Volume 5, No. 7, July 2004

 Suman

Truth is the first casuality in any war, goes the saying. But many bitter truths would come out too when a just war is fought against an unjust war. In the first few days of fighting in April, more than 80 foreign mercenaries were killed and their deaths were not made public by the U.S. In the first week of April at Falluja, four mercenaries were caught and killed by the Iraqi fighters. When dead bodies were dragged and abused, why did the US army not go and bring back the bodies? These questions snow balled in the US and the truth came out.

Mercenaries from around the world, especially those supplied by private security firms based in the United States and United Kingdom, are deployed in large numbers in Iraq to quell the resistance. The number is 18,000 to date.

The U.S Army preferred mostly to stay behind fortified bases. The vulnerable task of maintaining security in vital installations in Iraq has been entrusted to the mercenaries. The US does not want to completely depend upon the 200,000-strong Iraqi security forces doubting their loyalties in doing such tasks. Recent events have proved this too. An Iraqi division refused to join the U.S. attack on Falluja because it did not want to spill the blood of compatriots. In many parts of Iraq, where fighting has raged in recent weeks, Iraqi police personnel have joined with the forces of the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Bush was asked about the growing role of privately contracted soldiers in Iraq and to explain how soldiers hired by U.S. contractors became the second largest fighting force in Iraq after the U.S. Army. He chose not to reply.

The massive and widespread eruption of the spring time rebellion in Iraq in the first week of April began after the killing of four U.S. mercenaries in Falluja city. The killing and kidnapping of foreigners on a large scale was aimed at sending a message to the international community that guns for hire and foreigners working for Western companies were not welcome.

An over stretched U.S. Army forced the Bush administration to rely on contractors to provide additional forces in Iraq. Despite repeated requests from the Bush administration, few of the U.S.’ allies are willing to send in troops in significant numbers. Washington turned to companies who are seeking to fish fabulously in troubled waters. The security firm Blackwater USA, which has close ties with the CIA, is one of the main contractors for the Pentagon in Iraq. It provides the security for Paul Bremer, the U.S. dummy in Iraq. It has the security task of keeping him alive. The four mercenaries lynched in Falluja, all of whom belonged to the company, were former members of the U.S. Special Forces. Blackwater has used its CIA links to recruit mercenaries from countries like Chile in the past. Elite commandos played an important role in the witch-hunt against left-wing activists during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet. They are now in Iraq. The hiring has come to such an extent that the US administration has hired retired intelligence personnel even for interrogation purposes. This came to light when the photos of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Gharaib prisons surfaced in the press.

There are not U.S. firms alone in this dirty work. Several British companies are too recruiting contract soldiers from South Africa, Fiji and Nepal.

The salaries are fabulous. But, not for the mercenaries from Asian countries. The salaries are much lower than their white counterparts’. The whites get around $1,000 a day. After the invasion of Iraq, the profits of British security firms have reached around $1 billion. Blackwater has a $35.7-million contract in Iraq. Money is thicker than patriotism. U.K. and U.S. soldiers are eager to leave the armed forces of their respective countries to opt for lucrative contracts as guns for hire in Iraq.

So far there is no law to control or regulate over these private companies who hire guns. Blackwater is resisting such efforts of any clamp down to bring them under military law.

The US military has gone headlong for privatization, especially under Rumsfeld. One 2002 memo from Secretary of the US Army, Thomas White , suggests that as much as a third of its budget is going on private contractors, while army numbers are falling. The rationale is to save money by using temporary ones.

Private military contractors are not the only ones discreetly trying to help the Americans out of the quagmire in Iraq. Israeli advisers are helping train U.S. Special Forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations, like the ones witnessed in Falluja and other towns in early April. Israeli military consultants are known to have visited Iraq to help the U.S. forces train assassination squads in order to target guerilla leaders and "wanted" clerics such as Muqtada al-Sadr.

Israeli tactics in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are being duplicated in Iraq. Recalcitrant towns are "fenced off" with razor wire, and buildings, including mosques, housing suspected insurgents are destroyed with bombs and missiles fired from Apache helicopters. A senior U.S. Army officer wrote in the Army magazine that a high-level team visited Israel to learn from the latter’s counter-insurgency operations in urban areas. Based on the Israeli model, the Pentagon has set up a new counter-insurgency unit called Task Force 121.

Some private Indian security agencies also have been in this hiring of services since some time. Companies in Chandigarh and Mumbai have sent ex-servicemen to Iraq. According to reports, 3,000 to 4,000 Indians have already been deployed for security work in Iraq. But this is with the full knowledge of the officials of the Indian army. The army knows it and sent a lame circular to check the practice of sending retired service personnel since " it is against the government policy". But why could they not check this recruitment? The Indian soldiers are attached to units and are responsible for guarding key installations like oil wells and refineries. They are under direct US command.

Now it has come out in the open. But the recruitment goes on in a discreet way. The US and British security contractors in Iraq, give sub-contracts to smaller companies, some are Indian too. Iraq bound ex-servicemen will go to Kuwait. They are then taken to US bases and are sent to Iraq.

Though it is quite lucrative, for some others it is an ordeal. Four of a 20 group of Malayalees escaped from an American military camp near Mosul, after a nine month ordeal. They said they were lured to Kuwait and then sent to Iraq. In the first four months they were not allowed to telephone or send any letters to their relatives. Not a single dollar was paid to them, they said. Obviously there are many a murky angle hidden in the American aggression on Iraq.

The Indian big bourgeoisie and the NDA government always cherished to send troops to Iraq. See what Ferandes had to state to a question whether the government would prohibit recruitment of ex-servicemen: "If a citizen wants to go there how can we stop". He himself became the mercenary for the sangh parivar and he does not mind allowing others to become. Because of serious opposition from all quarters, it could not do. But still the complicity continued for long till May 8th when the GOI has banned recruitment of personnel was banned through Kuwait.

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