Military Force Contractors

Mercenaries,” “merchants of death,” “coalition of the billing,” “a national

disgrace” all have been used to describe the use of contractors in

war. The extensive use of contractors on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan

has engendered strong emotion and calls for change. An ever-expanding

literature and much larger volume of opinion pieces have led the discussion,

most expressing shock and disappointment that such a situation has occurred.

Unfortunately, little of this literature is useful to planners trying to design future

forces in a world characterized by extensive commitments and limited

manpower. The purpose of this article is to examine what battlefield contractors

actually do, consider how we got to the situationwe are in today, and provide

force planners with some useful insight regarding the future.

Some general conclusions related to this assessment:

 Most jobs performed by contractors on the battlefield are unobjectional

and should not be done by military personnel.

 With regard to the provision for bodyguards, the function where

the most problems have occurred, viable options for change do exist.

 Following the Cold War, the Services, especially the active Army,

were structured with an emphasis on combat units at the expense of support

units. As a result there is a large and enduring shortage of support units. The use

of contractors on the battlefield is no longer an optional or marginal activity.

The bottom-line for planners is that contractors are an integral and

permanent part of US force structure. As a permanent part of US military

force structure, contractors should be treated as such. Just as there are plans,

preparations, and procedures for using reserve forces, the same needs to be

done in the case of contractors.

Contractors and Their Role

How many contractors are there on today’s battlefields and what are

their functions? For the first years of the current conflicts in Iraq andAfghanistan

no one really knew how many contractors were present in theater. Estimates

were proposed, but, because agencies did their own hiring and no

central database existed, there was a great deal of uncertainty.When the number

of contractors became an operational and political issue, the Congress directed

that an accurate accounting bemade. As a result there is now, as of the

second quarter of fiscal year 2008, a fairly reliable count, 265,000 personnel.

Unfortunately, this number has created asmuch confusion as clarity. Because

so much media attention has focused on security contractors, many assume

that the majority of these 265,000 contractors are gun-toting Americans. In

fact, few are armed, and 55 percent are Iraqis.

Reconstruction

Almost half of all contractors are in support of some sort of reconstruction.

These contractors assist in the rebuilding of infrastructure, fromoil

fields to roads and schools.Most of the personnel are local nationals. No sensible

person would propose replacing these contractors with US military

62 Parameters

Function Numbers and Agency Composition

Reconstruction DOD 25,000

State (USAID) 79,100

Mostly Iraqis

Logistics and base support DOD 139,000

State 1,300

US 24%, Third Country Nationals

(TCNs) 49%, Iraqis 27%

Interpreters DOD 6,600

State 100

Mix of US, TCNs, Iraqis

Advisers and other DOD 2,000

State 2,200

US and some TCNs

Security

(excluding bodyguards)

DOD 6,300

State 1,500

Mostly TCNs with some Iraqis

Bodyguards DOD 700

State 1,300

US and UK

Total 265,000 US 15%; TCNs 30%; Iraqis 55%

personnel. True, there have been instances where local contractors are sometimes

tainted by corruption and inefficiency, and itwould appear to be administratively

easier just to substitute military engineers. But these contractors

also hire local labor, and are responsible for putting large numbers of local

men to work, a fact aiding the broader counterinsurgency effort. Work removes

the bored and unemployed from the streets.Men who might otherwise

join the insurgency for ideological or economic reasons now have a stake in

maintaining stability. A job also has significance in traditional societies such

as Iraq andAfghanistan, a fact that is sometimes difficult forwesterners to appreciate.

A jobmeans that aman can getmarried and leave his family’s home.

Traditionally in these societies, unmarried children do not move out and get

apartments on their own. This transition to independent livingmakes a young

man an adult, thereby giving him a stake in the stability of his neighborhood

or town.

Logistics

Few observers seem to object to contractors in the logistics arena.

Most of the US personnel involved in these functions are blue-collar technicians

(truck drivers, electricians, maintenance specialists), the people who

keep materiel flowing and bases running. They are unarmed and often highly

skilled in their areas of expertise, frequently more so than their counterparts

in the military who are oftenmuch younger and, in effect, apprentices in their

trades. Traditionally, military personnel performed these functions, but the

high cost and relative scarcity of experienced uniformed personnel in the

all-volunteer forcemade use of contractors an attractive option.Why usemilitary

personnel for a job that a civilian is willing, able, and often better qualified

to perform?

Third Country Nationals (TCNs) comprise the bulk of logistical personnel

and perform a wide range of functions.Many work in the dining facilities,

a function providing insight into howandwhy theUSmilitary came to rely

on contractors. There are essentially no military personnel among the thousands

of peoplewhowork in the dozens of dining facilities in Iraq andAfghanistan.

