Outsourcing our military responsibilities

My cousin, a "hawk" and previous supporter of the war in Iraq, returned from being an embedded correspondent a year ago. This war, he said, is a "contractors" war.

Indeed, when I was last in Iraq two years ago, it was clear to me that roughly half of the personnel were contractors on the large bases we visited in Baghdad and Fallujah. Contractors held jobs traditionally held by our military. By last count, the Washington Post reported Dec. 5, a census conducted by the U.S. military revealed 100,000 contractors in Iraq, not counting subcontractors. There are as many contractors as uniformed personnel performing jobs ranging from peeling potatoes, to interrogating and guarding prisoners and providing "security."

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I picked up a copy of P.W. Singer's "Corporate Warriors" at a national bookseller's convention two years ago. Singer says the use of contractors or what he calls, "Private Military Firms," have increased ten fold in the last decade. There is real debate about the use, reliability and oversight of "support" personnel performing traditional military functions. For example, can contractors be relied on in battle?

Many of our troops were stuck living in the mud when contractors did not complete their more permanent quarters due to "security concerns." Do we want and need our trained military doing the laundry and kitchen duties? Should we have contractors (many of them third country nationals) providing these services on our bases in Iraq? Good people on both sides of the issue can argue either way.

Where the argument gets quite dicey is when contractors take on the security functions of our trained military – our military's "core competency."

Sunday's headline in the Washington Post brings this issue front and center once again: "U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad." Two incidents in one week inspired the article – one where an Iraqi taxi driver was killed and one where there was a gun battle involving both the contractor, Blackwater, and the U.S. military. What makes these incidents even more troubling is the contractors involved were not hired by the Pentagon but by the State Department, perhaps to shift the nickels into the State Department's budget versus the growing military rat hole.

So, before we discuss the details of these two incidents, we now have armed contractors who engage in shooting while working in a war zone employed by the department that is supposed to help us get to a political solution in Iraq. This is the very same department responsible for such offices as "public diplomacy," which in this State Department is headed by Karen Hughes, a member of Bush's Texas inner sanctum.

According to the Washington Post, the first incident involved a Blackwater-protected convoy that was ambushed. They, along with a military helicopter, participated in a firefight near a busy area of Baghdad. The second incident just a day later involved the shooting of a taxi driver near the Interior Ministry. What has Iraqis concerned is whether the second incident was provoked.

Why is Blackwater protecting convoys in a war zone? That is clearly the job of the military.

The short answer is "because we don't have enough troops." Politically, it keeps the number of troops in Iraq at half the number it would be, and, secondly, it provides some relief to the U.S. military which is stretched to its breaking point.

The problem, however, as the Washington Post reported this weekend, is the contractors do not play by the same rules as the U.S. military and are not monitored or held accountable for their actions.

A 2004 mandate written by the American-led coalition says contractors were granted immunity from Iraq's legal process. I met a woman in Iraq who wanted help with suing a contractor who she believes was responsible for the wrongful death of a family member.

Contractors operate with immunity. The U.S. military does not. There is a very clear line of responsibility in the military. There is a system put in place to deal with excess force. There are consequences for one's actions. And while our nation has had some very dark moments with our military (i.e. Abu Ghraib and the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam), there has been some degree of accountability. A system is in place to deal with these dark moments. The uniformed members at Abu Ghraib were held accountable – the civilian contractors were not.

Why does it matter? Because every individual, from the lowest ranking to the commander in chief, has told us that we need a political, not military, solution in Iraq to achieve security for Iraqis and stability in the region. The contractors are undermining the political solution.

The same December 2006 Washington Post article quoted retired Army Gen. William Nash, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you're trying to win hearts and minds, and the contractor is driving 90 miles per hour through the streets and running over kids, that's not helping the image of the American Army," he said. "The Iraqis aren't going to distinguish between a contractor and a soldier."

By anyone's standard of "public diplomacy" this is not something that is going to help us win friends among Iraq's government and the Iraqi people.

The British American Security Information Council issued a report and plan for managing the risks associated with using contractors in war zones almost three years ago. In "A Fistful of Contractors: The Case for a Pragmatic Assessment of Private Military Contractors in Iraq", the council recommends improved regulatory oversight of, clarification of and amendment to international law governing private military contractors. Nothing has changed in three years.

On this Memorial Day, we honor our uniformed men and women who have given their lives for this country. We honor a military that is disciplined and accountable. We jeopardize their mission and reputation when we outsource their profession of arms to the unsupervised and the unaccountable.

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