MERCENARIES INC.
Private Armies Profit From America’s Wars
Peace Researcher 39 – January 2010
-
Murray Horton
It’s been several years since Peace Researcher last reported on the
sordid world of the modern mercenaries, now sanitised as “private security contractors”.
I did so in detail in my articles “The Privatisation Of War” (PR 29, June 2004, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr29-96.html)
and “Mercenaries: A Peculiarly British Disease” (PR 30, March 2005, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr30-114.html).
It’s an issue that deserves ongoing scrutiny. Let’s start with the old school
(and old school tie) British mercenaries that we last reported on five years
ago. What happened to them?
Equatorial Guinea In The Spotlight
In March 2004, Equatorial Guinea, a completely obscure little
country in the sweaty armpit of West Africa,
was suddenly catapulted into world headlines. Zimbabwe
arrested 64 alleged foreign mercenaries plus three flight crew, and seized the
cargo plane that they were on, at Harare
Airport. The men were
South Africans, Namibians, Angolans, Congolese and a Zimbabwean. The plane,
which was full of military equipment, had started from the tiny West African
island state of Sao Tome and Principe
and had flown to Zimbabwe
to collect its passengers and weapons. Equatorial
Guinea alleged that the men were mercenaries hired by
exiled opposition leaders in Spain,
with the backing of British, American and Spanish intelligence services, aiming
to overthrow its government. Furthermore, both Equatorial
Guinea and Zimbabwe alleged that unnamed
transnational corporations backed the plot to overthrow the government of the
tiny, oil rich nation. An additional 15 foreign mercenaries, the alleged
advance guard, were arrested in Equatorial
Guinea itself. One of them, a South African,
said that their mission had been to abduct President Teodoro Obiang Nguema,
force him into Spanish exile (or kill him, if he resisted) and replace him with
the leader of the opposition who has already been in Spanish exile for many
years (the latter had tried to mount a coup in 1997 and was sentenced, in
absentia, to 100 years prison).
The company that owned the plane
said that it was all a dreadful misunderstanding and that the men were being
flown to the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide security for transnational
mining projects there. What has been described as Africa’s
first world war, with millions of Congolese deaths, and the role of mining
transnationals in that, is a whole other story. But neither Zimbabwe nor Equatorial Guinea was buying that
explanation. Zimbabwe
identified one of those arrested as a former member of Britain’s
Special Air Service (SAS) and a leading figure in the South African mercenary
firm, Executive Outcomes, and the notorious British company, Sandline
International. These two firms were controversial leading players in several of
Africa’s interminable wars of the 1990s, most notably in Angola and Sierra
Leone (and, much closer to home, Sandline and its high profile leader Tim
Spicer, had been involved in a mercenary fiasco in Papua New Guinea in the late
1990s that resulted in the fall of the Government which had hired it). Zimbabwe was
adamant that the arrested men would face charges under aviation, firearms and
immigration laws, and that they could face the death penalty.
This tragi-comic misadventure in
an utterly obscure African dictatorship became a major world news story in
subsequent months. The men held by Zimbabwe underwent a trial that
lasted several weeks. The court rejected their cock and bull story about the Congo. A number
of the South Africans were allowed to return home, where they were due to be arrested
and charged under that country’s tough anti-mercenary laws. Several others,
including ringleader Simon Mann, were sentenced to several years in Zimbabwean
prisons. Mann was a colleague of Tim Spicer and fitted the archetypal British
mercenary mould – a public schoolboy (Old Etonian in his case), and a product
of the British Army’s officer corps and the SAS. Those dealt with by Zimbabwe were luckier than those captured in Equatorial Guinea
itself. 19 mercenaries went on trial there, in late 2004, and the prosecution
called for the death penalty for the South African ringleader and the exiled
opposition leader alleged to be the figurehead.
No Honour Among Thieves
What really caught the world’s
attention was the revelation of who was financing this elaborate and expensive
coup attempt. The moneymen were a collection of millionaires in London and South
Africa. The name of the notorious author,
Tory politician and criminal Jeffrey Archer came up (he strenuously denied it).
