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Over the course of the last two months I have received a large number of letters responding to my February column, "Outsourcing Death." In the piece, I charged that the U.S. military was hiring foreign contractors to handle many of the most dangerous jobs in Iraq because their deaths would not have to be reported to the public by the Pentagon, as the death of an American soldier would. Now, two months after "Outsourcing Death" was written, and since many of these letters arrived, four private military contractors were killed and their bodies desecrated in Fallujah. Images of their deaths have been powerful reminders to the American public of the true horrors of war -- that the daily statistics we hear reported are attached to actual lives. Now, the U.S. has vowed to retaliate for their deaths. This entire incident has been exactly the opposite of my February prediction. Instead of trying to sweep the mess under a rug, it has become a central focus for the U.S. military to retaliate, and to pacify Fallujah. Of course, we only know about the deaths of these four Private Military Company because an Agence France Presse reporter documented the event. His images were published in news outlets all over the country. So now I wonder, how many other private contractors have died in Iraq without a photographer by their side? One weakness in the war machine apparent after this event is the Pentagons lack of control over the actions of PMCs. Even the company which employed the four slain contractors, Blackwater USA, isn't exactly sure what they were doing in Fallujah that day. Mr. Daub This is in reference to your article. While your article has a few good points there are some points that really need to be taken into consideration. Some of your points are a little misleading. As a soldier currently in Baghdad, there are many reasons why foreigners are currently working in Iraq. One of the main reasons for PCMs is to boost morale. I've been here since before the war started and the soldiers here are better off now than back in the May and June (2003) time frame. An example of this is back in the May and June time frame when soldiers like myself were forced to fill sand bags for defensive fighting positions. This creates a number of problems. One like I said before is morale of the soldiers. If I'm filling sand bags I'm not happy. Next after I just had gotten done filling sand bags I have to pull perimeter guard, and then I have to go on mission. Afterwards, I'm tired and my performance on the battlefield suffers. This affects the mission and the lives of several soldiers, including my own. The perfect easy fix for this is hiring foreigners to pick up the extra jobs that come along with war. After all, the United States Army isn't paying me for the skill of filling sand bags; they're paying me to be a skilled war fighter. By hiring foreigners, including Iraqis, the government is using its money better by creating jobs and boosting the Iraqi economy as well as training Iraqis in their current profession. An example of this is the United States hiring Iraqis to help guard compounds. The Iraqis that are working in these jobs are members of the Iraqi Police Force (IPF) and Iraqi soldiers (ICDC). A job that once took 10 American soldiers is now done by 15 Iraqis and 2 coalition soldiers working as supervisors. Now 8 soldiers can participate in missions and use their war fighting skills in a more productive fashion. This gives a chance for exhausted soldiers to rest and the soldiers out on a mission to be more efficient. Meanwhile, the IPF and ICDC not only have a job they are also helping to take back their country. So in the end, fewer American soldiers are being deployed, fewer children will lose their father or mother over here -- and your son or daughter won't be back over here a few years filling sand bags or risking their life. In the sand bag example more Iraqis are living better because they now have a job. This means not only will they see that coalition forces are trying to help them, they will be able to feed their families, buy their children school supplies -- and most importantly they won't be firing an AK-47 on a Baghdad street corner where your child or grandchild just past. Oh and by the way the soldier that just passed that street corner is bleeding to death from the head from a 7.62mm round that, you guessed it, came from an AK-47. Lest you don't think weapons are that big of problem over here, an AK-47 cost ten dollars and a pistol is less than that. Now the other issue: the United States hiring foreigners to do coalition jobs. Foreign civilians are necessary to do these jobs for more than a few reasons. Foreign workers work in various jobs such as food service, the PX, and delivering supplies to name a few. The reason foreigners are needed is to fulfill the demanding needs of coalition forces. This once again, this helps the morale of the soldiers. A happier soldier is a more productive soldier. It costs our government less to send supplies from Kuwait to Iraq than from the United States to Iraq. This also applies to food. If you send food from the United States to Iraq, it's most likely going to spoil. Instead, the government pays other countries for food and hires foreigners to cook the food. This in turn boosts other countries economy so we don't have to give them foreign aid later. Also, as a result, soldiers are eating healthier food than those terrible old fashion T-Rats. I know this may be biased due to the fact I am an American soldier, but I also hope it gives you and others a better idea of the war in Iraq. Iraqis are dieing helping their own country so your child or grandchild is not. Kevin Kersch |
