Pmc's In Iraq

In the Middle East, and other countries active in their military uses, are raising high questions of controversy against whether or not PMC’s should be implemented at an international scale. After these countries in the middle east have been hit with attacks, there has been thought on how to promote entrusted security for the countries. However, the use of these PMC’s can lead to security faults in diplomatic officials, and can cause unstable regions throughout a country as we have seen happen in Libya in 2012. On the contrary, PMC’s can be ideal in post-war

From June to 2004 to present, beloved Colonel Michael Dane Steele is in command of 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Rakkasans). I have just been notified that I will take command from Colonel Steele in November 2006 which leaves just short of six months for me to plan for the change. A review of author Raffi Khatchadourian’s article, “The Kill Company,” published in The New Yorker on July 6, 2009 is necessary for background in writing this paper, however; the timeframe assumed for the purpose of writing this essay is June 2004. To this end, it must also be assumed that the author does not benefit from the knowledge gained by reading most of the information in Khatchadourian’s article. My goal is to set and maintain an effective, ethical command climate through investigation, self-education, and unit-wide professional military education.

The topic for this paper will be to consider the role of civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where applicable investigate how they were utilized in joint operations in both theaters. Also, the research will extend to the expectations for civilian contractors versus that of their military counter parts. The tentative title is, “Civilian Contractors and Their Impact on Joint Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” This may need to be focused a bit more once exploration and study is done as the approach may be too broad, but only investigation and application of resources will determine whether the scope needs to be narrowed or not.

The relationship between Civilian and Military authorities has become increasingly complicated. Gregory Foster worked to identify a number of areas that have compounded this expanding divide in his article, “The Silent Crisis”. Of the many issues presented, there are three that the author of this paper believes to be the most pressing. First, the increasing politicization of the upper military leadership. Second, the lack of strategically competent civilian authorities enhances this disparity. Lastly, an increasingly influential military-industrial complex continues to cloud the judgement of civil authorities.

Destroying Iraq’s key society underpinnings risked effective American post-war governance and put the invasion force Commander’s objectives at odds with the overall strategic objective. General Franks misunderstood the operational environment, misdiagnosed the problem and pursued an operational approach that inhibited post-invasion success.

For any country, military spending is a big part of the national budget. Over time this business transaction has formed into a relationship between the nation’s armed forces and these private defense industries.

Military Professional Resources Inc. is a military consultant firm. This firm and other like I help unstable governments, revolutionary forces, or oil and mining companies working in hostile areas by providing former service members from the U.S, Britain, or South Africa to offer protection. These firms train the local police and military to fight their own conflicts. Fraud and waste by private contractors in the Middle East continue to be a problem. In Iraq, alone 14 major contractors were given minimal or no competition according to a report issued by the General Accounting Office. These contractors cost the taxpayer

During that same House Committee hearing, Rep. McKinney also confronted Rumsfeld questioning why Dyncorp has continued to receive contracts even though the company had been involved with human trafficking. In short, DynCorp is an exceedingly politically-connected corporation with executives and board members who served in the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Nonetheless, in response to McKinney’s question, Rumsfeld answered, “I’m advised…that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized, but I’m told it was an employee of the corporation and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place.” To clarify, the corporation’s executives weren’t involved with trafficking, but they decided to figuratively kill the messenger once they were made aware of the heinous actions

Since the Revolutionary War, America has used contractor support to supplement various roles throughout our military. Throughout the years, these roles have adapted, and the total number of contractors has increased. Today, the current ratio of contractor to service member is nearly 1 to 1 in a deployed theater. Think about that for a moment, for every Soldier, Sailor, Airmen, or Marine, there is a civilian contractor and, in most cases, their primary role is sustainment. Herein lies a fundamental problem, while we operate in relative safety in the COIN environment, how will these contractors function in a near-peer on peer threat scenario?

