iraq, I was on a bus at the Air Force base in Kuwait. We soldiers were headed towards our "barracks" an hour or so away at the Army base (really actually empty warehouses filled with aluminum cots). This one BITCHY female civilian contracted clerk was so insulted she had to get on the bus and head to the Air Force base with us. She was LOUDLY proclaiming to the driver her status, and DEMANDING to know: "Why can't we just go straight to the Hilton?!? Why do we have to go the Army base? Our rooms are at the Hilton so why can you just not drop us off there?!?" I tell you every single servicemember on that bus wanted to slap the **** out of her...but guess what, it wouldn't have made a difference. The government has seen fit to pay civilians so much more that the troops are like second-class citizens over there.
Another story: Amongst the grafitti inside one of the port-a-johns on Camp Striker (part of the Baghdad International Airport complex) was something to the effect of: "18 months and $235,000 I'm finally out this bitch! Contractors rule!!!" Everyone who used that one talked about it. Great. $200K for 18 months and the average salary for a soldier is about $200,000 less than that. How exactly is that saving money??

[sickofpretenders]

I think where the money is saved is on insurance, health costs and training. Not to mention if contractors die no one cares as much as if a soldier dies, and its hard to put a value on the political benefit of that.

Contractors run the risk that if they are injured or the work dries up they get no money. Some companies dont offer any insurance for their PSD, or claim they are insured when they are not. If those guys get crippled, they are totally screwed. That risk, to many, is worth the money.

I have not seen the figures myself though, and I wonder the same as you when I hear how much some people are getting for contracts. I also wonder how much of the leeching off the military contractors do is taken into account on those calculations.

[Limeyfellow]

They also get to drive around in their bomb resistent BMWs, stay in 5 star accomodations and lots of other perks. They get to carry weapons and ammo that would be illegal for US troops to carry, work shorter days, can bug out and run if the situration gets too hot and have little if any oversight so the ranks are full of anything from professional assassins to violent thugs.

What makes it sad is its all for political reasons in seeing less US troops dead. The mercenary groups don't have to give death numbers so the most we know of is 36 dead and it gives a deniability to the military with the likes of torture and so on. Shame it costs an absolute fortune and demoralises the military bigtime when they see people earning over 10 times what they earn for the same job on many occasions. The reliance on hired merceneries over the decades has gotten worse and more costly than ever.

[Hydro]

The military is there to fight the insurgency, not protect the civilian contractors re-building the country. Using PSC's to do that frees up troops that are needed elsewhere. PSC's are NOT hired guns or mercenaries that circumvent the rules of war, because they are NOT directly fighting the war.

Foreign civilians are a prime target for the terrorists/insurgents, it only stands they get their protection to complete their jobs.

[Uncle Sam]

Beating a dead horse.

[Argyll]

They also get to drive around in their bomb resistent BMWs, stay in 5 star accomodations and lots of other perks. They get to carry weapons and ammo that would be illegal for US troops to carry, work shorter days, can bug out and run if the situration gets too hot and have little if any oversight so the ranks are full of anything from professional assassins to violent thugs.

What makes it sad is its all for political reasons in seeing less US troops dead. The mercenary groups don't have to give death numbers so the most we know of is 36 dead and it gives a deniability to the military with the likes of torture and so on. Shame it costs an absolute fortune and demoralises the military bigtime when they see people earning over 10 times what they earn for the same job on many occasions. The reliance on hired merceneries over the decades has gotten worse and more costly than ever.


You don't have a clue what you're talking about!!!

[sickofpretenders]

Hey Beppo I forgot to say, the comments on the toilet door are most likely in response to all the ones written by pissed of Army guys whinging about conditions and live i Iraq. Almost every contractor has been in the same situation as a soldier and knows what its like, so when they see the negative writing they are either glad its not them or think the author needs to quit whining.



They also get to drive around in their bomb resistent BMWs, stay in 5 star accomodations and lots of other perks.
Yeah, every contractor gets a supermodel or ****star to take care of morale for the other 23.5 hours when your not working. Every contractor gets a suite better than the penthouse of the hilton in times square and a ferrari for getting around the FOB.



They get to carry weapons and ammo that would be illegal for US troops to carry, work shorter days, can bug out and run if the situration gets too hot and have little if any oversight so the ranks are full of anything from professional assassins to violent thugs.
SO TRUE! we all get issued depleted uranium ammo for our M4's and flame throwers mounted on the BMW's.


