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Tweets for 2008-08-08

Tweets for 2008-08-08

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Still no Oversight or Accountability for Contractors in Iraq

Still no Oversight or Accountability for Contractors in Iraq

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Another must-read, by Jeremy Scahill from today’s U.K. Guardian, “A very private war.”

Four years into the occupation, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations. They have not been subjected to military justice, and only two cases have ever reached US civilian courts, under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers some contractors working abroad. (One man was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, in a case that has yet to go to trial, while the other was sentenced to three years for possession of child-pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison.) No matter what their acts in Iraq, contractors cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts, thanks to US-imposed edicts dating back to Paul Bremer’s post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority.

The internet is alive with videos of contractors seemingly using Iraqi vehicles for target practice, much to the embarrassment of the firms involved. Yet, despite these incidents, and although 64 US soldiers have been court-martialled on murder-related charges, not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for any crime, let alone a crime against an Iraqi. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have a motto: “What happens here today, stays here today.”…

In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers, from driving trucks to doing laundry. These services are provided through companies such as Halliburton, KBR and Fluor and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But increasingly, private personnel are engaged in armed combat and “security” operations. They interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials – including some commanding US generals – and in some cases have taken command of US and international troops in battle. (my emphasis)…

Much has been made of the administration’s “failure” to build international consensus for the invasion of Iraq, but perhaps that was never the intention. Almost from the beginning, the White House substituted international diplomacy with lucrative war contracts. When US tanks rolled into Iraq in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of “private contractors” ever deployed in a war.

Please go and read the whole thing. The privatized mercenary revolution that this article describes is very disturbing.

Iraq for Sale

Iraq for Sale

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Private military contractors are earning billions of dollars in Iraq — much of it from U.S. taxpayers. “Lucrative U.S. government contracts go to firms called on to provide security for projects and personnel — jobs that in previous conflicts have been done by the military” (and under military regulations).

From Hunter at Daily Kos, on the Aegis contractor video (complete with Elvis soundtrack):

And so the circle — or spiral — continues. For those with short memories, it was the alleged misconduct of armed contractors in Iraq that led to the killing and public display of four of them, hanging from a bridge… which led to two separate massive retaliatory assaults against Fallujah… which led to a widespread backlash in Iraq… which led to, among other things, a widened insurgency… which contributed to a situation in Iraq in which armed contractors are necessary for protection of private clients… which led to the alleged misconduct of several of them…

Keep an eye out for Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers in the fall. The argument of the film wil be that the ones who benefit from the war are Bush’s and Cheney’s friends in construction, security, services, and oil. Here’s a taste: