Report: Tighten reins on war-zone contractors - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Report: Tighten reins on war-zone contractors

The U.S. should continue its reliance on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan but transfer responsibility for managing private security personnel to the military police and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, a new report on Pentagon contracting concludes.

“Our view of why this should happen is the difficulty in ensuring control of these actors and proper accountability and oversight,” says co-author Michael Cohen, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. Security contractors, he and the other authors argue, should be limited to “inside-the-wire” operations.

The authors argue that the U.S. acted similarly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when it federalized the U.S. airport security force by creating the Transportation Security Administration. “It should follow its own example and move with alacrity to address the need to protect U.S. government personnel in war zones,” the report states.

The issue of Pentagon and State Department reliance on private contractors in the war zones has been hotly debated in Congress and elsewhere following a string of high-profile incidents in Iraq involving private security firms. These included contractors involved in the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal and several incidents involving the controversial private security firm Blackwater USA, including the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards escorting a convoy in Baghdad.

Getting rid of all contractors, as Cohen noted some on Capitol Hill have called for, is “unfeasible in the short term — particularly in stabilization missions, static defense,” where he said contractors play an important role. He pointed out that of the more than 190,000 contractors serving in Iraq alone, only 12,258 work in security jobs, and only two-thirds of those are armed.

But, the authors conclude, “We believe that those providing security services on behalf of the U.S. government — and charged with making life and death decisions — must ... ‘wear the uniform’ and ‘take an oath’ to uphold the Constitution.”

Transitioning away from private security contractors would be ill-advised, countered labor attorney Tara Lee, who spoke along with Cohen and others during a Nov. 14 discussion of the contractor issue in Washington.

“I think it’s a really popular conclusion … and there’ll be no shortage of people saying what a fantastic recommendation that is,” Lee said. “I’m a little worried it’s just going to snowball” and start eroding the responsibilities now contracted out to private firms.

“What I would urge is when you identify a problem, we come up with a solution that symmetrically matches the problem,” she said. “And in this case, the identified problem is that there’s been an increased involvement by non-state actors that’s not being matched by a commensurate effort to manage and oversee that process.

“Now is probably not the right time” to take private security contractors out of the war zones,” Lee said. “This is a time when we need the best resources the United States has to offer.”

Beginning one year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, private contractors, including security contractors employed by the State Department in Iraq, had presumptive immunity from host nation laws by Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, issued in June 2004.

The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2004 made private contractors or any federal civilian agency or provisional authority supporting a Defense Department mission overseas potentially subject to prosecution in U.S. courts for crimes. In late 2006, Congress quietly passed a law that placed Pentagon-specific contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Pending legislation would govern the actions of all private contractors employed by any government agency outside the U.S. in connection with either a war or a contingency operation, with no requirement that the contract “support the mission” of the Defense Department, according to the nonprofit organization Human Rights First.

But overall U.S. authority to operate in Iraq falls under a U.N. mandate that expires at midnight on Dec. 31. The Iraqi government is now considering the final U.S. draft of a proposed Status of Forces Agreement. The Iraqis reportedly had demanded that all U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iraq be under the authority of the Iraqi judicial system.

U.S. officials reportedly balked but have since softened their stance, saying that American personnel should have immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts except for serious or premeditated felonies committed outside their official duties.

The reports have been impossible to verify because no copy of the draft SOFA has been leaked.

One very interested observer during the Nov. 14 discussion was Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater USA, who thanked the panel during the question-and-answer session “for having a fact-based, non-hyperbolic debate on these issues.”

Blackwater has a five-year contract with the State Department that is reportedly worth $250 million per year.

Asked what Blackwater would do if a provision placing American military and contractor personnel under Iraqi legal jurisdiction were agreed to by the U.S. and Iraq, Prince replied, “I can’t make any comment because I listen to my customer, [and] hopefully they listen to us as to what our right and left flanks are. But I can’t say anything more about that now.”

ABCNews.com reported Friday that a federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations that Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food.

The report, based on information from unnamed former Blackwater employees, also said larger items, including M-4 assault weapons, were secreted on shipping pallets surrounded by stacks of dog food bags. The entire pallets would be wrapped in cellophane shrink wrap, the former employees said, making it less likely US Customs inspectors would look too closely.

Under State Department rules, Blackwater is prohibited from using certain assault weapons and silencers in Iraq because they are considered "offensive" weapons inappropriate for Blackwater’s role as a private security firm protecting US diplomatic missions, the ABCNews.com report said.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said certain arms shipments were sent to Iraq surrounded by dog food “to secure them on the airplane and not to smuggle them.” Tyrrell said she could not comment on specifics because of “the ongoing investigation” but denied the company had done anything wrong.

Also on Friday, the Associated Press reported that federal prosecutors have drafted an indictment against six Blackwater security guards in last year's deadly Baghdad shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The draft is being reviewed by senior Justice Department officials but no charging decisions have been made, the AP report said, adding that a decision is not expected until at least later this month, according to sources close to the case.