What makes it sad is its all for political reasons in seeing less US troops dead. The mercenary groups don't have to give death numbers so the most we know of is 36 dead and it gives a deniability to the military with the likes of torture and so on. Shame it costs an absolute fortune and demoralises the military bigtime when they see people earning over 10 times what they earn for the same job on many occasions. The reliance on hired merceneries over the decades has gotten worse and more costly than ever.

Its all an evil plot, the US government loves wasting money so much they are forcing SOF personell to quit the military and take part in grey ops as part of the unregulated plausable denability secret ops that is controlled by goverment agents sympathetic with AQ (probably jealous of the AQ wsay of life) and its actually designed to destroy army morale and lose the war on terror. Bastards!

[ibstolidude]

They also get to drive around in their bomb resistent BMWs, stay in 5 star accomodations and lots of other perks. They get to carry weapons and ammo that would be illegal for US troops to carry, work shorter days, can bug out and run if the situration gets too hot and have little if any oversight so the ranks are full of anything from professional assassins to violent thugs.

What makes it sad is its all for political reasons in seeing less US troops dead. The mercenary groups don't have to give death numbers so the most we know of is 36 dead and it gives a deniability to the military with the likes of torture and so on. Shame it costs an absolute fortune and demoralises the military bigtime when they see people earning over 10 times what they earn for the same job on many occasions. The reliance on hired merceneries over the decades has gotten worse and more costly than ever.

Which company is this??? I need to sub-contract!!

[Argyll]

get to the back of the que!!....:lol:

[buckeyedoc]

Well, I'm not in politics so I don't have hard facts to the case either way. I have to agree that the savings is in the life insurance. According to the figures that I've looked up, the total US death toll in Iraq is 1996. The basic GI life insurance is $200,000. That adds up to $399,200,000. This is just one little piece of the pie.

Doc

[Dominique]

They also get to drive around in their bomb resistent BMWs, stay in 5 star accomodations and lots of other perks. They get to carry weapons and ammo that would be illegal for US troops to carry, work shorter days, can bug out and run if the situration gets too hot and have little if any oversight so the ranks are full of anything from professional assassins to violent thugs.

What makes it sad is its all for political reasons in seeing less US troops dead. The mercenary groups don't have to give death numbers so the most we know of is 36 dead and it gives a deniability to the military with the likes of torture and so on. Shame it costs an absolute fortune and demoralises the military bigtime when they see people earning over 10 times what they earn for the same job on many occasions. The reliance on hired merceneries over the decades has gotten worse and more costly than ever.

've been screwed. I want to renegotiate my current contract. The guys we currently have deployed to Iraq, don't live anything like that. If they did, I'd be at the front of the line for next months rotation.

[Omaha]

Factor in the cost of training a recruit (and the one to replace him if God forbid he is killed or injured that he has to come home), the food, the supplies, the benefits for just that soldier, and the benefits the family gets (I am more than sure I missing a lot).

And 200,000 extra for some guy that does the same job without all those benefits isn't all that bad in the end.

[Kekkonen]

I guess deniability is important. No one cares about a contractor. Except of course in those rare hostage cases, like this one; A former baker that was hired by DTS Security, he wanted to earn a little money so he could buy a house, and settle down with his family.

http://svt.se/content/1/c6/36/56/44/soldater3.jpg
Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3629989.stm

[LongRangeB4]

****ing savages. RIP.

[Telnyashka]

I would be fine with Mercenaries if they were more integrated into the Armed Forces...

I don't like how because they arent part of the US Army officially, that they cannot be held accountable...

[RFSU]

WOW!!! BMWs, 5-star hotels, Gucci weapons and gear, being able to bug out whenever you want not to mention being above the law! FU*K it! I'm taking leave and heading over to Iraq, sounds nice and cushy.

bloody idiots

[sickofpretenders]

I guess deniability is important. No one cares about a contractor. Except of course in those rare hostage cases, like this one; A former baker that was hired by DTS Security, he wanted to earn a little money so he could buy a house, and settle down with his family.

http://svt.se/content/1/c6/36/56/44/soldater3.jpg
Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3629989.stm

I guess that guy couldnt 'bug out' whenever he wanted. Honestly I dont blame that guy for taking the work but working as a bodguard and practising martial arts is in no way even slightly relevant for working in iraq. If the guy is the one I think he is then he got a local taxi to take him to jordan from baghdad and got in unarmed. That kind of stupididy will always get you killed. For some reason the insurgents dont allow you to call time out when its time holidays and get a free ride out of the country.

Oh and stop calling us mercenaries, Unlike the FFL we dont fit into any known defenition of the word.

