IN THE NEWS
Sometimes, the news can be truly baffling: Case in point is this article about the CPA's push to keep "contractors" in a legal limbo. We're really discussing mercenaries, of course, since "cooks and bottle washers" are clearly not the issue.
Perhaps this issue was the 27th item on the agenda for a recent meeting among a senior group of decision-makers: interim prime minister Ayad Allawi; CPA chief Paul Bremer; his deputy, David Gompert; and Lt. General Paul Sanchez. The fact that the US government was pushing this proposal, among this group of people, this early into the discussion with the interim Iraqi government, is startling.
The CPA wants to keep companies like CACI, Titan, and Blackwater from being subject to either US military justice or Iraqi law. In other words, the ubiquitous, infamous mercenaries and contract interrogators featured prominently in the most depressing news of the last several weeks would operate effectively outside any law 
whatsoever.
Why this issue, and why now? You'd be hard-pressed to find a hotter button to push with both the Iraqi and US public than torture. Some of these firms are, of course, the ones who were involved in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the Baghdad airport facility, and other detention centers. These companies are rightly concerned about what the new Iraqi government will do with the them after the "transfer of sovereignty" (whatever that means at this point). Which means, of course, before this meeting with Allawi, Bremer and Sanchez undoubtedly had another set of meetings with CACI et al. about these concerns.
The Rumsfeldian fetish for privatization wasn't the start of the US military's dependence on companies like Blackwater, but it certainly shifted this trend into high gear. In Iraq specifically, there are insufficient troops in theater for the variety of missions the US and coalition forces face. The Bush Administration's fallback plan, of course, is further privatization of military and intelligence functions.
That trend does not automatically mean, however, that mercenaries should be outside the law. According to James Davies in his book, Fortune's Warriors, the dividing line between mercenaries and outlaw bands is lawfulness: respect for the Geneva Conventions, other international restrictions on combatants, and whatever US laws should apply. Mercenaries can and should operate under the rule of law, according to Davies, someone who works in the "private security services" field.
If this is an effort to protect Titan and CACI from legal action, it's pretty maladroit. It's also counterproductive: at this point, the US government needs to demonstrate clearly that it's keeping the mercenaries on a far tighter leash. Instead, Bremer and Sanchez are doing the opposite, at the worst possible 
time.
Our dependence on mercenaries may be new to us, but mercenaries are nothing new in the history of warfare. They're notorious for their unreliability, retreating or switching sides when the price is right. They're equally notorious for the destruction they've created in conflicts like the Thirty Years War.
If the "global electronic village" had more visibility into the day-to-day activities of CACI, Titan, Blackwater, and similar companies, we all might be a bit less nervous. However, these companies have been operating behind a curtain of secrecy since their arrival in Iraq, and the CPA has been yanking the curtain back in place in the few cases where the press has tried to take a peek at what they're doing.
We're long overdue for a full accounting of mercenary operations in Iraq. We're losing political ground every day that we keep coddling these companies. The lines of accountability, operationally and legally, need to be very, very clear and very, very strong. Which makes today's news about the Bremer/Sanchez/Allawi meeting extremely baffling.
POSTSCRIPT:
I actually forgot an important point in this post. Shame on me.
This incident deepens the Iraqis' cynicism about our invasion. Once the original cassus belli--Baathist WMD programs and support for terrorists--proved to be fictions, the one noble justification left for the invasion was liberating the Iraqis. (There are other, more Realpolitik arguments you could make, so for the moment, I'm just talking about the morally stirring rationales.) The first new nation, the avatar of constitutional democracy and the rule of law, the superpower with a human face, was intervening to save the Iraqis from one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. The supporters of the war are right on that point: Hussein needed to fall, along with anyone who tried to take his place as the head of a murderous autocracy. (How and when, of course, are the subject of much debate.)
Unfortunately, the United States looks like it dropped its moral compass in the Tigris and has yet to fish it out again. The indefinite detention and torture of Iraqi suspects, many of whom are clearly innocent of aiding the insurgents; the bloody siege of Fallujah; the under-the-table arrangements to ensure US dominance of key sectors of the Iraqi economy; the inability to distinguish between anti-occupation insurgents and anti-American terrorists; the bizarre disinterest in the complexities of Iraqi politics, and the importance of getting serious about the new Iraqi constitution; the cynical cronyism of US support for Chalabi and his family--all of these incidents, and more, made us look like we don't believe in the words we're mouthing about democracy and justice.
Now, at the 11th hour, right before we hand over sovereignty, just when the skeptics are waiting to see that this handover is something more than just a PR event...
Bremer and Sanchez are working hard to keep mercenaries from being subject to any law whatsoever.
Baffling. Dismaying. Outrageous.
Comments