But the most high profile financier turned out to be none other than Sir Mark
Thatcher, the ne’er do well son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret
Thatcher. In August 2004 he was arrested at his South African home and charged
with bankrolling the debacle. This sent the British press into a frenzy. Mark
Thatcher has been a well-deserved target of media scorn for decades, having
traded on his mother’s name and position to enrich himself. He is a singularly
graceless and unlikeable individual. One lengthy profile of him was headlined with
the description of him by the Financial
Times as: “’A sort of Harrovian Arthur Daley with a famous mum’” (Press, 14/1/05, Chris Moncrieff. Harrow was the British public school that Thatcher
attended; Arthur – or, more properly, Arfur – Daley was the shifty Cockney
wheelerdealer in the classic 1970s and 80s’ British TV series, Minder).
There was no going down in a
blaze of glory for Thatcher. He cut a deal and pleaded guilty to contravening South Africa’s
anti-mercenary laws. He got a four year suspended prison sentence and was fined
$NZ736,300. He admitted funding a helicopter which he claimed he believed was
supposed to be an air ambulance. The January 2005 deal allowed him to avoid a
prison sentence or the even less appealing prospect of extradition to Equatorial Guinea
to face trial and a possible death sentence there. He agreed to cooperate fully
with prosecutors in unravelling the full details of the plot, including who
financed it. There was no honour among thieves – he was quite happy to rat on
his partners in crime and retreat to an exclusive estate in Spain.
In May 2007 Simon Mann, who had
been sentenced to four years prison in Zimbabwe,
was released but immediately rearrested and held in prison pending extradition
to Equatorial Guinea.
This led to a fresh burst of publicity for these singularly inept former public
school boys (Mann was the son of a former England cricket captain), with
absurd code names such as the Cardinal, Smelly, Nosher and Scratcher
(Thatcher). They spoke mockney (mock Cockney slang affected by the British
upper class, popularised by Guy Ritchie movies) – Mann smuggled a message from
his Zimbabwean prison demanding that his mates come up with a “large splodge of
wonga” (translation: a lot of money) to get him out – they didn’t.
Mann was the subject of a Sunday Times profile reprinted in the Press (16/5/07; “Simon Mann: an
adventure too far”). “’None of us thought that at that age, 50, with all his
wealth and a family and a wife with a bun in the oven, he’d go on another bloody
adventure’, a friend said. The fatal lure was Equatorial
Guinea, Africa’s third largest oil exporter and the
second most corrupt African country after Chad, according to Transparency
International. South African intelligence sources believe Mann and his
co-plotters planned to seize control of the country and run it as a private
fiefdom, modelled on the British East India Company, after installing Severo
Moto, an exiled opposition leader, as their frontman. The operation seems to
have been doomed from the start. Thanks to the conspirators’ lamentable
security, indulging in poolside bragging about their plans, the South African
government received regular updates for months before passing on the
information at the last moment”.
Mann was duly extradited to Equatorial Guinea, being held in a notorious
prison in its capital, Malabo.
He was put on trial in August 2008, when his testimony was described as
“electrifying”, naming Mark Thatcher as one of the five central figures in the
plot and Lebanese-Nigerian tycoon, Ely Calil, as the boss of the whole
operation. Thatcher “was not just an investor. He came on board completely and
became part of the management team” (Press,
20/6/08; “Mann says Mark Thatcher was ringleader in coup bid”, Martin
Fletcher). Mann said the attempted coup was sanctioned by the Spanish and South
African governments, with the blessing of the Pentagon, the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US oil companies who have heavily invested in the
country. A patriot to the end, he denied any British government involvement and
expressed amazement when told that it had known about the plot.
President Obiang’s regime is one
of the most corrupt and murderous in Africa
(and that’s saying something). He has been in power since seizing it from his
uncle in 1979. Among the atrocities committed by his predecessor were having
150 people shot in a sports stadium while a band played “Those Were The Days,
My Friend”. Among many other crimes, Obiang himself has been accused of cannibalism.
So he saw the Mann trial as golden opportunity to get some positive public
relations for his revolting regime. He allowed foreign journalists into the
country and made sure that the diplomatic corps attended the trial in numbers
to hear Mann’s unforced testimony that the operation had been an international
conspiracy to seize the country’s oil wealth. Obiang made sure that Mann was
treated well, including having a daily lunch with the Minister of Security.
