This is not accurate, at least in my experience. There are certainly some NGOs (I'm speaking about humanitarian not-for-profits, not the State Department and USAID beltway bandits, who as commercials are less inhibited by activities that might impact a constituency of individual, left-leaning donors) that use PMCs, but this is very limited. My own NGO "used" a PMC for some of our ongoing activities in Iraq (haven't even thought about using one for our ongoing activities in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, and we work in dicey places), but that service was provided as an umbrella service by the State Department. In other words, we weren't directly "tainted" by engaging a PMC. Other NGOs, including some of the "biggies" had similar arrangements provided by USAID.Originally Posted by SteveMetz
However, there are currently so few "real" NGOs operating in Iraq (or "really" operating in Iraq - leave Iraqi Kurdistan out of this - operationally, its safer there than SW Washington, D. C., so that's where many NGOs and companies are hiding out so they don't have to stop spending on the contracts and IQCs they're sitting on) that this is probably not worth adding into the discussion. So many of the NGO and UN agencies are working from offices in Amman, Jordan and completely relying upon Iraqi national staff who coordinate and report via e-mail and telephone. That's great, nationalizing the solution, but there's almost no way to monitor what the national staff are doing. Very difficult to tell whether or not there's an NGO equivalent going on of radioing in one's patrol checkpoints from one's hooch.
Iraq is viewed as an exception by the relief and development community leadership folks I communicate with on a regular basis. It's not necessarily going to be real productive in the long run to base future behaviors on the Iraq experience - the UN and NGOs aren't going to go along.
On the bigger discussion, I have no problem with MEDCAPs and such by military forces. However, there are a couple of rules it took me some time to learn as a guy who left military/SOF to join the humanitarian community - it's always better to find a local (and often much less technologically sexy/sterile/effective) solution to whatever the relief or development problem than to use air and/or sea lift to move (a smaller amount, more expensively) of the needed services and/or supplies to the point they're needed. And, its always a peachy relationship between the military and UN/NGO community during a natural disaster like the south Asian tsunami or the Pakistan earthquake, as opposed to a conflict like southern Lebanon last summer where we humanitarians have to operate amongst a menu of combatants.
I'm brand new to the forum, and apologize in advance for when I will inevitably violate protocol - I'll pay attention and learn the culture of this site as quickly as I can.
Cheers,
Joe
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