Jackbooted thugs, mercs and non-gov paramilitaries

[Tyler Durden]

Aiya...shit. Things are rather worse than I thought. Hey...I'm getting the 
idea for a Sci-Fi story...imagine "official" war casualties in Iraq get bad 
enough that the US government decides to simply hire private forces to do 
all the work (then the official casualty #s they can report are basically 
zero from then on). Eventually some of the big Mercenary multinationals 
start instigating wars so they can keep their stock prices up...

-TD


>From: Gabriel Rocha <gabe at seul.org>
>To: "Email List: Cypherpunks" <cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net>
>Subject: Jackbooted thugs, mercs and non-gov paramilitaries
>Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 10:17:45 -0500
>
>I don't normally forward articles, but this one might be of interest to
>some here. I especially like the part where these guys are exempt from
>the legal system...
>
>http://www.economist.com/world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2539816
>
>British companies have been grousing about losing out to the Americans
>in Iraq. But in one area, British companies excel: security
>
>
>THE sight of a mob of Iraqi stone-throwers attacking the gates to the
>Basra palace where the coalition has its southern headquarters is no
>surprise. What's odd is the identity of the uniformed men holding them
>off. The single Briton prodding his six Fijians to stand their ground
>are not British army soldiers but employees of Global Risk Strategies, a
>London-based security company.
>
>Private military companies (PMCs).mercenaries, in oldspeak.manning the
>occupation administration's front lines are now the third-largest
>contributor to the war effort after the United States and Britain.
>British ones are popular, largely because of the reputation of the
>Special Air Service (SAS) regiment whose ex-employees run and man many
>of the companies. They maintain they have twice as many men on the
>ground as their American counterparts. According to David Claridge,
>managing director of Janusian, a London-based security firm, Iraq has
>boosted British military companies' revenues from #200m ($320m) before
>the war to over #1 billion, making security by far Britain's most
>lucrative post-war export to Iraq.
>
>It's a lucrative business. A four-man ex-SAS team in Baghdad can cost
>$5,000 a day. Buoyed by their earnings, the comrades-in-arms live in the
>plushest villas in the plushest quarters of Baghdad. Their crew-cut
>occupants compare personal automatics, restock the bars and refill the
>floodlit pools of the former Baathist chiefs.
>
>Established companies have expanded; new ones have sprung up. Control
>Risks, a consultancy, now provides armed escorts. It has 500 men
>guarding British civil servants. Global Risk Strategies was a two-man
>team until the invasion of Afghanistan. Now it has over 1,000 guards in
>Iraq.more than many of the countries taking part in the
>occupation.manning the barricades of the Coalition Provisional Authority
>(CPA). Last year it also won a $27m contract to distribute Iraq's new
>dinar. Erinys, another British firm, was founded by Alastair Morrisson,
>an ex-SAS officer who emerged from semi-retirement to win a contract
>with Jordanian and Iraqi partners to protect Iraq's oil installations.
>CPA officials say the contract is worth over $100m. Erinys now commands
>a 14,000-strong armed force in Iraq.
>
>In industry jargon, these companies' manpower is split into Iraqis,
>.third-country nationals. (Gurkhas and Fijians) and .internationals.
>(usually white first-worlders). Iraqis get $150 a month, .third-country
>nationals. 10-20 times as much, and .internationals. 100 times as much.
>Control Risks still relies on westerners, but ArmorGroup, a British
>rival, employs 700 Gurkhas to shepherd America's primary contractors in
>Iraq, Bechtel and KBR. Erinys's corps of pipeline protectors is
>overwhelmingly Iraqi. The cheapness of the other ranks, compared with
>western soldiers, is one reason why PMCs are flourishing. .Why pay for a
>British platoon to guard a base, when you can hire Gurkhas at a fraction
>of the cost?. asks one.
>
>Nobody knows how long government contracts will last after the CPA
>dissolves on June 30th. But multi-billion World Bank and UN
>reconstruction funds should provide rich pickings. Amid rising violence,
>the Program Management Office, which handles America's $18.6 billion aid
>budget for Iraq, has raised its estimates of security costs from an
>initial 7% of contracts to 10%. Blackwater, the American firm protecting
>Iraq's American proconsul, Paul Bremer, says in many cases costs run to
>over 25%. That's bad news for Iraqis hoping for reconstruction, but
>great news for PMCs.
>
>The boom has led to two worries. The first is lack of regulation.
>Stressed and sometimes ill-trained mercenaries operate in Iraq's mayhem
>with apparent impunity, erecting checkpoints without authorisation, and
>claiming powers to detain and confiscate identity cards. A South African
>company guarding a Baghdad hotel put guns to the heads of this
>correspondent's guests. According to the CPA, non-Iraqi private-security
>personnel contracted to the coalition or its partners are not subject to
>Iraqi law. Even the industry is concerned. Regulation is vital, says
>ArmorGroup's Christopher Beese, if Iraq is not to descend into the law
>of the jungle.
>
>Second, the boom may be eroding Britain's defences. Just when the war on
>terror is stretching the SAS to the limit, the rising profitability of
>private sector work is tempting unprecedented numbers of its men to
>leave. An SAS veteran estimates that some 40 of its 300 corps requested
>early release from their contracts last year. Another guesses that there
>are more ex-SAS people in Iraq than there are currently serving in the
>regiment. Head-hunters poaching military talent, say critics, risk
>turning the army's elite corps into little more than a training school
>for PMCs.
>

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