2008 Woodie Awards
Cutting costs with "Mercs"
What it means to be a contractor in Iraq
T.J. Rakitan
Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Opinion
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Imagine getting a bill for services you know were never rendered. Now imagine that the company billing you is one of a few dozen that you're employing. Now, imagine further that you can never quite put your finger on the exact nature of what any of these companies are doing, but your accounts show that, either way, it's less expensive to have them doing the work than to do it yourself. Has this ever happened to you? Well, you're not alone: it turns out that the Bush administration has had this problem too.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times: as Peter W. Singer of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy wrote in Foreign Affairs on March 1, 2005, "... a whole raft of former state responsibilities-including education, policing, and the operation of prisons- [have been] turned over to the marketplace." I'm sure that English economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo are tap-dancing in their graves. Once again, free-market capitalism is efficiently allocating scarce resources (like mercenary manpower) where they are demanded. Or, is it?
The short answer is yes: through contracts with private military firms (PMFs), our government has significantly reduced the overall cost of involvement in Iraq. The long answer, however, begins with "not really," and addresses the question of whether or not it was really worth it. See, the unintended effect of contracting military (read: public) goals to private firms is that the firms can act without the government's oversight. Just think about how many allegations have been leveled against private industry operating in Iraq lately: Halliburton has been accused of billing for nonexistent services; the shadowy mercenary types serving on the battlefields often come with incomplete background checks; mercenaries have delayed, suspended and even walked away from critical operations when they looked too hard; and privatized prisoner-torture need not be addressed by government standards. PMFs contract for results, not process-that is, they don't need the Military Comissions Act to conduct a tribunal, nor are they bound to publicly-supported standards of interrogation. Literally, they get away with murder. But it's cheaper than letting the military do it.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times: as Peter W. Singer of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy wrote in Foreign Affairs on March 1, 2005, "... a whole raft of former state responsibilities-including education, policing, and the operation of prisons- [have been] turned over to the marketplace." I'm sure that English economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo are tap-dancing in their graves. Once again, free-market capitalism is efficiently allocating scarce resources (like mercenary manpower) where they are demanded. Or, is it?
The short answer is yes: through contracts with private military firms (PMFs), our government has significantly reduced the overall cost of involvement in Iraq. The long answer, however, begins with "not really," and addresses the question of whether or not it was really worth it. See, the unintended effect of contracting military (read: public) goals to private firms is that the firms can act without the government's oversight. Just think about how many allegations have been leveled against private industry operating in Iraq lately: Halliburton has been accused of billing for nonexistent services; the shadowy mercenary types serving on the battlefields often come with incomplete background checks; mercenaries have delayed, suspended and even walked away from critical operations when they looked too hard; and privatized prisoner-torture need not be addressed by government standards. PMFs contract for results, not process-that is, they don't need the Military Comissions Act to conduct a tribunal, nor are they bound to publicly-supported standards of interrogation. Literally, they get away with murder. But it's cheaper than letting the military do it.
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