In August 2008 Mann was sentenced
to 34 years prison (longer than the sentence demanded by the prosecution) and
fined $NZ312,000. This was the same term which had already been meted out to
the South African and other foreign mercenaries who had been caught in Equatorial Guinea
itself in 2004 and who had already stood trial. A Lebanese businessman tried
with Mann got 18 years, while four locals got six years each. It was fully
expected that if Mann had to serve anything like the full term then he would
die in prison. But his cooperation with the regime he plotted to violently
overthrow, his naming of names, earned him his freedom only 15 months into his
34 year term. In November 2009 Mann was released from prison and given 24 hours
to leave Equatorial Guinea.
He was flown back to Britain
on a private plane paid for by unnamed “friends” (four South African
mercenaries were released at the same time, just ahead of a State visit of
South African President Jacob Zuma).
It Was All
About Oil, As Usual
So what’s the attraction of Equatorial Guinea?
The mercenaries would have us believe that they were foot soldiers in a
glorious crusade to bring democracy to a particularly benighted part of Africa. But the reality is not quite as noble. Equatorial Guinea is knee deep in oil, being one
of West Africa’s smallest counties but a significant player in the region that
the US
is cultivating as the acceptable replacement for Middle Eastern oil. It is
already full of thousands of American and other foreign oil workers, who live
in exclusive suburbs (Marathon Oil’s is known as “Pleasantville”), which stand
in stark contrast to the slums in which the vast majority of locals have to
live. The Bush Administration saw this part of the world as a vital part of its
strategy of securing reliable new sources of oil, and wasn’t bothered about the
fleabag dictators that control it. “Official” US
mercenaries, in the form of security advisers, are helping the Equatorial Guinea
regime. And the hapless unofficial mercenaries and their financiers simply
wanted part of that action, in the form of highly lucrative new oil
concessions, which would be granted by a new government, to be installed at
gunpoint.
Fleas
Scratched
We shouldn’t really be surprised.
They were simply following the example of Bush, Blair and Howard who illegally
invaded Iraq
in 2003 for exactly the same reason – to steal its oil, at gunpoint. Big fleas
have little fleas, but, in this case, the little fleas got scratched, in both
senses of the word (in the horse racing sense, they were scratched from the
race before it had begun). How appropriate then that Mark Thatcher’s nickname
among his criminal mates was “Scratcher”. But, have no doubt, there will be
another bunch of murderous clowns, with plummy accents, trying something
similar in the future. The age old temptation to plunder other people’s
countries, be it in Iraq or Africa, is just too strong for these upper class Pommy
twits. They will always be eager to try and disprove the old maxim that crime
doesn’t pay. Which is why it is important to demonstrate, each time one of
these mercenary adventures happens, that there is a very high price to pay for
those both greedy and stupid enough to try their luck.
From Blackwater To Xe: The Very Model Of
A Modern Private Army
But the hapless Poms reliving
their Boys Own fantasies in Darkest Africa are merely a comic footnote to the
real story of modern mercenaries, aka “private security contractors”. What
really focused attention on the new private armies was the March 2004 killing,
incineration, mutilation and public displaying of four American “contractors”
in Fallujah, the crucible of Sunni resistance to the American occupation of
Iraq. It led directly to the ironfisted US military response, so reminiscent of
all the other armies of invasion and occupation of the past 100 years, which,
in turn, led to the massive upsurge in the Iraqi resistance that so effectively
fought and demoralised the would be coloniser. The victims (who certainly
weren’t innocent victims, but nobody deserves to die like that, nor to be treated
like that after death) were all former US soldiers, mainly from Special
Forces units. The sort of units that former US Defense Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, relied on to project US
military might throughout the world (and which are spectacularly unsuited for
the humdrum chore of occupation, let alone nation building). The sort of men
who are described as “adrenalin junkies”, meaning they like the big money, the
ceaseless buzz of violence, and to hold the power of life or death over
thousands of people. They comprise the second biggest “army” in Iraq, behind only the US military in numbers and, even
better for the propagandists, their dead and wounded aren’t counted among the
“official” casualties. And the media unthinkingly uses the language of “our”
side. When referring to “private security contractors” in Gaza,
or Lebanon or Somalia,
or any of the other places where “we” have enemies, “they” are routinely
referred to as gunmen. So let’s call the Blackwater guys by their correct title
– gunmen – because that’s exactly what they are, except that they are “our”
gunmen.
