Financial Times (10.4.07)

Blackwater and the outsourcing of war.

[Editorial]

When private military contractors, working for Blackwater, the US security company, shot and killed 11 Iraqis in a Baghdad square on September 16, the incident could easily have disappeared into the grim catalogue of a day’s mayhem in Iraq, like so many similar incidents before it. That it did not testifies not only to the intensity of the backlash against the occupation and the war in both countries, but also to growing awareness of how dependent the US military has become on mercenaries.

The number of US troops in Iraq is now at a peak of 168,000; but they rely on an even bigger army of 180,000 contractors, employed by more than two dozen private companies. Many of these people do the cooking and laundry. But about a quarter of them are fighters.

The US move to an all-volunteer force in the wake of Vietnam and to smaller armed forces after the cold war has made it seem politically less costly for administrations to turn to these organisations.

But privatising war is, in reality, financially, politically and militarily very expensive. The lawlessness of some of these outfits has stained America’s reputation and stirred up rage against its troops. Blackwater, which has earned nearly $1bn from the Department of State for protecting its officials, is notoriously trigger-happy: opening fire first in 163 out of 195 shooting incidents since 2005, according to a report by Congress. A Blackwater employee killed a bodyguard of Adel Abdel Mahdi, an Iraqi vice-president Washington favours as a possible prime minister, in an argument last Christmas.

Neither he nor any other mercenary has ever been charged, under a 2004 US decree making them immune from Iraqi law. That was signed by Paul Bremer, the US viceroy who – among the many catastrophic errors he made in Iraq – brought in Blackwater.

The US Senate has now opened an enquiry while the Pentagon says it will make private contractors accountable for their behaviour and has sent the FBI to Baghdad to investigate last month’s shootings.

US commanders already have instructions to hold contractors to military rules of engagement – but these are rooted in the doctrine of force protection, which in practice has led to heavy loss of civilian life in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neither of these different endeavours has a chance, much less moral validity, unless the US and its allies adhere to the rule of law they claim their forces are there to defend. That includes ending the impunity, under US and Iraqi law, of mercenaries. Better still: end reliance on these private armies altogether.