Concern Over Mercenaries’ Role in Iraq Rises With Private Spending

[moe.ron]

Concern Over Mercenaries’ Role in Iraq Rises With Private Spending

by Chris Shumway (bio)

Jun 1 - In what has increasingly become an outsourced war, the Coalition Provisional Authority has just added half a billion dollars to the amount being spent on private security contractors.

The role of such mercenaries has taken on new dimensions in Iraq. Heavily-armed personnel frequently engage in work traditionally done by the military, though they may not be sufficiently trained for the task and are not subject to the same regulations and public review systems as regular soldiers.

While the exact number of private security contractors is unclear, it is estimated that 20,000 are currently working in Iraq, according to the BBC. And their numbers are likely to climb. This week the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) Program Review Board, which controls the spending of Iraqi oil revenues, approved more than $500 million in new funding for private protective forces and facilities, according to the Washington Post.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?...tem&itemid=452

What concerned me the most about this:

Unlike US soldiers, civilian contractors are not subject to provisions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. “There are strict legal regulations on how you deal with soldiers when they commit crimes,” Peter Singer, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, told the BBC. “You have the court martial system set up to investigate, prosecute and potentially punish them if they are found guilty. For the contractors, there is nothing like that,” he said. (The Brookings Institution is a Washington-based think tank funded by corporate and foundation donations.)

Security personnel working for companies hired by federal agencies other than the Defense Department, or third-party contractors from other countries, are also exempt from the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which authorizes the US to maintain criminal jurisdiction over American citizens working for or accompanying a member of the military while overseas.