[News] Robert Fisk: Occupiers spend millions on mercenaries

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Robert Fisk : Occupiers spend millions on private army of security men

Robert Fisk in Baghdad and Severin Carrell in London

28 March 2004

An army of thousands of mercenaries has appeared in Iraq's major cities, 
many of them former British and American soldiers hired by the occupying 
Anglo-American authorities and by dozens of companies who fear for the 
lives of their employees.

Many of the armed Britons are former SAS soldiers and heavily armed South 
Africans are also working for the occupation. "My people know how to use 
weapons and they're all SAS," said the British leader of one security team 
in southern Baghdad. "But there are people running around with guns now who 
are just cowboys. We always conceal our weapons, but these guys think 
they're in a Hollywood film."

There are serious doubts even within the occupying power about America's 
choice to send Chilean mercenaries, many trained during General Pinochet's 
vicious dictatorship, to guard Baghdad airport. Many South Africans are in 
Iraq illegally - they are breaking new laws, passed by the government in 
Pretoria, to control South Africa's booming export of mercenaries. Many 
have been arrested on their return home because they are do not have the 
licence now required by private soldiers.

Casualties among the mercenaries are not included in the regular body count 
put out by the occupation authorities, which may account for the persistent 
suspicion among Iraqis that the US is underestimating its figures of 
military dead and wounded. Some British experts claim that private policing 
is now the UK's biggest export to Iraq - a growth fueled by the surge in 
bomb attacks on coalition forces, aid agencies and UN buildings since the 
official end of the war in May last year.

Many companies operate from villas in middle-class areas of Baghdad with no 
name on the door. Some security men claim they can earn more than £80,000 a 
year; but short-term, high-risk mercenary work can bring much higher 
rewards. Security personnel working a seven-day contract in cities like 
Fallujah, can make $1,000 a day.

Although they wear no uniform, some security men carry personal 
identification on their flak jackets, along with their rifles and pistols. 
Others refuse to identify themselves even in hotels, drinking beer by the 
pool, their weapons at their feet. In several hotels, guests and staff have 
complained that security men have held drunken parties and one manager was 
forced to instruct mercenaries in his hotel that they must carry their guns 
in a bag when they leave the premises. His demand was ignored.

One British company director, David Claridge of the security firm Janusian, 
has estimated that British firms have earned up to £800m from their 
contracts in Iraq - barely a year after the invasion of Iraq. One 
British-run firm, Erinys, employs 14,000 Iraqis as watchmen and security 
guards to protect the country's oil fields and pipelines.

The use of private security firms has led to some resentment amongst the 
Department for International Development's aid workers - who fear it 
undermines the trust of Iraqi civilians. "DFID staff would prefer not to 
have this," said one source. "It's much easier for them to do their job 
without any visible security, but the security risks are great down there."

One South African-owned firm, Meteoric Tactical Solutions, has a £270,000 
contract with DFID which, it is understood, involves providing bodyguards 
and drivers for its most senior official in Iraq and his small personal staff.

Another British-owned company, ArmorGroup has an £876,000 contract to 
supply 20 security guards for the Foreign Office. That figure will rise by 
50 per cent in July. The firm also employs about 500 Gurkhas to guard 
executives with the US firms Bechtel and Kellogg Brown & Root.

Opposition MPs were shocked by the scale of the Government's use of private 
firms to guard British civil servants, and claimed it was further evidence 
that the British army was too small to cope. Menzies Campbell, the Liberal 
Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This suggests that British 
forces are unable to provide adequate protection and raises the vexed 
question of overstretch - particularly in light of the remarks by the Chief 
of the Defence Staff, last week that Britain couldn't stage another 
operation on the scale of Iraq for another five years."

Andrew Robathan, a Tory MP on the international development select 
committee and former SAS officer, said: "The Army doesn't have the troops 
to provide static guards on this scale. Surely it would have been cheaper 
to have another battalion of troops providing guards."

The UK's largest private security firm in Iraq, Global Risk Strategies, is 
helping the coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi administration to 
draft new regulations. It is expecting to increase its presence from 1,000 
to 1,200 staff this spring, and could reach 1,800 this year. However, aid 
charities are disturbed by the sums being spent on security, since DFID has 
diverted £278m from its mainstream aid budget for Iraqi reconstruction. 
Dominic Nutt, of Christian Aid, said: "This sticks in the craw. It's right 
that DFID protects its staff, but this is robbing Peter to pay Paul."

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