[Steve Andrews]

I read the article in the Times yesterday about Aegis.
I noticed in one of the pictures that Tim Spicer has a white sticker with a barcode on it on the magazine housing of his rifle (m4?)

What it the function of this barcode?

[Asheren]

I had oportunity to work in iraq as a PMC but decided to stay here till i end my course. 1 year contract including 2 months of training. (1 month standard + 1 month of additional training) Payment after healt insurance, food and other costs ~120000$ per year.

[sickofpretenders]

barcode readers are an easy way to account for all equipment or controlled items.

[sickofpretenders]

I had oportunity to work in iraq as a PMC but decided to stay here till i end my course. 1 year contract including 2 months of training. (1 month standard + 1 month of additional training) Payment after healt insurance, food and other costs ~120000$ per year.

I dont know what course you are doing but its a good idea to get all the quals you can before getting out. Whatever your status when you leave the military is pretty much what you keep as a civvie in the industry. IE if you score a job and you were not SOF and a better job comes along that only wants SOF, they will most likely take someone else over you when you may even be better for the job, more experienced etc.
Medics is the big one, the more qauls the better. 18D can and will always get work.

[Mailman]

You don't have a clue what you're talking about!!!

Come on Argyll, we all know you drive around in an armoured Aston Martin :D

Regards

Mailman

[Argyll]

and don't forget about the vodka-martinis "shaken not stirred" when I'm relaxing by the pool,next to my villa p-)

[sickofpretenders]

Hey Argyll where does your company get its morale models and chefs flown in from? We usually get Czech or Brazilians to rub us down with oil at the pool and clean our gold plated 1911's (and to reload our illegal ammo) but the chefs of late have not been from france. After alian ducasse quit all we could get was some lousy 2 michelin star guy and jamie oliver. Damn KBR is dropping the ball on that one.

[Steve Andrews]

barcode readers are an easy way to account for all equipment or controlled items.

Roger, thanks.

[Asheren]

I am doing bodyguard/security worker second grade course. (One month of additional training was for non ex-millitary personel. They were expected to guard offices and other building in less dangerous regions.) At that time they took almost anyone who know how to hold a gun. My friend is somewhere there and if he came back ill ask him about reality of being PMC in Iraq. I have completed bronze badge paramed training. My friend is a trainer so had opportunity to do the course but i can't get badge because i wasn't on the list and i didn't payed for it. If you are in relativly one piece i can propably patch you up good enough to keep you alive till meds arrive.

[sp2c]

Oh and stop calling us mercenaries, Unlike the FFL we dont fit into any known defenition of the word.

say what??????

[sickofpretenders]

say what??????

What.

Asheren, that course should help with employment in future if thats the path you take. Unfortunately due to the number of pretenders around no-one will take your word you are a decent at med stuff without a course to prove it.

[Asheren]

Yes i know that. I plan to make full civilian paramed training(It lasts one week in poland.) before ill join army. I only hope that i can fit IBA course in the window bewen army and end of the security/bodyguard course. I don't think seriously about PMC business till i get some serious military background. If i somehow pass IBA course then screw PMC. For me it was more intresting event than real job opportunity, you don't meet PMC here every day.

[Kekkonen]

Oh and stop calling us mercenaries, Unlike the FFL we dont fit into any known defenition of the word.

You might have noted that a lot of non-Americans keeps calling you mercenaries. There is a simple reasion for that.

Wheter you like it or not it´s done in the medias and public debate in several countries around the world. As for example the picture in my last post in this thread was from a Swiss documentary called "Soldiers for sale", and where they were openly talking about 15 000 mercenaries. Although "security guard" or "civilian employees" seems to be quite common as well, I have never heard a translation of contractor here. The documentary when aired on Swedish state television had the definition "legosoldat". Although the definition isn´t "down to Geneva convention standards" it can loosely be translated to "for the money", which seems to have been why Fabrizio Quattrocchi was down there. It´s simply an accepted word.

As for Quattrocchi he wasn´t the guy that took a taxi to Jordan. "He was taken hostage together with Umberto Cupertino, Maurizio Agliana and Salvatore Stefio. Their situation was made especially difficult since they were security contractors, and were allegedly captured bearing arms. Unauthorized recruitment of military forces is a crime in Italy, and Giampiero Spinelli, who arranged their contract in Iraq, was prosecuted."

Oh and btw, FFL is not a mercenary force either according to the Geneva convention.

