Matters Blackwater (Merged thread)

[SWJED]

19 May Heritage Foundation paper - When Should the Government Use Contractors to Support Military Operations?.

Military contractors are currently assisting militaries around the world with missions that range from training and supply chain management to fighting in battles. Military contractors are seen as having inherent advantages over militaries in resource constraints, manpower, and flexibility. Yet relying on military contractors has its share of risks, including potential shortfalls in mission success, concerns over the safety of contractors, loss of resources because a capability is outsourced, loss of total force management, and problems of compliance with administrative law.

With the increased use of military contractors and the advent of privatized military firms, the question is how to determine the right force mix to complete a task or mission in the most effective and efficient manner. Sometimes, military contractors may be the best choice; however, they are not a perfect fit for every mission or the right solution for all skill and manpower shortages.

When considering the use of military contractors, U.S. military leaders should assess the risks of employing the various options and then choose the best one. The Department of Defense (DOD) should adopt comprehensive guidelines for making these decisions, using a risk-based approach...

[SWJED]

31 May Los Angeles Times commentary - Send in the Mercenaries by Max Boot.

...Pieces of paper, no matter how promising, require power in order to be enforced. The question is: Who will provide that power in Darfur? The African Union force deployed in 2004 has proven woefully inadequate. Its 7,000 soldiers lack the numbers, training and equipment to patrol an undeveloped region the size of France. They don't even have a mandate to stop ethnic cleansing; they are only supposed to monitor the situation.

If you listen to the bloviators at Turtle Bay, salvation will come from the deployment of a larger corps of blue helmets. If only. What is there in the history of United Nations peacekeepers that gives anyone any confidence that they can stop a determined adversary?...

But perhaps there is a way to stop the killing even without sending an American or European army. Send a private army. A number of commercial security firms such as Blackwater USA are willing, for the right price, to send their own forces, made up in large part of veterans of Western militaries, to stop the genocide.

We know from experience that such private units would be far more effective than any U.N. peacekeepers. In the 1990s, the South African firm Executive Outcomes and the British firm Sandline made quick work of rebel movements in Angola and Sierra Leone. Critics complain that these mercenaries offered only a temporary respite from the violence, but that was all they were hired to do. Presumably longer-term contracts could create longer-term security, and at a fraction of the cost of a U.N. mission.

Yet this solution is deemed unacceptable by the moral giants who run the United Nations. They claim that it is objectionable to employ — sniff — mercenaries. More objectionable, it seems, than passing empty resolutions, sending ineffectual peacekeeping forces and letting genocide continue.

[sgmgrumpy]

Inside The Pentagon
August 3, 2006

DOD, State To Launch New Counterterrorism Work In Asia And Africa

The Pentagon is poised to shift as much as $100 million to the State Department for an effort to hire private contractors charged with enhancing the counterterrorism capabilities of foreign militaries in 14 nations across Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a senior Defense Department official.

The program, which involves an unorthodox sharing of resources, won the approval of Congress last year only after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a big push for it. It is designed to fulfill a key objective of the U.S. strategy for the global war on terrorism -- bolstering the capabilities of partner nations to fight terrorists within and around their borders.

Eight aid packages, each worth $10 million to $30 million, have been constructed to boost the maritime and land-based counterterrorism operations of military forces in Pakistan, Indonesia, Yemen, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Chad, Senegal, Panama and the Dominican Republic. Some of the aid packages fund efforts in more than one nation; additional aid packages for other nations may be approved soon.

“This program is designed to give them the training and equipment so that they can take on common enemies and prevent terrorist sanctuaries in their territories that are a problem for them and for us,” Jeb Nadaner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations, said in an interview. “This is [a Bush] administration program to get ahead of problems before they get full-blown.”

The security assistance packages are the product of programs nominated and coordinated by geographic combatant commanders and top diplomats at U.S. embassies. In general, the packages consist of relatively low-tech equipment -- no major weapon systems are in the offing -- designed to provide each nation with a better picture of activities within its borders and on the seas near its shores...

The long-term goal, he said, is to create a layered series of capabilities around the world among U.S. allies and partner nations so that they can undertake their own defense against terrorists...

The equipment sets include radar, surveillance tools and sensors, Global Positioning System navigation devices, communications equipment, computer systems and programs, small boats, small trucks and trailers, and spare parts for vehicles, said Nadaner.

