PBS - 6/21/05 - 'Private Warriors' - (set the TIVO)

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PBS Documentary: Private Warriors - 6/21/05

FRONTLINE returns to Iraq, this time to embed with Halliburton/KBR, and to take a hard look at private contractors like Blackwater, Aegis and Erinys, who play an increasingly critical role in running U.S. military supply lines, providing armed protection, and operating U.S. military bases. These private warriors are targeted by insurgents and in turn have been criticized for their rough treatment of Iraqi civilians. Their dramatic story illuminates the Pentagon's new reliance on corporate outsourcing and raises tough questions about where they fit in the chain of command and the price we are paying for their role in the war.

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Private Warriors: New PBS Doc Questions Role of Military Contractors in Iraq

It's been two and half years since the invasion of Iraq. Month after month, the army cannot meet its recruitment goals. At the same time, the military has increasingly been outsourcing services to private contractors. Between the logistics giant Halliburton and numerous armed security companies, private military contractors now comprise the second largest force in Iraq, far outnumbering the allied troops.

A new documentary titled "Private Warriors," gives viewers an unprecedented behind-the scenes look at companies working in Iraq like Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary and Erinys a South African private security company. The film raises questions about the accountability of these companies and the Pentagon's increasing reliance on them. This is an excerpt that begins with Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. He served as a base commander in Iraq in early 2004.

(audio at link)

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More information on 'PMC's':

Making a Killing: the Business of War

Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often, these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests, whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions have prolonged the conflicts.

A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has also found that a handful of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this war commerce – a growth industry whose bottom line never takes into account the lives it destroys.

(Very detailed report at link. Written in 2002, the report is an indicator of where the Pentagon is headed, as far as 'boots on the ground')

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