Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

[defendandprotect]

Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

EXCERPT ONLY --

This isn’t an idle concern or a typical bureaucratic tussle. The State Department has hired private security for its diplomats in war zones for the better part of a decade. Poor control of them caused one of the biggest debacles of the Iraq war: the September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square, where Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Now roughly double those guards from the forces on duty now, and you’ll understand the scope of what State is planning once the U.S. military withdraws from Iraq at the end of this year.


“They have no experience running a private army,” says Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War who just returned from a weeks-long trip to Iraq. “I don’t think the State Department even has a good sense of what it’s taking on. The U.S. military is concerned about it as well.”

So far, the Department has awarded three security contracts for Iraq worth nearly $2.9 billion over five years. Bowen can’t even say for sure how much the department actually intends to spend on mercs in total. State won’t let it see those totals.

About as much information as the department has disclosed about its incipient private army comes from a little-noticed Senate hearing in February. There, the top U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq said that they’d station the hired guard force at Basra, Irbil, Mosul and Kirkuk, with the majority — over 3,000 — protecting the mega-embassy in Baghdad. They’ll ferry diplomats around in armored convoys and a State-run helicopter fleet, the first in the department’s history.




http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/iraq-merc-army/

[aquart]

1. Out of sight, out of mind.

Mercenaries have a lot to do with out-of-control spending.

[defendandprotect]

2. We're paying $1,000 per gal to KBR for gasoline which would keep a helicopter in air one minute!!

The bill for air conditioning for our troops in ME is bigger than

NASA's budget!!


It's like watching reruns of The Sopranos!!



:(

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr nt