Fetid Moldy Cakewalk

The horrifying spectacle of Falluja seems to be, predictably, about more than what they are saying.

The anti-American hatred isn’t confined to Fallujah and it isn’t just in the Sunni Triangle. Civilians and foreigners are being targeted and escalating brutality is the order of the day all over Iraq. Meanwhile, the “contractors,” all ex-special forces who were ostensibly there to protect food convoys (uh huh) are reported to have been part of a 4 vehicle convoy, a fact which the US denies.

You know, I’m really getting tired of being lied to. It’s exhausting. Just what the hell is really going on in Iraq?

Certainly there are few communities where anti-American sentiment is as widespread as in Fallujah. But the savagery and utter abandonment of any sort of civilized conduct, so amply demonstrated on the streets of the city Wednesday, is actually pretty typical of the way the opposition has chosen to fight its war against American occupation everywhere else, as well. Wednesday’s attack itself was hardly the worst thing we’ve seen; in fact, since the victims had been armed, attacking them was arguably within the rules of war.

Many of the attacks we’ve seen in just the past 10 days were clearly not; the victims often were attacked merely because they were civilians, many of them not even from Coalition countries. They included two Finnish businessmen, a German and a Dutchman, four missionaries working on a water project and a Time magazine translator.

It’s become increasingly clear that any foreigner, and anyone working even remotely with foreigners, has become what the opposition regards as fair game, armed, or not. Attacks on Iraqis have been if possible even more savage, and divorced from any possible justification. Suicide bombs and ambushes of Iraqi policemen, who have now lost more men than the occupation forces, are one thing; the Americans chose and trained them. But the Shia who were slaughtered by teams of suicide bombers during the Ashoura festival in Karbala last month were doing nothing more than peacefully exercising their religious beliefs something denied them under Saddam’s Sunni rule.

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What is surprising is that four American contractors would have put themselves into such a vulnerable situation, in such a well-known trouble spot. The victims apparently worked for Blackwater Security Consulting, a North Carolina-based security company that specializes in close-protection VIP details and has the high-profile, no-bid contract to provide bodyguards for L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator. U.S. officials have released little detail about why they were in Fallujah, except to say they were guarding food convoys into the area. Not only does that sound improbable, but there was no sign of any trucks being escorted by them at the time. However, Iraqi eyewitnesses interviewed on the street in Fallujah today say the two SUVs carrying the four victims were actually part of a four-vehicle convoy but that the two other SUVs managed to escape after the attack. Standard operating procedure for close-protection details is to put the people they’re protecting into more expensive and less maneuverable armored cars, and then follow in soft-skinned cars with the shooters. But U.S. officials insist there were only two cars.

The incident is inexplicably mysterious, even two days later. Witnesses in Fallujah insisted that one of the four victims, all of whom had been armed with sidearms and long weapons, was a woman, described as fair-skinned, red-headed and dressed in a military uniform. Military spokesmen, however, described all four as men. When did it happen, even? Witnesses say 11 a.m. or noon on Wednesday, Iraqi police say 9 or 10 a.m. and Coalition spokesmen say about 8 a.m. And why did the Marines, who have troops stationed on the outskirts of Fallujah, fail to respond to the scene, either during or after the attack at least not as of late this afternoon, 30 hours after the incident?

The AP reported the names of only 3 of the victims and all three are men. I don’t know what to make of the reports of a woman being involved. Women are not to my knowledge in front line roles in the US Special Forces, so the military uniform is strange, but perhaps some of these private “security” soldiers are women. Strange.

I wrote about the private security contractors a year ago when it was first disclosed and it appears that we have privatized much of the security duties there and we’re spending big bucks to do it. The LA Times and others report today that security firms are doing a booming business in Iraq

The vast majority of their work in Iraq is government-funded, either through direct contracts with government agencies or indirectly as security for firms that have contracts to help rebuild Iraq.

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Business is booming, security experts said, because a surge in violence has come precisely as a flood of contractors is poised to roll into the country now that $8 billion in U.S. contracts have been awarded.

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They escort convoys of supplies. And some are preparing elaborate tracking systems so that if a contractor’s vehicle runs into trouble, its occupants can be located and rescued.

For months, the presence of security firms has been hard to ignore. Their large four-wheel-drive vehicles whiz along highways, traveling well over 100 mph to discourage insurgents from tailing them. They pull out of heavily fortified compounds and careen into traffic, forcing other vehicles out of their way.

The Western security experts are easily identified. They are muscular men, often wearing flak jackets and conspicuously carrying MP-5 submachine guns a German-made weapon favored by special operations forces. They tuck revolvers into leg holsters.

Experts estimate that the thousands of security professionals in the country probably outnumber workers in any other private industry. They include large numbers of Nepalese Gurkhas, who guard many of the coalition’s headquarters in the Iraqi provinces, and former South African soldiers.

But at the top the pay scale are American and British security workers who are former Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Marines, Special Operations soldiers, CIA workers, British Special Air Services members and British Royal Marines. Many have worked with intelligence units in their former services and continue to have access to information unavailable to civilians.

Blackwater, for example, was founded by former Navy SEAL Gary Jackson and includes many former commandos in its top ranks. A company spokesman said 70% of its trainees come from the military, mainly from commando units.

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A primary appeal to security workers is the money. The best paid of the private security staffers the most experienced and elite former soldiers earn as much as $20,000 a month, security experts in Iraq say.

Most Western contractors rely on Iraqi subcontractors for almost all labor. Security firms, on the other hand, make heavy use of workers from outside Iraq.

The deep experience of the guards goes into the sales pitch offered by security firms that the prospective client is in a treacherous setting but will be getting the best protection. But sometimes no amount of experience or expertise is enough.

“How many private security guys have been killed here? A lot,” said one security expert in Baghdad. “At least 50, maybe more; there’s been six just this week.”

As an aside, can somebody explain why Paul Bremer of all people has private security guards? Isn’t he, at least, an actual member of the US Government and thus shouldn’t he be guarded by actual US soldiers?

Perhaps there’s nothing really wrong with this. I’m sure these guys are patriots and fine gentlemen all. Certainly, they don’t deserve to be dragged through streets and dismembered. However, this practise of privatizing the military (aside from the wet-dreams it gives the libertarians) is a very dicey idea. There is little accountability and a very bad recent history in the Balkans (although there have been no suggestions of this kind of corruption in iraq.) But, the problem remains. They are private contractors, not subject to the direction of the US Military and they work in a gray area which allows them to operate outside of normal law and custom.

It may be a necessary evil at the moment, but I have to believe that most of these elite highly trained special forces guys, anyway, would have stayed in the US military without a second thought if they’d have been offered even a modicum of the big bucks they are offered on the outside. But, that would have cut out the middle man and the middle man is what fuels the Military Industrial Complex. And while Democrats have certainly taken their taste over the last 30 years, the MID remains one of the very special friends and supporters of the modern Republican Party.

Just because the war in Iraq is a cock-up of humongous proportions is no reason that people shouldn’t make a buck, right? At least some good will come of it.

Jeanne D’Arc has the definitive round-up on this topic. Read it now.