U.S. contractors in Iraq face dangerous, ambiguous tasks

BY JOHN SIMERMAN

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. Thomas RoseHaley brought a souvenir home from work last week: an armor plate with a deep gouge carved by a bullet fired at him during an ambush in the desert.

A few weeks earlier, his close friend and co-worker, Michael Price of Concord, Calif., was killed on the job. RoseHaley's wife, caring for their new baby, wanted him home. The ambush cinched it.

"This was just too hard on my family," he said on his first day back after four months in Iraq. "Mike going down was what did most of the damage."

RoseHaley, 28, called it quits for reasons he can touch. He took the job for reasons he can spend.

The former Navy Seal was among thousands of private security contractors pulling in well over $10,000 a month, often tax free, for jobs in Iraq that until recently went largely unnoticed amid daily reports of insurgent attacks and G.I. deaths.

But lately, their work in Iraq with the military, government agencies or private contractors has drawn intense scrutiny, both for the peril they face and what critics call a troubling lack of clear, enforceable rules or hiring standards.

The deaths of four American security contractors in a March ambush, Price's death in a roadside bomb attack and others, have brought home the dangers for an estimated 20,000 private security workers now spread across a country beset by violence.

Meanwhile, the role of contractors in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the legal obstacles to prosecuting them for reported abuses - military laws don't apply - have raised sharp concerns over an unequaled reliance on private security in a war zone.

The parallel work of battle and reconstruction has swelled demand for former military personnel and law enforcement officers to fill roles that a downsized military no longer can or wants to do.

Contractors are protecting key leaders, escorting convoys, guarding military installations or oil pipelines, training Iraqi forces, interrogating prisoners. Far from simple guard duty, some have become entangled in firefights, pressed into the work of war.

Critics say the pendulum has swung too far.

The use of armed "private military" in Iraq discards a long-standing U.S. military doctrine not to use contractors for "mission critical" tasks in war, said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar and author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry."

"The military has been put in a position where it's had to basically ignore that doctrine," said Singer. "The scope of functions that have been turned over to private contractors really pushes the envelope way beyond anything we've seen before."

In the first Gulf War, the ratio of "private military" to U.S. military was one in 100; in Iraq now, it's one in 10, he said. Private and military personnel frequently work in tandem, under two separate chains of command.

The extent of private security work in Iraq has been largely a mystery even to members of Congress. Some are now calling for stricter oversight.

"I go to virtually every meeting, I sit and pay attention, and I cannot tell you how many contractors we have, what their responsibilities are, or the scope of their responsibilities," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Defense officials say they don't tracks the number of individual security personnel in Iraq. The 20,000 figure for private security workers is a loose estimate of both U.S. and foreign workers, including more than 6,000 Americans. Their death toll is pegged at more than 50.

"There's no way of knowing how many people the companies who have received the contracts will employ. Their mission is to get the job done," said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. A plan to address accountability concerns is underway, said Flood, but "it's just not ready for prime time yet."

Critics see an invitation for abuses with little fear of discipline, either for security workers or the firms that hire them. Even in egregious cases, rarely do firms lose their big government contracts. They point to civilian contractors with DynCorp who escaped prosecution despite accusations in 2000 of running a prostitution ring in the Balkans. DynCorp is among scores of firms providing security and other services in Iraq.

Contractors don't come under the military justice system, and they fall outside of the definition of "combatant" in the Geneva Conventions, leaving them in a legal gray area.

A law passed in 2000 permits the Justice Department to prosecute Pentagon contractors and subcontractors who commit crimes on foreign soil, but it is largely untested. It also applies only to major crimes.

In the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, for instance, it remains unclear whether the contractors will face any punishment for their reported involvement in humiliating prisoners.

"I think the American people are going to call for change," said Philip E. Coyle, an undersecretary of defense under President Clinton. "Congress, whether they like or not, is going to have to clarify what the rules are for these contractors. But more than that, reexamining the roles contractors are playing on the battlefield, and whether or not that's what we really want."