Secondly, at the standard of theater strategy, in launching an unannounced invasion against a vast country whose tactical strength he was not trying encroach upon. Ruling in the Iraqi government is at the mercy of the Ba’th party, whose society infiltrates the legislative structure and a far-reaching audience. Political factions opposite the Ba’th, may candidly take part in an organized allied group, the National Front, but only governed by the Ba’th’s orders. Even though affiliation in the organization is not a requirement for government commissioning, or even for progressive development, many of Ba’th and non Ba’th Iraqi’s consent that, “An incompetent Ba’thi is unlikely to be promoted, but all factors being equal a Ba’thi has a greater advantage then a non-Ba’thi.” (Helms

The on-going war in Iraq has been a war that has changed the tactics in which war is fought. The war in Iraq has been fought mainly through the use of aerial missiles and by surprise, a large number of women. This current war has demonstrated the change of times and the rise of the information age. But the most surprising aspect of the war in Iraq is the large sum of private security forces patrolling Iraq. These private security forces have amassed to around 20,000 soldiers so far in the Iraqi region and growing. Their role according to a New York Times article, is in addition to guarding innumerable reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide security for the chief of the

While the President’s intent was to achieve a democratic Iraq that would influence the region, he was also committed to avoiding a massive nation building endeavor. A rapid transition of the Iraqi government and their society was another center of gravity that was unattainable due to extensive damage from bombing and insufficient dedication of resources. The small team appointed to begin reconstruction and humanitarian assistance efforts was woefully inadequate and ill prepared for what they faced. In spite of the objective to preserve Iraqi infrastructure, Bagdad’s utility and communication networks were in shambles from extensive U.S. bombing and years of neglect. Compounding the issues were the complete dissolution of government ministries and the police force. The reconstruction team’s mission was to aid the existing Iraqi government rebuilding efforts and they were far too small to address the situation alone. Exacerbating the reconstruction efforts were the escalating security crisis in Bagdad without sufficient U.S. forces in place and plans to begin redeployment

Currently, concerning PMCs primarily, the US State Department provides oversight to the many companies that operate across the globe. This is because it is the State Department that assigns these contracts to said companies in the first place. But if tomorrow the law was changed and PMCs were allowed to operate in the manner of traditional mercenaries, who would handle oversight then? It could possibly remain the State Department, or the UN could easily provide oversight for a PMC to operate as an actual mercenary force. Best-case scenario both organizations would work together to provide oversight. They can provide rules and guidelines for these companies similar to the rules and guidelines militaries are given when they operate in a war-zone. In fact many of these companies and their contractors are already beholden to the same standards as the military. In his book, Civilian Warriors, Erik Prince bashes the idea many anti-Blackwater groups held to that Blackwater’s men were wild cowboys who shot anything that moved. He disputes this claim by providing the exact rules on the escalation of force in Iraq, that were handed down by the State Department. The outline for the use of force, for Blackwater’s men, were exactly identical to the rules of engagement given to our actual soldiers stationed in Iraq

The use of military force was justified given a threat of the Iraqi army and the threat it posed to American security. However, in 2002, a report generated for the Naval College highlighted the military capabilities of the Iraqi forces and its disproportion and imbalance with comparison to U.S. military capabilities. However, to prove that the case of Iraq does not comply with the theory of realism, it is necessary to examine the degree to which Iraq posed a security threat to the United States. The above-mentioned report was proof that Iraq had the capabilities to sustain a defensive war at best, meaning Iraq would have difficulty sustaining a defensive war which is of course, much easier than instigating an offensive conflict. Thus, it is highly improbable that the Iraqi military forces were ever a substantial threat to the security of the United

In the Post-Cold War era, the private military and security forces of today are known as Private Military Companies (PMC) and Private Security Companies (PSC), among other variants of similar names. (For simplicity, I will refer to them as PSC or PSCs.) PSCs come in all shapes and sizes, from large companies with over $12 billion in revenue employing over 600,000 people globally, to small companies with a single focus area who support one contract in one country.