Mercenaries

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the use of 'private military contractors', once known as 'mercenaries', has become standard practice for countries such as the UK and the US. Private military companies have become big business, with an estimated turnover world wide of $100bn, and their use is set to rise.

An employee of US mercenary firm Blackwater on duty in Iraq.

Mercenaries have been around almost as long as war itself. The issue came to prominence recently in the 1998 Arms to Sierra Leone affair when UK company Sandline International was alleged to have broken a UN arms embargo by providing forces of the exiled government of Sierra Leone with 28 tonnes of small arms from Bulgaria. The founder of Sandline, Colonel Tim Spicer, moved on to form a new company, Aegis Defence Services, which in 2004 was awarded a $293m contract by the Pentagon to 'coordinate' the 50-odd security companies now operating in Iraq.

Though no one seems to know the numbers for certain, the US-led 'Multinational Force Iraq' estimated in March 2005 that there were around 20,000 'private security operators' working in the country. Other estimates put the figure at double that. Either figure is significant when compared to the number of UK troops in Iraq: 8000. Officially the roles of private military operators are confined to protecting key sites and individuals, and military training, but increasingly they have been sucked into combat roles and it is alleged that they also do the 'dirtiest' kind of work in the interrogation centres.

The upper ranks of the companies are often filled with recently serving officers in the US and UK armies, who get up to five times as much money in their new positions as they had working for their governments. But overall the companies are cheap, because most of their staff come from Iraq or from poor countries like Nepal and Fiji and are willing to serve for a fraction of a UK soldier's pay.

Cost reduction is not the only benefit mercenaries bring governments. Mercenaries can enable the US and UK governments to intervene in other countries in ways that would not be permitted by their legislatures and publics. Employees of the companies are not subject to military law; in fact it is unclear whether they are subject to any law at all.

In February 2002, following the Sierra Leone scandal, the Government produced its long-awaited Green Paper, 'Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation', but has moved no further toward introducing regulation. CAAT fears that if and when regulation does appear the new terminology being used, as well as the wide range of activities undertaken by 'private military companies', could serve to legitimise activities which would previously have been unreservedly condemned.

As if to substantiate this fear, leaders of private military companies themselves are calling for regulation. Colonel Spicer said in December 2004: "As an industry we should welcome oversight and regulation, not shy away from it. It helps further legitimise the industry and clarifies grey areas: and there are a lot of grey areas. As to the morality of this work, I have never had a problem with it."

Further Reading

The Privatisation of Violence CAAT Report, 1999

CAAT's response to the Green Paper on Private Military Companies, 2002