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. Il en va de même pour les blessés, dont le nombre dépasse celui des morts. La majorité des tués en 2011 (386 sur 430 morts) opérait en Afghanistan pour le compte du Pentagone, les autres pour le Département d’état et la Usaid (l’agence fédérale pour le « développement international », de fait militarisée).
Dans la zone du Commandement central étasunien, qui comprend aussi l’Irak, les contractors du Pentagone sont plus de 150mille. Traduit de l’italien par Marie-Ange Patrizio. America's mini-city on the Tigris - Features. The embassy is the largest US mission in the world and will cost nearly $4bn to operate [EPA] 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. A US government watchdog report issued in October warned that it could become a "bottomless pit" for American money. 'That costs money' 'We reject it'
'Gentlemen, We Shot a Judge' and Other Tales of Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy's Rampage Through Iraq. US soldiers are expensive. Not only is there the cost of training, their tools, retirement, education and they have to be fed and equipped to exceptional standards, there's also the ultimate cost of a soldier's life. While on the other hand, the contractors were mostly cowboys. Their training, tools, equipment and discipline didn't need to be to the same standards and when some person who drifted from a few stints in the military to someplace like Virginia Beach, then Iraq were killed, it didn't make the same kind of headlines as a recent high school graduate from back home.
What's funny is that many of these contractors are prior U.S. service. So basically, they go to the US military, get their training there, get field experience and finish their commitment. After that, a contractor turns around and offers them whatever the amount is (for contractors that are likely to get shot at, it's higher of course). All the PMC has to do is pay the contractor whatever the assignment's bill is. Iraq war logs: military privatisation run amok | Pratap Chatterjee. 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. Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2005, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down "Route Irish" – the Baghdad airport road – shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. Human rights investigators know this problem only too well.
Rice Apologizes to al-Maliki for Blackwater Shootings Was Abu Rishah a Fake? 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. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Condi Rice personally apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for the killing of 10 Iraqis by Blackwater guards and promised that steps would be taken to ensure the tragedy was not repeated. Special investigation: The privatisation of war | World news. 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. When America launched its invasion in March, the battleships in the Gulf were manned by US navy personnel. Iraq For Sale - Full Movie. En Afghanistan, une guerre privatisée. 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. Un coup de filet retentissant avait eu lieu en 2007 et abouti à l’arrestation de plusieurs dirigeants occidentaux.
Windfalls of war: Pentagon's no-bid contracts triple in 10 years of war. 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.
The bomb fighting contract is a small example of a problem that’s been exacerbated by 10 years of war: awarding contracts without competition. Windfalls of war: KBR, the government's concierge. The rush to war in the months following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 created an urgency in the Pentagon, not just for military operations but also for contracting. When U.S. forces moved into Afghanistan in 2001, there was little, if any, infrastructure to support and house U.S. troops.
The military needed someone to do everything from housing troops to rebuilding airfields. The solution was a contract called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, a type of umbrella contract the Army had been using to support is military bases overseas. In late 2001, the Army, after a competition, awarded LOGCAP III to KBR.
The Houston-based firm, once a subsidiary of Halliburton, began providing everything from showers to dining halls. Even beyond single-source contracts, the Pentagon has other types of contracts it can use to quickly award work without having to compete specific jobs. Indeed, that’s the way LOGCAP III operated for almost a decade.