Contractors in Iraq

[Don Vito Corleone]

One interesting aspect of the costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and one I haven't seen widely reported on, is our use of private contractors like Blackwater USA and CACI to fulfill what would traditionally be military or CIA/military intelligence functions.

The Blackwater contractors who were killed in Fallujah last month were highly-trained former Spec Ops troops, and the federal government paid Blackwater $1,000 per day, per man, for their services. They were performing "security" services when they were killed by militiamen in Fallujah, and by all appearances were essentially mercenaries. The four men killed were among 400 Blackwater contractors in Iraq.

The CACI interrogators and translators at Abu Ghraib prison (some of whom are now implicated in the abuses there) were performing a function that would ordinarily be the bailiwick of CIA agents, and which involved the highest levels of secure compartmentalized information, since it appears to have related to national security. Again, they were highly paid (I don't know the exact amount). Apparently DoD hired a total of approximately 100 contractors from CACI and another firm as interrogators and translators.

I find this interesting for a couple of reasons.

It strikes me that DoD draws two meaningful benefits from hiring such contractors (and this is sheer conjecture on my part), neither of which benefits the American public in any way:

1. This allows them to be paid from a different pot of money than the designated OIF funds, allowing DoD to request smaller appropriations for the war, and thus ruffling fewer feathers in Congress. Thus, as far as I can see, we are paying Blackwater more than $350K a year for work that could as easily be done by an Army E-5 for a small fraction of that amount.

2. They afford DoD plausible deniability as to whatever it is they're doing. That is, if one of them commits a crime or war crime, DoD can say, "hey, they are contractors, and they were acting in accordance with their own training, not at our direction." Interestingly, the chairman of CACI has already taken great pains to clarify that their employees were acting under military direction at Abu Ghraib (obviously I have no idea whether that's true).

Whether my theories are valid or not, I'm not crazy about us spending this amount of money on operators over whom we lack tight, UCMJ-style control.

Here is an interesting article on the subject.

 

[Zebo]

Because the republican sheep believe the line about private contractors can do things cheaper (USA jr enlisted man costs about $27K a year) meanwhile the grift from the tax payer continues to friends and patrons who put Bush in office. BTW Don, you should work for one of these Corps. I know several former military/former Lockheed guys in Iraq making well above $120K and 89K is tax free.

 

[imported_Aelius]

This reminds me of government outsourcing.

People complain that government is too big. Government cuts hundreds of thousands of jobs in an effort to "tighten the belt".

Sadly it would cripple or outright shatter government functionality and public safety so they make 2 pools of money.

One goes to government employees and one to contractors.

The one going to government employees is what they "brag" about in the news and telling everyone how they pleased the public and how they "did it" and how good a job they did.

While all those jobs, many public safety jobs, go to "companies". Usually ones that are in bed with the government or government management. In some cases there are kickbacks etc but generally its a "I scratch your back now you scratch mine" attitude.

Those employees are now "generally" without benefits, lower paid, and as those companies charge per hour they charge up to 100% more per hour for "administrative" fees. It all depends on how much they can can the government management they are in bed with to milk the government coffers.

In the meantime there is massive turnover rates, general knowhow and technically ability is diminished.

Thats when you get things like Walkerton (Ontario Canada), where poor trained or a lack of skilled or any water purity testers lead to outright death.

Best part? The ones who do this get away with it scott free. In the Walkerton example the government heads are at home watching TV and driving their SUVs to private estates while a bunch of people are dead and their families are left with partial answers and no one is held responsible.

I know what it is like because I work in a place that is critical that was outsourced from the government and went from a virtual zero turnover rate to a 60% turnover rate every few months.

 

[Pepsei]

Also, with contractors, they can get away with doing anything they want. Supposely, the contracts stipulates that they will not be sued for any reason while performing their duties in Iraq.

 

[imported_Aelius]

Its called a security blanket.

Employees are not held accountable. The firm is however, unless they are provided a security blanket by the government, which is then responsible but at that point its up to the courts to decide.