My Rough Draft

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, PMCs were not able to be tried under Iraqi law either 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). PMCs 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, PMCs usually lack any type of oversight. 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)." The officials delegated to provide oversight from the U.S. embassy generally failed 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 contractors taking advantage of the government (Singer 154).

                Private military contractors are funded through U.S. government. Their contracts usually come from either the State Department, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Agency for International Development(Isenberg). The average contractor receives up to five or ten times more pay than the average soldier (Hedahl). This can amount to earning almost six-hundred dollars a day (Scahill xx.) Most contracts are what is called "cost-plus", which means the more a contractor spends, the more money the company receives. The profit is a percentage of the expenditure, so higher prices are more profitable for them (Rasor and Bauman 22). Over 200 billion dollars will have been spent on contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of the fiscal year (Isenberg).

                Private military contractors function to free up  soldiers to do their primary job, which is to engage in combat. PMCs run the supply lines for the military (Hammes). PMCs provide the food on bases as well (Rasor and Bauman 142). Contractors also do maintenance on high tech equipment, such as radar and aircraft carriers,  that our serviceman now lack the expertise to do (Hedahl). PMCs also train local forces to fight, such as the Iraqi military (Hartung).PMCs also preform translation and interrogation for various agencies (Lam).  PMCs also take on armed roles. These include guarding of locations and convoys (Rasor and Bauman 121). PMCs also preformed bodyguard roles for the U.S. State Department in Iraq (Scahill 77). PMCs also fill the role of a extremely flexible force. When needed, more contractors can be hired, and when the need goes away, the contractors are let go (Hammes). This also prevents the expenditure of political power to expand the standing armed forces (Hammes).

                Private military contractors are a key part of how we fight wars today. They may blur the line between military and civilians in their accountability, funding, and function, but they are not going away anytime soon.