My Rough Draft Deuce

Russell Kimmel 

Dr. Ken Kerr

EN101-16

DATE

Private Military Contractors

                In modern warfare a new idea has taken a firm hold in the mind of military and civilian leadership. That new idea is the outsourcing of traditional military jobs to private military contractors. Private military contractors(PMCs) are companies that blur the line between  civilian and military in  accountability, funding, and function.

                Private military contractors have questionable accountability, both criminally and in simple oversight. While they operate under the employment of the United States Military, they are unable to be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice(Hedahl). For most of the Iraq War, Contractors were not able to be tried under Iraqi law due to Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17(Fainaru 136). It was not until the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq that allowed contractors to be tried under Iraqi law. This agreement did not go into effect until 2010(Lam). Furthermore contractors also cannot be sued by their former employee's families because they hide behind legislation that prevents soldier's families from the suing the army(Eviatar). As for oversight, contractors usually lack any type of supervision. As Dr. Hammes says," Unless it provides a government officer or noncommissioned officer for each construction project, convoy, personal security detail, or facilities-protection unit, the government does not control, or even know about, their daily interactions(Hammes)." Often the officials delegated to provide oversight from the U.S. embassy generally fail to do so( Singer 239). Even the Government Oversight Administration ( the investigative arm of Congress) employees assigned to this task are poorly trained and fail to notice if contractors are taking advantage of the government (Singer 154).

                Private military contractors are funded very differently than the armed forces. Their contracts usually come from either the State Department, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Agency for International Development(Isenberg). Most noteworthy is the amount of pay that contractors receive. On average contractor employees collect up to five or ten times more wages than the average soldier (Hedahl). This can amount to earning almost six-hundred dollars a day (Scahill xx.)Furthermore most contracts are what is called "cost-plus", which means the more a contractor spends, the more money the company receives. The contractor's profit is a percentage of the expenditure, so higher costs incurred are more profitable than contracts that stay on budget (Rasor and Bauman 22). By the end of the fiscal year 2011 over 200 billion dollars will have been spent on contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (Isenberg).

                Private military contractors function to free up  soldiers to do their primary job, which is to engage in combat. Most importantly,  contractors run the supply lines for the military, for instance delivering food, parts, and ammo to forward operating bases (Hammes).Furthermore contractors prepare the food on bases as well. They cook and serve the food in the mess halls to soldiers and contractors alike (Rasor and Bauman 142). In other settings contractors  perform maintenance on high tech equipment, such as specialized electronics and aircraft carrier systems,  that our serviceman now lack the expertise to do (Hedahl).Another job contractors fulfill is the training of local forces, such as the training of the new Iraqi army (Hartung).Contractors also perform translation and interrogation for various agencies (Lam).  Even though all these  tasks are not combat related,  contractors do take on armed roles. These roles include guarding of locations and convoys (Rasor and Bauman 121). In addition contractors also performed bodyguard roles for the U.S. State Department in Iraq (Scahill 77). Finally, Contractors fill the role of a extremely flexible workforce, almost like a temp agency for soldiers. When needed, more contractors can be hired to fill positions, and when the need for their services is no longer required, the contractors are let go (Hammes). This flexibility prevents the expenditure of political power to expand the standing armed forces, and the long term spending associated with career soldiers (Hammes).

                Private military contractors are a key part of how we fight wars today. Contractors may blur the line between military and civilians, but they have secured a large foothold in our fighting style. Accountability is at times shoddy, and funding a complicated affair, but contractor's flexibility makes them an invaluable tool.