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Iraq
Contractors accused of firing on civilians, GIs
2007-08-12
Updated: 12:33 a.m. ET Aug. 12, 2007

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — and a large percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks, and very soon backpack nukes.

They need operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been wrongly accused by the MSM of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who failed to stop or read the caution signs and got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution, nor should they. There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 48,000.

They operate in a decidedly warlike gray we will surive this shit no matter what, legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there, without which there would not be a single contractor in Iraq.

The security firms insist their employees are governed by internal conduct rules and by use-of-force protocols established by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq for 14 months following the invasion.

But many soldiers on the ground — who earn in a year what private guards can earn in just one month jump at the chance to ETS and come to work for the pros — say their private counterparts should answer to a higher authority, just as they do. More than 60 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been court-martialed on murder-related charges involving Iraqi citizens.

No one has been prosecuted but the over 1000 contractors have lost their lives seldom gets reported.
Some military analysts and government officials who make far less than the contractors, say the contractors could be tried under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers crimes committed abroad. But so far, that law has not been applied to them.

Security firms earn more than $4 billion in government contracts, but the government doesnÂ’t know how many private soldiers it has hired, or where all of them are, according to the Government Accountability Office. And the companies are not required to report violent incidents involving their employees.

Security guards now constitute nearly 50 percent of all private contractors in Iraq — a number that has skyrocketed since the 2003 invasion, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said rebuilding Iraq was the top priority. But an unforeseen insurgency, and hundreds of terrorist attacks have pushed the country into chaos. Security is now Iraq’s greatest need, thus the need for either more troops or civilian contractors.... you pick, you be the judge!
Posted by:Besoeker

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Posted by: BA   2007-08-12 22:54  

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