The four dead Americans worked
for Blackwater Security Consulting, one of the largest of the private military
companies and one of the leading players in the privatised war in Iraq. These
guys do much more than strut around as heavily armed bodyguards: “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” (Focus on the Corporation., 24/4/04;
Russell Mokiber and Robert Weissman: “A Corporate Military Monster Is Being
Created In Iraq”). Blackwater was founded in 1996 by Erik Prince, a billionaire
former US Navy Special Forces veteran. It trains military and law enforcement
personnel at its 2,400 hectare facility in North Carolina. “The facility boasts several
target ranges and a simulated town for urban warfare training. It is so
advanced that some of the US
military’s active duty special ops troops have trained there” (Time, 12/4/04; “When Private Armies Take
To The Front Lines”; Michael Duffy). It is located near the major military base
at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and recruits extensively from
the Special Forces units based there. Iraq is where Blackwater has hit
the headlines. “…Locals often mistake the guards for Special Forces or CIA personnel,
which makes active duty military troops a bit edgy. ‘Those Blackwater guys’,
says an intelligence officer in Iraq,
‘they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car
windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what
a guy in Fallujah thinks’. Adds an Army officer, who just returned from Baghdad: ‘They are a
subculture’ (ibid.).
Since I last wrote about
Blackwater (PR 29, June 2004, “The
Privatisation Of War”, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr29-96.html),
it has been in the headlines many times and all of them for the wrong reasons.
For a start, the families of those four Blackwater employees so horribly killed
and mutilated in Fallujah in 2004 sued the company for wrongful death, claiming
that they were poorly protected, understaffed and ill equipped. Peter Singer,
author of “Corporate Warriors”, said: “An owner of a circus faces more
regulation and inspection than a private military company” (Time, 26/3/07; “Outsourcing the war.
Four families want to know how their men, all guns for hire, died in Iraq”, Brian
Bennett”).
Massacre In Baghdad
The old
proverbial really hit the fan in September 2007 when Blackwater gunmen on convoy
duty in Baghdad
opened fire and killed at least 17 civilians (more were wounded), claiming they
were responding to an actual or potential attack. The Iraqi government
dismissed that claim, saying that they had randomly opened fire, deliberately
killing civilians. An investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
agreed. The Government revoked Blackwater’s licence to operate, ordering all
its personnel out of the country (this was reversed after Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice personally apologised to the Iraqi Prime Minister, and
promised to tighten US controls on the behaviour of Blackwater staff. The
Government demanded $US8 million in compensation for the families of each of
the 17 murdered civilians, a total of $US136m). Because Blackwater had the US
State Department security contract, the revocation of its licence had the
temporary effect of confining all US
diplomats, government officials and civilians in Baghdad inside the fortified Green Zone. It
was hardly an isolated incident. Blackwater gunmen (and those of other private
military companies) routinely shot at motorists and rammed cars that got too
close to the convoys that they were escorting, or which simply didn’t get out
of the way in time. In October 2007, gunmen from an Australian private military
company (one which includes New Zealanders among its staff, according to the US
State Department Website) shot and killed two Iraqi civilian women in a car,
also containing children, which failed to stop.
Before
handing over to its puppet Iraqi government, the US occupation authority had given
all private military companies immunity from Iraqi law, so they could operate
with impunity. For instance: on Christmas Eve 2006, an offduty drunk Blackwater
gunman shot and killed a security guard for one of the Iraqi Vice Presidents.
The company flew him out of Iraq
and fired him, but he was never charged with anything. Blackwater’s founder,
Erik Prince, was unapologetic about the Baghdad
massacre, saying that his men behaved appropriately and stressing how proud he
was that, although 27 Blackwater employees had died in Iraq, not one US
government employee had been killed or wounded in Iraq while under Blackwater’s
protection.