Dear Mr. Kersh, Your letter is a sobering reminder that no matter how much we wrestle with the complexities of the war in Iraq, we'll never fully understand it without first-hand experience. It's embarrassing to see how many people claim to be experts on a region of the world they've never come within 3,000 miles of (including myself.) I cannot disagree with you over the point that foreign contractors are helping to boost American soldiers' morale in Iraq. However, I am still concerned that these contractors, when employed by security companies or private military companies, are dying in the same conflict as American soldiers but without the same rights as American soldiers. The Pentagon should report the deaths of anyone employed by the coalition just as it would report the death of any coalition soldier. Stay safe. Mr. Daub, Thank you for your article. Whether I agree or disagree of privately hired mercenaries is of no matter. However I have issue with the politics you are trying to create with your article which is really only about "Politics". The politics involved would be no different, no matter who was in office at a time of a conflict. I don't want to argue the validity of the conflict. That is too large of an issue. In history there has always been an argument whether we should or shouldn't be in a conflict. But the politics will always be the same...no matter which party is in office! Regards, Jim Harper |
Mr. Harper, I agree with you completely. Iraq is not the first conflict where the U.S. has employed private military contractors. However, the lack of reporting of the death toll in Iraq, of our own soldiers, our employees, and of Iraqi civilians is criminal. As a democratic country, how can we judge the success or failure of a military operation if we have no reliable statistics on its impact? Mr. Daub Please allow someone who is actually in Baghdad, and has been for months, to correct some of the minor but glaring mistakes in your recent article, "Outsourcing Death." Your conclusion that US expatriates are being replaced with Indians and South Africans largely because their deaths are not reported back in America is seriously flawed. It appears that you have little concept of how Arab communities work. As a man who has spent several years working for American companies in Arab countries such as Egypt, Qatar and Iraq, please allow me to explain the mentality here: Arab communities in general prefer not to perform physical work in their own countries. This can be seen blatantly in the richer Arab countries, such as Saudi and Jordan. From my time in Qatar, I can tell you that the vast majority of day laborers were Egyptian, Pakistani, Indian and Sri Lankan. Not once during my service on an American military base in Qatar did a Qatar national ever sign in to post to perform manual labor. Not once did I take a taxi ride where a Qatari was the driver, but Indians and Pakistanis were the norm. The only places you would find Qatari citizens working were in administrative positions, or as the owner or higher management element of a business with Filipinos, Nepalese, etc. working for them. Private companies which are contracted by the US State Department generally do not provide their own security, as they are not security firms. My company provides security to three other private firms all of whom have State Department contracts for Task Force: Restore Iraqi Electricity, and maintains two State Department contracts of its own for other missions. For these security contracts, it would be fiscally ridiculous to think that a company could afford quality American security personnel in a hostile environment for reasonable prices. It would also lead to problems integrating local personnel back into the job market, and would take money from local Iraqi businesses. With the disbanding of the old Iraqi Army, many thousands of personnel were left without jobs, but with a solid enough training base to be able to perform security work. Therefore, in order to promote growth in the Iraqi economy and help these people provide for their families, Americans are used as Security Managers and Supervisors, with Iraqis staffing a parallel management position and all lower security positions. When it comes time to turn responsibilities back over to the Iraqis, we will leave them with the training, knowledge and experience to provide a valuable service in this country. With the way that the US military is structured, and the requirement that would be had for high ranking personnel, senior NCOs and Officers to staff these positions, it makes this kind of quality training next to impossible. A great number of the personnel we staff are retired Special Operations community veterans, and they bring all the requisite knowledge and skills to the program with none of the military attachments to have to worry about. The same is true for many of the other companies providing security