[magicpie]

can civlians be mercs? how hard can firing a gun be :D

[sickofpretenders]

I know FFL is not classed as mercenaries, but they are foreign soldiers fighting under another flag for money. You cant have it both ways buddy and call FFL non mercenary (when by many defenitions it is) and contractors mercenaries. Dont use ingnorance and translation as an excuse. In English there is a difference between mercenary and security. Just because some people dont want to accept that does not make it so. Most people have no idea about what we do. I fail to see how an NGO hiring an ex solider to keep its staff alive in a dangerous country is comparable to someone hiring a group of men to overthrow a government for them.

Anyone who gets taken hostage in Iraq has screwed up big time and ignored some pretty basic safety tips. I would like to hear the circumstances leading up to the guy in your article if he is not the cab ride guy.

[sp2c]

Art 47. Mercenaries

A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.



that's the only definition I have of the term and the FFL doesn't fit

the FFL is a member of the French armed forces ... legionairres fight for France not for money.
edit: British Ghurka's aren't mercs either btw

[sickofpretenders]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=da&lr=&oi=defmore&defl=en&q=define:mercenary

"mercenary(a): used of soldiers hired by a foreign army
a person hired to fight for another country than their own "

FFL fits in that. Read my post, I said:

"dont call contractors mercs as they fit no into no definition of the word, unlike the FFL"

Which as you can see do fit the definition as laid out by some but not all.

[sp2c]

they are not hired, they enlisted

and mercenary's do not neccesarily fight for another nation then their own ... that definition sucks ;)

[Argyll]

The Security guys in Iraq don' fall into any of the definitions that constitute being a mercenary!

[sp2c]

I know ... same goes for the FFL imo

[omatraca]

what is necessary to became a Private Security Contractor ?

[Hydro]

Bagloads of experience, I'd imagine.

[Omaha]

Most if not all are ex-military. And I would imagine the rest at least have prior police experience. To the best of my knowledge anyway.

[JJHH]

Go to college kids and get a nice degree. That way you can make a lot of money without risking your life like these soldiers.

[TriggerPuller]

and don't forget about the vodka-martinis "shaken not stirred" when I'm relaxing by the pool,next to my villa p-) Were those martinis? I thougt we were drinking good ol fashion beer at the Palace! lol
I have the pics to prove it too!

TP

[TriggerPuller]

what is necessary to became a Private Security Contractor ?
Well with some I saw out there the only experience they had was as a guard at the local mall! I only worked with one guy out there,I was with 3 different companies,that was not former military and he was a prison guard in Texas. We put him on the gate at Camp India(site security) and he did a great job,but I would have never had him on my PSD team!

TP

[Paracaidista]

What I don't like most is the huge inequity between PMCs from different nationalities. For example, while some security guards from the US can earn as much as $7000 a month, contractors with the same military training but from thirld world countries earn $1000 to $2000 a month, and they will go because they are desesperate for money. Go figure the huge profit these companies do when hiring people from these poor countries.

[omatraca]

What I don't like most is the huge inequity between PMCs from different nationalities. For example, while some security guards from the US can earn as much as $7000 a month, contractors with the same military training but from thirld world countries earn $1000 to $2000 a month, and they will go because they are desesperate for money. Go figure the huge profit these companies do when hiring people from these poor countries.


well a salary of $2000 a month is a high salary here in Brazil, an you can live very well with that money, in your countrys is problably more expensive the cost of life, but i also think is a wrong things to do that pay more to others to do the same work, some from the so called "poor countries" can be even more qualified for the service. If i had the opportunity i would aply for a PMC work somewhere, just don't know the ways to do so.

[Argyll]

Yes there are TCN getting ripped off out here,the Fijians for starters,but the rumour control is that the Fijians and the South Africans are getting the boot from Iraq anyway.
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys....p-)

[sickofpretenders]

What I don't like most is the huge inequity between PMCs from different nationalities. For example, while some security guards from the US can earn as much as $7000 a month, contractors with the same military training but from thirld world countries earn $1000 to $2000 a month, and they will go because they are desesperate for money. Go figure the huge profit these companies do when hiring people from these poor countries.

Well your figures are way out, but your point is still valid. In many cases the TCNs have a less risky job: ie static work inside a secure compound or securing a compound withing the IZ, while the higher paid guys are outside the wire all day, but all the same the proportion is way out. The reason is simply because the labour market allows it. Companies pay as much as is needed to bring the level of skill they want out of the countries they want. In some ways its not fair, but the TCNs are sending home enough for them to live the equivalent lifestyle at home that an American does on his wage.