Iraq
Contract Ended; Murder Allegations
The Baghdad massacre proved
the straw that broke the camel’s back. Manslaughter charges were brought in the
US
against six of the Blackwater gunmen. One pleaded guilty; the others went to
trial. The company denied any wrongdoing but in February 2009 the State
Department announced it would not renew the contract, following the Iraqi
government’s revocation of Blackwater’s licence to operate in the country (this
time the revocation was for real, and for good). In March 09 Erik Prince
announced he was stepping down as Chief Executive Officer and that the company
was changing its name to Xe (pronounced Zee) Services.
The
news has only got worse for Prince. In August 09, as part of a lawsuit by the
families of the 17 murdered Iraqi civilians, affidavits were lodged in a US court by two
“John Does”, former employees (whose identities were suppressed for their own
protection), alleging murder, weapons smuggling and the deliberate slaughter of
civilians. The claims included that Prince had either murdered or arranged the
killings of former employees who were cooperating with Federal investigators.
One affidavit said that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked
with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe” and that his
company “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life” (Press, 7/8/09; “Prince faces murder
claims”, Tim Reid).
“…Missionary zealot or not,
Prince's business is booming. (The former) Blackwater's work in Iraq alone has
reportedly reaped more than US$1 billion in Government security contracts. In
the first Gulf War, the ratio of soldiers to private contractors was 60-1. In Iraq, that
ratio skewed to almost 1-1. Welcome to the first truly corporate war. Prince's
umbrella of companies now have a Maritime Division (with Somali pirates in
their sights), a Security Division (Iraq
and Afghanistan), a Domestic
Operations Division (Bush called them in for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans), a Canine
Division (to train dog teams) and even a burgeoning little CIA with an
Intelligence Division. There's no stopping their growth - and that's the
problem. Under the declaration of former US Administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer,
Blackwater had full immunity in Iraq
under a US$21 million no-bid contract to keep him alive. The results weren't
pretty. The two John Does, one a former US Marine, the other formerly on
Blackwater's management team, say that Prince generated substantial revenue by
illegally smuggling weapons on his private plane. Staff reportedly ‘hotwashed’
(destroyed) incriminating videotapes, emails and documents of excessive and
unjustified deadly force to cover their tracks. Today Blackwater is fighting on
different fronts - investigations by the Justice Department over the Nisour Square
shootings, where Blackwater staff reportedly killed 17 civilians in a traffic
roundabout; the Inland Revenue Service for tax evasion, and in federal civil
court in a suit by families of Iraqi civilian victims suing for war crimes and
the murder of loved ones. This is the residual stench of future corporate
warfare, where a court martial has no meaning. Unlike enlisted soldiers, who
are Blackwater employees accountable to - Erik Prince? When war is so
thoroughly outsourced, we can only audit the books - and the bodies - after the
funerals…” (New Zealand Herald,
8/8/09; “It doesn’t get any dirtier than this in the world’s first corporate
war”, Tracey Barnett).
But the culture of impunity
showed it is still as strong as ever when, in December 2009, a Federal judge
dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater gunmen charged with
manslaughter in the September 2007 Baghdad massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians. The
judgment did not rule if the shooting was proper, only that the prosecution had
improperly used evidence to build its case (using sworn statements that the
defendants had made after they had been promised immunity). It is unclear what
this means for the sixth accused Blackwater gunman who had pleaded guilty and
turned on his former colleagues. The Iraqi government had wanted the gunmen
tried in the country where the crime was committed and said it would be closely
watching how the US
judicial system handled the case. Well, now they know – the American killers of
Iraqi civilians have walked free.
CIA’s Hitmen
Nor was Iraq the only place where
the company formerly known as Blackwater was profitably employed to do the US
Government’s dirty work with “plausible deniability”. In August 2009 it was
revealed that, back in 2004, the CIA had hired Blackwater as part of a secret
project to kill leading members of al Qaeda. The programme was a singular
failure, not resulting in the capture or killing of any such targets, and the
contracts were cancelled several years ago. “I suspect that if the agreements
are ever really looked into - rather than a formal contract, the CIA reportedly
brokered individual deals with top company brass - we will find out that
Blackwater's assassination work was more about bilking the US taxpayer
than it was killing Osama bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders. More than a few
senior CIA officers retired from the CIA and went to work at Blackwater, the
controversial private security shop now known as Xe Services. Not only did
those officers presumably take their CIA Rolodexes with them out the door, but
many probably didn't choose to leave until they had a lucrative new contract
lined up. But more to the point, Blackwater stood no better chance of placing
operatives in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the al Qaeda leadership was hiding
in 2004, than the CIA or the US military did.
