This story popped up on a few of my radars, and Scott sent me a copy as well. As you might guess, I am always interested in hearing the critiques of this industry and the support of this industry. So this article in the magazine Foreign Policy was a good little support piece.
One thing I want to add to this, that I think the author was kind of lacking on though, was the amount of security contractors in this war, and the numerous companies doing all sorts of interesting things out there. Here on FJ, I have mentioned a few. Like the CMD(CMC) program, where security contractors protect an entire camp and munitions dump, while UXO workers demolish old munitions. Security contractors do everything from guarding UXO to convoy operations between all of the bases to supply camps and transport people. These camps were completely run and operated by civilians, and they worked. The only military management, if you could call it that, were Army Corps of Engineer guys. These camps would usually have one or two of these folk to watch everything. But other than that, these camps were completely civilian operated and protected. I brought up this example with other authors out there, and it continues to be ignored. This mission helped to remove thousands of tons of old explosives in Iraq, and at a cost to contractor lives. It deserves a mention at the least.
The GRD program in Iraq was another massive program that involved convoy protection services, and DOD contractors(guys got killed doing this as well). And currently there are solicitations for the same kind of convoy protection services contracts in Afghanistan, as there were in Iraq. The programs that this author spoke of, are the TWISS(DoD) and the WPPS(DoS) program. He gives only a partial picture, and the New America Foundation put the number of security contractors at over 12,000 if we are to look at the entire war effort. 230,000 plus was the figure for civilian contractors in total(that is KBR type folk, as well as the meat eater types).
Overall, I enjoyed the article because at least it was someone willing to challenge this mindset that we are ‘a bad thing’ for this country. I also believe that with a little effort on the part of the DoD and DoS, the quality of these contracts could be monitored and managed effectively. That would require leadership and actually putting in the necessary manpower to manage all the thousands of contractors out there.
The author also mentioned a key component of why it is so important to keep tabs on contractors:
Finally, the bodyguard mentality won’t go away with the security company contracts; it must be changed from the top. Behind the highly publicized incidents were not “rogue mercenaries” but professionals dedicated to the mission — protecting the principal at all costs. “At all costs” means just that; costs to the locals, to the broader counterinsurgency effort, and to relations with the host government are irrelevant. For a bodyguard, this is the only measure of effectiveness, and it won’t go away just because the bodyguard works for the government.
DoS and DoD need to remember to include us when they talk about Strategic Communications and Unity of Effort. Of course our actions impact the overall counterinsurgency effort, and none of us in the industry want to hurt that effort. So going back to leadership and effectively managing contractors, you can see that it is not only an important thing for accounting purposes, but it is also important for the war effort. We can get there, it’s just the client needs to start talking more about how to effectively manage the ‘elephant in the room’ called contractors. And like the author pointed out, just getting rid of us is not the most practical or even reasonable answer to these issues. I say do like Pete Blaber said for solving complex problems. Saturate, incubate, and illuminate and accomplish that mission.-Matt
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In defense of security contractors
By Col. Mark Cancian (USMCR Ret.)
01/08/2009
Like them or hate them, we still need private security contractors
In criticizing the use of contractors in Iraq, some observers cite Blackwater as the tip of the contractor iceberg. It’s a fair analogy, but it deserves to be taken a step further. As with an iceberg, you may be able to shave some off the tip, but hacking away at the body is pointless.
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