Private Companies Take on Security Burden in Iraq
John Kessler

Night after night, new casualty reports come in from Iraq.

But while hundreds of Americans are dying, they're not all soldiers. Increasingly, private companies are being given the job of protecting some of the most dangerous turf in the world. These guns for hire are part of the global security industry.

John Souza has never served in the U.S. military. But he knows a lot about fighting in Iraq. He'd been in the country just over a month when the convoy he was hired to guard was ambushed near Basra.

"Things started happening very quickly," Souza said. "I started thinking maybe it's a flesh wound, not something severe. By the time I hit the ground, halfway down, I could feel the leg buckling. It just structurally was no longer there."

Metal bars now hold his shattered bones in place. Still, he's luckier than other private security contractors who've lost their lives or been taken as bargaining chips in an increasingly violent game.

"They weren't so much looking for your vehicle, they were looking for you," Souza said. "I think some of them probably would have liked to get the American trophy up there."

So why take the risk? A former cop from the Delta town of Isleton, Souza was recruited by a security firm in Kuwait, offering nearly $25,000 for a few months work.

A quick scan of the Internet reveals a private security gold rush. Dozens of companies are now promising up to a quarter million dollars a year to former members of the military and law enforcement.

"I can tell you Steele is paying people $10,000 to $20,000 a month, depending on experience," said Kenn Kurtz of the Steel Foundation, which is a global security firm based in the Bay Area.

Kurtz says the money's good for a reason. His company had a convoy running just minutes ahead of the ill-fated group that was ambushed in Falluja. And a few months earlier two Steele employees were killed in another ambush.

"This isn't a bad neighborhood in the U.S., this is a war zone," Kurtz said.

At a training center in the East Bay, recruits were taught the art of escaping a road block and the kind of paramilitary skills that have some critics describing them as a private army. But company officials argue they use purely defensive tactics and only fire when fired upon.

"When an actual ambush takes place, you have to get out of the kill zone," said Steele's Gregg Pearson. "You have to know how to ram vehicles to get out of the kill zone."

But as the kill zone expands to cities and highways across Iraq, there is growing concern about whether U.S. planners leaned too heavily on private companies in a guerilla war so dangerous that the military can no longer protect the protectors.

Some Italian hostages were actually employees of yet another security firm based at Lake Tahoe, and according to estimates, the number of private security forces working in Iraq has now swelled to some 20,000. In a recent letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Senator Barbara Boxer and other members of the arms services committee wrote, "The number of these private security personnel again raises the question of the adequacy of U.S. troop levels."

But even with $1 out of $4 of the reconstruction money now going to security, the firms argue they're still cheaper solution than turning U.S. soldiers into security guards.
And apparently in a country of shortages, one of the few things there's no shortage of is recruits.
"I'd go back," said Souza. "I believed in what I was doing, and I still believe in it."

From: http://cbs5.com/news/local/2004/04/29/
Private_Companies_Take_on_Security_Burden_in_Iraq.html