“This leads to the question of
what the CIA saw in Blackwater that the public still has not. Even before the
company was expelled from Iraq
after a Blackwater security detail in 2007 allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqi
civilians, the contractor for unclear reasons had taken over security duties
that CIA staff employees used to carry out. Last May (09) in Kabul, four Blackwater contractors reportedly
shot and killed two unarmed Afghans; Blackwater whisked the four out of the
country before the Afghans could investigate. The State Department has also
relied heavily on Blackwater in both Iraq
and Afghanistan
over the years.
“There may even be a darker side
to Blackwater. This month (August 09), a former, anonymous Blackwater employee
filed a sworn statement in Federal court in Virginia claiming that Blackwater's
founder, Erik Prince (who is no longer involved with day-to-day operations of
the company), was involved in the murder of at least one informant who reported
to Federal authorities on his company. The allegation, first reported by the Nation
magazine, was part of a civil suit filed by several Iraqis for the company's
alleged abuses in the country. Blackwater has denied the claims, calling them
‘anonymous, unsubstantiated and offensive assertions’. Still, the CIA has maintained
its various Blackwater contracts, which run from protecting CIA operatives in
the field to loading Hellfire missiles on Predator drones. And none of this is
to mention that as soon as CIA money lands in Blackwater's account, it is
beyond accounting, as good as gone.
“If the Obama Administration ever
hopes to get a handle on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or any of the countries
around the world where the ‘war on terrorism’ has been fought, it's going to
have to figure out what happened to the billions of dollars spent on contracts.
So far the Obama White House has been happy to work with the Bush
Administration's contracting mess. In Afghanistan today, the company that
supervises Blackwater is a British security firm called Aegis, which is headed by
a notorious British mercenary (our old
mate, Tim Spicer, formerly of Sandline fame. Ed.) Afghans are a people that do not take well to mercenaries.
Even more troubling, I think we will find out that in the unravelling of the
Bush years, Blackwater was not the worst of the contractors, some of which did
reportedly end up carrying out their assigned hits” (Time, 21/8/09, “Blackwater Hit Squads: What Was The CIA Thinking?”,
Robert Baer –Time.com’s intelligence
columnist and a former CIA Middle East field officer. Baer wrote a fascinating
profile of Tim Spicer in Vanity Fair,
1/3/07; “US: Iraq’s Mercenary King”, online at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/spicer200704).Indeed
it was revealed, in December 09, that “hundreds” of Blackwater gunmen have been
taking part in US military raids on al Qaeda militants in both Iraq and
Afghanistan, causing fresh scrutiny of General Stanley McChrystal, the senior
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Commander in Afghanistan, who was
head of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command between 2003 to 08 when
he directed covert attacks on al Qaeda’s leadership in Iraq.
No End Of Scandals
There has been no end to embarrassing
incidents involving “private security contractors”. In August 09, a British
gunman was arrested by Iraqi authorities and charged with shooting dead a
fellow Briton and an Australian during a drinking session. But the difference
this time is that, since the start of 2009, the gunmen have been subject to
Iraqi law after the expiry of the United Nations mandate which had guaranteed
their legal immunity. So this guy is in Iraqi custody and could face hanging,
if convicted. The case offered a rare insight into the ethical jungle that
these companies operate in – the accused gunman had been sacked from another
security firm for severe negligence and had a long history of mental illness
caused by post-traumatic stress syndrome from his time in the British Army and
repeated tours with security companies in Iraq. Yet he had no trouble going
back there and getting a job with another security company. “Paranoid,
competitive and fuelled by guns, alcohol and steroids. That is how one senior
contractor in Baghdad describes the private security industry operating in the
city’s Green Zone” (New Zealand Herald,
5/9/09; “Security contractors fall on harder times: Former soldier’s killing of
colleagues sign of troubles, say insiders”, Terri Judd, Independent).
