The privatization of war...
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La privatisation de la guerre
Quel est le métier le plus dangereux dans les forces USA/OTAN en Afghanistan ? Pas celui de soldat, comme il pourrait sembler, mais de contractor (sous-traitant , NdT ). Selon les données officielles, ont été tués en Afghanistan, l’an dernier, plus de contractors de compagnies militaires privées étasuniennes que de soldats de l’armée étasunienne : 430, contre 418. A coup sûr beaucoup plus, puisque les compagnies n’ont pas l’obligation de rendre publiques les morts de leurs salariés.
America's mini-city on the Tigris - Features - Al Jazeera English
Baghdad, Iraq - It is a multi-million dollar programme which Iraqi officials have said they do not need, a US watchdog has called a "bottomless pit", and the US embassy here considers a key part of its relationship with post-occupation Iraq. The State Department will spend nearly $1bn in 2012 on a police training programme, the largest operation at the sprawling US embassy here. Dozens of former US police officers have been hired to teach their Iraqi counterparts about arrests and investigations, DNA evidence, and basic managerial tasks. Their resumes are impressive, most with decades of experience in domestic and international law enforcement. But the programme has been a source of controversy, both in Washington and here in Baghdad.Military contracting...
Every time a Blackwater centurion discharged his weapon in Iraq, the company filed a written report with the U.S. State Department. Blackwater shot Iraq to shit. Here are the reports. Blackwater, the private mercenary firm that became synonymous with Bush-era war profiteering and reckless combat-tourism, announced yesterday that it has changed its name to Academi (after a previous incarnation as Xe Services) in a bid to distance itself from its history of wanton lawlessness. We've obtained a 4,500-page record of that history in the form of State Department incident reports documenting every time a Blackwater guard shot at an Iraqi between 2005 and 2007.
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq
Following a legal complaint made by Erinys International Limited, the Guardian agreed to publish this statement from the firm concerning this article: Erinys Iraq Ltd had a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers from 2003 to 2007. That contract obliged Erinys to follow the Rules for Use of Force ("RUF") and Rules for Escalation of Force ("EOF") as laid down in US Army Regulations 19014 on the "Carrying of Firearms and Use of Force for Law Enforcement and Security Duties", as issued in March 1993. These rules prohibit warning shots and shots that might endanger bystanders. All shots must be aimed shots and must only be fired in self-defence. All Erinys staff were issued with a summary of these rules and were given regular training on them.
Iraq war logs: military privatisation run amok | Pratap Chatterjee | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Rice Apologizes to al-Maliki for Blackwater Shootings Was Abu Rishah a Fake? | Informed Comment
McClatchy reports from Baghdad that Iraqi eyewitnesses maintain that Blackwater security guards fired at civilians without provocation on Sunday, in contrast to the company’s own story about the incident. Probably they were firing at a car that neglected to stop when told to, or neglected to stop fast enough. Since such vehicles might be driven by suicide bombers, American military and civilian security forces have often opened fire on innocent Iraqis who just did not hear or did not understand the command to halt their vehicles, or who panicked and sped up. The offending car in this instance had a family of three in it, including a toddler who ended up being melted to his mother’s body in the resulting conflagration.
Peace, Profit or Plunder?
This book is out of print. The entire text is available free of charge in PDF format. Simply click on the chapter links above to view the PDF files. To download Adobe Acrobate viewer visit www.adobe.com For more information contact the publications department .Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established. While the official coalition figures list the British as the second largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the ground. The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10. The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.
Special investigation: The privatisation of war | World news | The Guardian
En Afghanistan, une guerre privatisée - Libération
Par GEORGES-HENRI BRICET DES VALLONS Expert en questions de défense, Institut Choiseul En juin 2009, l’Afghanistan comptait 74 000 contractors («mercenaires») pour 55 000 soldats américains (dont 7% sont armés, soit environ 5 200 Occidentaux, auquel il faut rajouter 2 000 ressortissants du tiers-monde et près de 20 000 employés afghans). La nouvelle politique impulsée par Obama ne va faire qu’accroître leur nombre. A mesure que le marché irakien se ralentit, les sociétés militaires privées basculent leurs activités en Afghanistan. Un phénomène de migration qui apparaît clairement à la lecture des statistiques. Si l’on s’en tient aux projections actuelles, le contingent privé pourrait atteindre un volume compris entre 120 000 et 140 000 privés pour 120 000 à 130 000 militaires réguliers (dont 100 000 Américains) d’ici à la fin 2010, soit un pic démographique analogue à celui qu’a connu l’Irak en 2007-2008, au plus fort des violences.
Windfalls of war: Pentagon's no-bid contracts triple in 10 years of war | iWatch News
As U.S. military deaths and injuries from roadside bombs escalated after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon rushed to find solutions. Competition is normally the cornerstone of better prices and better products, but the urgency of dealing with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, has been cited to justify a number of sole-source contracts to companies promising quick solutions over a decade of war. One such company was Tucson-based Applied Energetics , which markets a futuristic weapon that shoots beams of lightning to detonate roadside bombs. The company won over $50 million in military contracts for their lightning weapon, all without full and open competition, even though there was another company marketing similar technology. Despite test failures, the company, in part thanks to congressional support, continued to get funding.