Profitable security jobs in Iraq lure commandos

By Lisa Hoffman

In Iraq, more than 500 former Nepalese Gurkhas are guarding buildings occupied by the U.S.-run civilian government. A battalion of ex-soldiers from the South Pacific island of Fiji protect the delivery of money to Iraqi banks.

Former police and military officers from Chile — recruited by the private security firm Blackwater USA — keep watch over Iraq’s oil wells. Cadres of Bosnians, Filipinos, Australians and South Africans have been hired to protect civilian contractors engaged in reconstructing Iraq.

And thousands of retired American and British commandos are working as bodyguards and armed escorts for journalists, humanitarian workers, company executives and anyone else who is trying to stay safe in one of the world’s most perilous places.

The gruesome killing and defilement Wednesday of four private American security personnel in Fallujah highlights the shadowy world of private protection in Iraq, an industry so hot that U.S. and British defense officials are scrambling to try to dissuade their special forces personnel from quitting to join the extraordinarily lucrative fray.

Just last week, Army Gen. Bryan Brown, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told a House Armed Services subcommittee that the Pentagon is cobbling together packages of additional retirement and education benefits, plus retention bonuses, to offer to crack commandoes who are tempted by the quadrupled income they could earn in the private security sector.

Experts said Thursday that the deaths of the four Americans, attacked while providing security for a food convoy, could trigger second thoughts for some of those who have signed on to such duty or are contemplating it.

Far more likely, the experts said, is that the price of protection will soar and, thus, provide even more of a lure to some.

“It’s like any other marketplace, a matter of supply and demand,” said Peter Singer, author of “Corporate Warriors,” the first book to chronicle what has become known as “private military forces” around the world.

That price can be staggering. Former U.S. commandoes can make as much as $300,000 a year in Iraq, Singer said. The daily rate for some top British and U.S. operatives has been reported to be $500 or more. For tougher assignments, the fee can jump to more than $1,000 a day.

Already, the British Foreign Office has spent more than $45 million on private security, according to media reports in England. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority plans to pay $100 million over the next year for security at the Green Zone complex in Baghdad.

From: http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0404/02/a04-110758.htm