Managed by a small group of US civilian supervisors, these dining

facilities are staffed byTCNs froma number of different countries—Sri Lanka,

Philippines, Bangladesh, etc. In the past military personnel performed these

functions; we all remember the unit cook as the stock character in comics and

novels.Asignificant number ofmilitary cookswere responsible formeal preparation,

assisted by an even larger number of temporarily assigned dining room

orderlies andmessmenwho performed all the associatedmenial tasks. As dining

facilities in the United States were turned over to contractors, however, the

military food service community became much smaller and shifted their focus

and expertise from the running of large facilities to preparing meals in support

of expeditionary forces in hostile environments. In the early days ofOperation

Iraqi Freedom military cooks prepared meals from a number of prepackaged

sources.As the theatermatured, however, “expeditionary” rationswere no longer

acceptable to the average 20-year-old palate; something more substantial

and tasty was required. Rather than attempting to redirect, retrain, and vastly

expand themilitary food service community, theUSmilitary turned to contractors.

Today the dining facilities on large bases in Iraq and Afghanistan resemble

the food courts on a college campus, with main-lines, short order-lines,

salad bars, and a variety of choices.With civilian personnel ready,willing, and

able to do thework, there was no need to divertmilitary personnel to suchmundane

tasks. Food service is a particularly sensitive topic with unit commanders

because in the past they deeply resented the constant diversion of personnel to

serve in dining facilities.

Interpreters

Conflicts overseas, especially counterinsurgencies, require a large

number of interpreters so US forces at every level can communicate with the

local populace. Although the military is expanding its number of linguists,

large-scale operations require thousands of interpreters. The military will

never have enough personnel skilled in any particular language (except Spanish)

to cover more than a small proportion of its total requirements. Contractors

will always provide the bulk of this capability.

Security

Most controversial of the contractor functions is security. These

contractors number somewhere near 10,000 personnel. Only about twothirds

are actually armed. The bulk of these security forces are non-Iraqi,

uniformed, and often indistinguishable from military personnel. The media

have reported numerous stories of security contractors killing and terrorizing

civilians. An incident in Baghdad on 16 September 2007 caught the nation’s

attention as security guards, in an effort to escape from a car-bomb

threat, were alleged to have fired on innocent civilians, killing and injuring

dozens.

64 Parameters

There is a great deal ofmisunderstanding associated with the functioning

of these security personnel.About three-fourths of these security contractors

protect fixed facilities insidemajor bases and never venture outside thewire.Although

the requirement for interior guards was always recognized, a 2005 suicide

bombing at a dining facility in Mosul highlighted the need for screening

personnel entering heavily populated facilities. Some of these internal security

personnel are military, but the majority are contractors. These security guards

are generally TCNs; for example, Salvadorans guard theUSAgency for International

Development compound in the Green Zone,Ugandans guard facilities for

theMarine Corps. Themain function of these security guards consists of screening

personnel entering facilities by checking identity cards. Themajority of this

group has never fired a shot in anger. They are more akin to the security guards

one sees in the United States guarding banks or shopping malls.

The Bodyguards

It is the bodyguards, or personal security details (PSDs), that have attracted

the most attention and engendered the greatest controversy. Although

comprising only one percent of all contractors, they are responsible for virtually

all of the violent incidents appearing in the media. These PSDs come from a

handful of specialized companies—Triple Canopy, DynCorp International,

Aegis Security, and the now-infamous Blackwater, USA. Frequently portrayed

as “rogue mercenaries” they are, in fact, highly professional. Nevertheless, the

nature of their function is problematic.

A key issue is that most of these PSDs work for the State Department

and have been, until recently, outsidemilitary control.Historically, the StateDepartment

has had three layers of security for its personnel. The outer layer is the

host nation, which is responsible for the protection of all diplomats and diplomatic

facilities in its territory. The inner layer is the Marine detachment, which

guards the core of the fixed facility.2 Between these two layers has always been a

layer of contract guards. The State Department’s security arm, the Bureau of

Diplomatic Security, coordinates, plans, and trains but does not, with a few exceptions,

provide security forces.3 Thus, in Iraq this contractor layer expanded as

diplomats required protection whenever they left the diplomatic facility. These

large groups of armed personnel operated independently,with almost no coordination

with the military. The 2004 ambush of Blackwater guards in Fallujah,

where four guards were killed and their bodies hung from a bridge, occurred in

part because Blackwater had not coordinated with local military authorities.

Another major concern is what many refer to as the bodyguard

mindset. To a bodyguard the mission is to protect the principal at all costs. “At

all costs” means just that; costs to the local populace, to the broader counterinsurgency

effort, to relations with the host government all appear to be irrele-

Autumn 2008 65

vant. If the principal’s car is stuck in traffic and that delay poses a risk, then

these contractor bodyguards will smash their way through the intervening cars

of local civilians in an effort to escape the danger. If traffic is too slow and that

poses a risk, the bodyguardswill often switch into the oncoming lanes and open

a way by threatening cars with their weapons. Blackwater, for example, prides

itself on never having lost a principal. For bodyguards this is the only measure

of effectiveness.

The lack of coordination and the bodyguard mindset led to the shooting

incident of 16 September 2007 in which a number of Iraqi citizens were

killed and wounded. In response, Congress held hearings, and Blackwater was

vilified in op-eds across the country. The Department of Defense (DOD) and

the State Department finally issued new guidelines that brought contractors

under military control, required State Department security officials to accompany

every convoy, installed video cameras in contractor vehicles, and clarified

the rules on the use of force.