Right on cue, another major
scandal erupted in September 09, this time in Afghanistan where photos were
posted online of some of the 450 gunmen hired to protect the US Embassy in
Kabul drinking vodka whilst naked and eating potato crisps from between each
other’s buttocks (not to mention goading Muslim Afghan staff into drinking
alcohol). There were also revelations that the Embassy guards had left the
place and its staff unprotected while they went off on unauthorised
“undercover” night time military operations in Kabul, taking the Embassy’s weapons and night
vision goggles with them (the US Embassy has been a target of repeated Taliban
attacks). The security company was ArmorGroup and it was sued by a number of
former staff, including its former Operations Director at the Embassy, James
Gordon, a former New Zealand Army captain, who claimed he was forced out after
blowing the whistle on what was going on. Gordon said ArmorGroup’s “goal was to
maximise their profits, provide a fig leaf of security at the embassy, and pray
to God that nobody got killed” (Press,
12/9/09; “Former NZ army captain files lawsuit”). Gordon and his fellow
claimants allege that the company’s cost-cutting led to the problems. That
didn’t make any difference to the State Department, which renewed its contract
until July 2010.
“…One
central problem, explains Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace
Operations Association, a trade association, is ‘the tendency of the US
government to go for the lowest bidder no matter what, and the result is that
even the better companies end up cutting their contracts to the bones, and as a
result these problems are more frequent than you'd like’. Although currently
there is no law requiring the Government to take the lowest bidder - though
there is draft legislation to make it so - bureaucrats tend to favour the low
bids so as to avoid being called up to Capitol Hill to justify their decisions.
“The problems have been
exacerbated by the global consolidation of the security industry. In 2008,
ArmorGroup was bought by G4S, the largest security company in the world. G4S
also bought ArmorGroup's rival, Wackenhut, which now runs ArmorGroup in the new
conglomerate. Before they found themselves under the same big tent, Wackenhut
and ArmorGroup had competed for the US Embassy contract, which ArmorGroup won
with a substantially lower bid. Now, Wackenhut has found itself managing the
Kabul Embassy contract anyway. In June (09), Wackenhut Vice President Samuel
Brinkley admitted to Congress: ‘We feel we can safely say that adequate guard
services for the Kabul
embassy cannot be provided for the contract price’. Instead of making a profit,
he said, the firm was losing $US1 million a month. ‘We would welcome any help
that the [Senate] Subcommittee [on Contracting Oversight, of the Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs] might be able to provide to enable
the Government to pay a more reasonable price for security for the
Embassy’" (Time, 11/9/09;
“Behind the Afghan Embassy Scandal, a Cost-Cutting Security Firm”, Ken
Stier). Wackenhut is a company that New
Zealanders should familiarise themselves with – it is the US parent of the
Australian company which has been, thus far, the only private prison operator
in NZ. John Minto provided fascinating detail about Wackenhut’s appalling
history in his article “Profiting From Imprisonment: Maori Party Smoothes The
Way For Private Prisons”, in Foreign
Control Watchdog 121, August 2009, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/21/06.htm.
Corporate Feudalism
The unending series of scandals
have not deterred the US government from increasing its reliance on private
contractors. President Obama’s surge of 30,000 extra US troops into Afghanistan
could be accompanied by an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors (bringing
the total in that country to as many as 160,000), according to the
Congressional Research Service. Now this is for all contractors, not just
security personnel, but there will be a proportionate increase in their
numbers, as more and more of the US military’s functions are contracted out to
the private sector (for example, the US Command in Afghanistan is seeking
intelligence analyst services from a private contractor). The privatisation of
war continues at an ever accelerating pace and that means more private armies,
more mercenaries, more gunmen, lawlessness, scandals, murders, cost-cutting,
ripoffs, unaccountability, immunity and impunity. What we are witnessing is
corporate feudalism where private companies with private armies, motivated
solely by the huge profits to be made from war, assume the most basic life and
death functions of the State. It is capitalism in the raw and it is a most
unedifying sight.