Mark Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch and a former Pentagon intelligence analyst, said this aid might be useful in the war on terror. “But we have to understand that they might use the equipment in ways that the United States might not want it to be used,” in violation of international law, he said...

Peter Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry,” said that to the extent the U.S. government hires private firms to conduct training of foreign militaries it misses an opportunity to develop an important, if informal, tool -- military-to-military relationships that might be called upon in a future crisis...

Of the eight military aid packages, three involve groups of nations. Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe are grouped in the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Security Program, designed to provide more effective control of certain West African waters through improved coastal surveillance and operational capabilities. Morocco, Algeria, Chad, Senegal, Tunisia and Nigeria are grouped together into an effort called the Multinational Information Sharing Initiative, which aims to build the capacity of these nations to share data about activities in the region.

Individual programs for Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka are focused on improving each nation’s maritime operations, particularly the strategic sea lanes in Southeast Asia.

With U.S. forces stretched thin by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rumsfeld and Rice last year sought and secured permission from Congress to use Pentagon operation and maintenance funds for State Department foreign military training programs run by private firms...
-- Jason Sherman

[sgmgrumpy]

Information on a Radio Talk Show conducted as well as a Newspaper reporters 6 part series on Blackwater.

The radio interview I thought was very informative on laws governing use of PMCs.

Their business is supplying security in an unsecure world. Training modern day mercenaries means big profit for private military companies and also helps ease the strain of an over-taxed military. But not everyone thinks this new approach is the best way to wage war. We'll talk about it on today's HearSay with Virginian-Pilot Reporter Bill Sizemore. [and IPOA's Doug Brooks . . .]

Radio Talk Show on PMCs
http://wmstreaming.whro.org/hearsay/08032006.wma

Another great investigative 6 Part Series on Blackwater

NOTE: You may need to REFRESH BROWSER AFTER LINKING TO GET THE ARTICLES.

Blackwater: Inside America's Private Army
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 23, 2006

Enter a world where the military has become a business – where citizen soldiers work for a private company whose currency comes from conflict. It’s a place some salute and others fear. And it’s right in our backyard.

PART 1
A New Breed of Warriors
These men are not soldiers, at least not anymore. All have military experience, but in order to become private security contractors, they must pass an eight-week, $20,000 course.

PART 2
Profitable Patriotism
After the terrorist attack on the destroyer Cole, Blackwater USA found its future: providing security in an insecure world. Since, the Moyock, N.C., company has rocketed to the big time.


PART 3
On the Front Lines
The growing presence of private security contractors on the battlefield in Iraq is uncharted territory, spawning questions about conflicting objectives, poor coordination and lack of accountability.


PART 4
When Things Go Wrong
The lynching of four Blackwater USA contractors in Iraq in 2004 has had profound consequences on two fronts: in the course of the war, and with families back home.


PART 5
On American Soil
Hurricane Katrina opened the door to a flood of domestic work for Blackwater USA. In New Orleans, the company protects FEMA's staff - at a cost of about $243,000 a day.


PART 6
New Horizons
Security contractor Blackwater USA, after long preferring the shadows, has taken a high-visibility U-turn - including its own skydiving team - to get out its story and drum up business.

[Jedburgh]

From the Centro Militare di Studi Strategici (CeMiSS), Rome, Italy:

Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate Use of Force

This study probes the question of how the rise and development of private military companies (PMCs) is affecting the authority of Western states to define and regulate the use of force. It is an inquiry into the extent to which private military companies are merely “tools” in the hands of the state, as often assumed. It is an inquiry into the extent to which the delegation of tasks to private actors also entails a privatisation of authority. It is an attempt to think about a link whose existence is often denied. In a typical vein one observer writes:

...most would argue that the power to authorise and delegate the use of military force should remain with states, preferably at the level of the UN Security Council. But once agreed, exactly what or who is deployed is less important – the issue then is to find the most effective and least costly alternative... (Shearer 2001: 30).

This report asks whether cost effectiveness is really the issue at stake and whether who is deployed is of limited importance. The political intuition it departs from is that who “is deployed” matters a great deal. It is absolutely essential for governments, for armed forces and for citizens not only to ask “what is most effective and least costly” alternative. They also need to ask what consequences different alternatives have for the authority over the use of force (and more specifically the state monopoly on the legitimate use of force). The aim of this study is first and foremost to spell out the lines along which such questions have to be asked and discussed...