that I have interacted with, including the recent influx of South African operators. There is no having to be reassigned in the middle of training, there is no worrying about getting promoted or staying on the proper career path. There is no worrying about whether or not a person will get to keep their Airborne Jump status or will have to start training for Ranger school upon return to the Continental United States. These men are not mercenaries or soldiers of fortune, they are not Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's "Minister of Death praying for war." These are men who have been trained by the best to make other people achieve their best, and the light you cast them in not in any way deserved. The personnel you would see were you over here guarding bases and manning checkpoints are not mercenaries. According to Dictionary.com, mer·ce·nar·y is an adjective meaning: Motivated solely by a desire for monetary or material gain. Hired for service in a foreign army. These men are not motivated as such, and are not serving in a foreign army. Your use of the word is not correct, and I assume it was used because of the negative image that is generally associated with it. One of your other major points was that nobody in America hears about Indians and South Africans dying. Despite the fact that I continue to see headlines on Yahoo and CNN to the contrary, there is a simple fix for this: you're a journalist, report it. Of course, this would mean coming to some place like Baghdad and perhaps venturing outside the "Green Zone" or hotels such as the Shaheen, but if accurate reporting of events here in Iraq is truly a concern of yours, this should be no problem. I personally live downtown in the Karradah district, and yes, I sleep through the few scattered and random gunshots every night. I drive downtown with one shooter and no extra security vehicles. I walk with an interpreter through the shops and areas I need to go to buy basic everyday items. This isn't because I'm too hard for bullets or have no fear of being targeted, it's because there are certain facets of life that have to go on despite your living conditions, and this is part of life for many of us. I don't go anywhere without my MP5 or at very least, my pistol. Many of us spent years dedicating our lives to our country's military, and when it came time to separate, we were trained for little else but security type work. We're not here for the money. We're not here seeking glory. We're here because it's what we do. Yes, the money is nice, but being gone from my family and my comfortable house back in the States is not. By the time I get back home for good, it will have been no less than two years that I have been out in the Middle East, securing my family's future and continuing to build my resume. Two years training local nationals how to properly secure areas to make their jobs and their families safer. Two years. And none of it was time spent as a mercenary. Michael Faulkner |
Mr. Faulkner, Thank you for your thoughtful response to my article. First of all, I would like to clear up the usage of the word "Mercenary." It is my opinion that some of the private security personnel working in Iraq could be described as mercenaries, even if it is a small percentage. When British or U.S. or Israeli security firms hire soldiers from India or South Africa, then they have been hired to fight in a foreign army. However, I would like to make one point abundantly clear: I did not write this article with the intention of negatively reflecting the work of private individuals in Iraq, be they mercenaries, security personnel, or construction workers. My concern is that the deaths of these individuals are not being accurately reported, and that a wholesale effort is being put into place to make sure private contractors, who have fewer legal rights and restrictions on the battlefield, are given hazardous duties in the place of U.S. soldiers. I don't think many anyone can blame an individual who is working, at risk of their own life, to help Iraq rebuild, and in the process securing their own future. In order to effectively transform Iraq, we must be concerned with the wellbeing of all people who live there -- soldiers, contractors, citizens, and even the insurgents. Mr. Daub This article reminds me, sadly, of the number of youth from Caribbean islands like Trinidad & Tobago who, in search of education and employment during the Viet Nam war era, would go to the US Virgin islands to join the US army. If they survived and received an honorable discharge, they would then receive a green card with which they could enter the US as Landed Immigrants. The fortunate ones died in Viet Nam. The experiences, especially of those who were subsequently returned psychologically and physically damaged, and their impact on some of the rural villages from where these unfortunates had come is a horror story still untold. One, from my village of Morvant Laventille named Bonnie Tavierre -- brought home, among his belongings, the first basketball we saw, and in public also committed a most unheard-of act: he viciously kicked his mother repeatedly down an incline. He thought he was fighting the Viet Cong all over again with the stir this subsequently caused. Amities, L. Farrell |
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