MUST AMERICA EMPLOY WAR PROFITEERS AND MERCENARIES IN IRAQ?

The United States is engaged in an undeclared war (the longest in American history) against an unnamed enemy (terrorism neither identifies whom we are fighting nor the meaning of victory), by means that do not affect most Americans, but will produce great profits for private contractors and great indebtedness for future generations.

This indictment demands demonstration. The war in Iraq is an undeclared war: American entry into World War II was based on the last congressional declaration of war, although the Constitution requires it. It is the longest war: It is now four-and-a-half years, and there is no end in sight. The enemy is unnamed: Al Qaeda was not even in Iraq when America invaded that country in March 2003, and the enemy now consists mostly of unnamed nationalists, insurgents and terrorists, whose ranks are subject to augmentation or diminution at any time, and with none of whom America can sign a treaty ending the war.

It once would have seemed unimaginable that a war of this magnitude, of such great cost to the United States, and involving such great loss of life to combatants and innocent civilians, could be waged without having an impact on the lives of most Americans, but it is clear that apart from the high cost of gasoline (insofar as it is related to the war), the overwhelming majority of Americans are personally untouched, neither knowing anyone in the armed forces nor being asked to make any sacrifice for the cost and conduct of the war.

The real cost now exceeds one trillion dollars. No one can guess how much greater it will be by the time the United States leaves Iran. To whom is that money going? The answer is that never in American history have private corporations profited so greatly or corruptly from the performance of tasks that until now were considered the responsibilities of the armed forces. Most non-combat roles, and the use of armed security forces, have been outsourced to 630 private companies work for the United States in Iraq, employing approximately as many persons as are there in the American military.

Of necessity, some of these are Iraqi firms, employing non-American personnel, because they have knowledge and linguistic skills which the American armed forces do not possess. However, the vast majority of contracts, dollars spent, and personnel employed are American civilian contractors who are subject to virtually no oversight or accountability for how and how much they spend or how much they profit.

The most famous or infamous of American contractors (but far from the largest) is Blackwater U.S.A., which provides security forces for the U.S. State Department, and is not subject to supervision or control by the U.S. Department of Defense. Blackwater, a company that contributes heavily to the Republican Party, was hired (as have other contractors) without competitive bidding. The notoriety of Blackwater derives from documented instances (described by American and Iraqi eyewitnesses) in which Blackwater employees have opened fire and killed unarmed Iraqis without provocation. As of this writing, Blackwater security guards and other personnel have been involved in 195 shooting incidents since 2005. In at least two cases, Blackwater, with the approval of it employer, the State Department, made cash payments to family members of its victims who complained, and it has sought to cover up other cases.

Last year on Christmas eve, a Blackwater employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents. Blackwater, with the help of the State Department, spirited the assailant out of Iraq within 36 hours. More than nine months have passed, and no charges have yet been brought against the assailant. Many other charges against these guards have been made by Iraqi and American military officers. Until now, they have been immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts and protected by agencies of the American government from effective prosecution in the United States.

Given the cost in human lives, it might be callous to consider the economic cost, but for the fact that the war has been a source of great wealth for those to whom the United States has outsourced much of the cost. A single example, typical of arrangements with other companies, will indicate how wasteful it has been for the United States and how very profitable it has been for the companies and individuals who have received these contracts.

Blackwater pays an individual security guard $600 a day (that comes to $180,000 a year), which is four or five times the income the security guard received when he was a member of the American military. (He also benefits from having armored cars that are safer than Army vehicles.) To the security guard’s salary, Blackwater adds a 36% markup (for a total of $815 a day) plus overhead and costs in Iraq, including insurance, room and board, travel, weapons, ammunition, vehicles, office space, and equipment. This bill goes to Regency Hotel, a Kuwaiti company, that tacks on the cost of its buying vehicles and weapons, plus a profit for itself, and sends an invoice to ESS, a German food services company that cooks meals for the troops. Regency has billed ESS a price of $1500 per man per day, but it has told Blackwater it was charging $1200, giving it a substantial secret profit. ESS adds on its costs and profit, and sends its bill to Halliburton, which also adds overhead and profit, and presents its bill to the Pentagon. The United States has no contract with ESS, which will not provide any information to the government or the relevant congressional committees.

Halliburton’s contract is an open-ended “cost-plus” contract to supply the U.S. armed forces with food, laundry, and other necessities. Cost-plus means the United States pays Halliburton all of its expenses (that is everything it spends and everything it pays to its subcontractors) plus 2% profit on top. The more it spends, the greater the profit it makes. Henry Bunting, a former Halliburton purchasing officer, has stated, “There is no incentive for KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary) or their subs to try to reduce costs. No matter what it costs, KRB gets one hundred percent back, plus overhead, plus their profit.” Up to this point, the Army has committed $7.2 billion on a single contract with Halliburton. The Defense Contract Audit Agency recently stated that Halliburton could not document 42% of a $4 billion invoice in March 2007. Among other charges, it stated that Halliburton billed the government for up to three times as many meals as it served.

Halliburton has failed to respond to repeated requests for detailed information regarding its costs and profits.
Employers and former employers are discouraged from becoming whistleblowers. Blackwater does as other American contractors in Iraq do. It makes individual contractors sign confidentiality agreements that compel them to pay Blackwater $250,000 in instant damages if they violate their contract by publicly discussing the details of their agreements or work.

What then is the real cost of a security guard? A sergeant (the former rank of many private security guards) would receive around $38,000 a year in base pay and housing and subsistence allowances. This does not reflect additional costs for health and retirement benefits. When a private security guard is killed, even though he may be an American citizen, the U.S. government is not responsible for his burial, death benefits, or payment to his survivors. We save money, but it is doubtful if, even in the long run, it constitutes a saving for the United States.

The advantage to outsourcing personnel is entirely political. The United States can pretend that it is conducting war with fewer soldiers, not needing to call up more regular troops, National Guard and reserves. Of course, General Shinseki and other military leaders were correct, before and after we invaded Iraq, when they insisted that the U.S. needed at least twice as many uniformed soldiers than we had sent to Iraq.

We have euphemisms to describe them, but there can be no mistake that the individuals who take high-risk, high-paying jobs are mercenaries, and their employers, who are not held unaccountable for their greed, crimes and cover-ups, are war profiteers. Any veneer of idealism or unselfish motive has been stripped away. We should answer a single question regarding how America conducts war: Are we willing to continue to outsource both the supplying of necessary resources and the actual waging of war by armed persons not wearing military uniforms, or should we create a military force fully capable of defending itself? The name of the alternative to what we are now doing strikes panic in the hearts of those who want to continue to prosecute this war, those who want to start a new war against Iran, those who want America to be prepared for a future war, and most voters contemplating the next election. That name is: conscription.