Security industry officials downplay the concerns, saying they abide by strict codes of conduct, and that the threat of losing lucrative contracts is a strong incentive to hire and train disciplined teams.

"The rules are pretty clear," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade organization for military service firms. "They can't do offensive combat operations. They can defend things, and do it quite robustly, but it's only defense. They can't go out looking for trouble."

The danger of the work also tends to weed out suspect candidates, said Michael Nardotti, a retired major general who was the Army's Judge Advocate General from 1993-1997.

"The first thing you have to get over is, are you prepared to risk your life for money? The distinction right there takes out a lot of people," said Nardotti. "No one goes over there with the idea that this is the Wild West and they can get away with anything."

Security jobs in Iraq are posted on Web sites of retired military groups and circulate by word of mouth through a network of security professionals. Salaries range from $10,000 to as much as $20,000 a month. The payoff puts military salaries to shame, and has raised retention concerns among top military officials.

Industry officials applaud the fact that those with military expertise - including many former Navy Seals, special forces and Green Berets - are finally getting paid good money for their skills.

But with them, say some security officials, come mercenary types eager for "trigger time." They want to add combat experience - shooting people - to their credentials. Company officials say they take pains to weed them out. But scrutiny varies.

Robert Morgan, a 43-year-old former Army special forces officer from Virginia, said a well-established security firm called him after he e-mailed them a resume. They wanted him on a plane in two days.

"They didn't really ask me anything, just if I had my shots up to date, if my passport was up to date, and if I was ready to go," he said. "Some companies, they just want warm bodies to fill the slots."

Morgan, who has a wife and three children, said he's waiting for something better. He has done private security work in Kosovo and expects a job in Iraq to net him $120,000 a year, tax free if he works abroad for a year.

"I could tell you all this patriotic B.S., but it's the money," he said. "And yes, I know if you don't live to spend it, it doesn't do any good."

RoseHaley worked for Cochise Consultancy Inc. of Florida, under an Army Corps of Engineers contract with a company tasked with clearing ordnance. He recalled his group as an "all-star team" of former military personnel doing noble work, protecting a company that was ridding the landscape of dangerous explosives, saving Iraqi lives.

Concerns over accountability are overblown, he said.

"Nobody is rolling around without a strict set of (procedures) on how things are done," he said.

Still, some industry officials say a burst of demand has opened the door to unproven security firms.

"You have a lot of start-up companies in this bubble market called Iraq," said Greg Pearson, chief operating officer for the San Francisco-based Steele Foundation, which has about 350 security personnel in Iraq.

Pearson said he would welcome mandated hiring standards, saying, "It would help legitimate companies get on with business and separate the wheat from the chaff."

Hiring former military specialists is not enough, said Nirmalya Bhowmich, a former counter-terrorism agent who founded the California University of Protection and Intelligence Management.

The university, nestled in a San Jose office park, sits at the cusp of a heightened post-Sept. 11 demand for top security personnel, at home and abroad. Led by former CIA, Secret Service and other intelligence agents, it is the country's only state-licensed university offering degree-level programs in intelligence management and counter-terrorism.

Students take computer courses and undergo close-quarters combat training. Advanced students also endure POW training, braving 48 hours of sleep deprivation and mock interrogations with their limbs bound and sacks over their heads.

In Iraq, Bhowmich sees a troubling lack of expertise for the kind of high-danger security work going on there.

"We see a large group of people who either don't have the experience or training to be there, or haven't been in the field in 12, 15 years," he said.

Private firms are skimping on the intelligence work needed to avoid mortal dangers, he said. Until that changes, "I expect to see a lot of people getting killed," he said.

"If you're using a person as a guard, or for military interrogations, make sure that's what they're trained to do. Otherwise they're going to fail."

From: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/8859279.htm