Iraq is Too Hot Even for The Mercenaries. "Cheap" Doesn't Work.

[leftchick]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20050724-9999-mz1n24titan.html

<snip>

Like Sellin and Mahler, a growing number of civilian employees of U.S. companies contracting with the military have come home wounded – both physically and psychologically – by their on-the-job experiences in Iraq.

Operation Iraqi Freedom has put into practice the Pentagon's thinking that the U.S. military can wage a cheaper, more efficient war by outsourcing many of the behind-the-lines support functions. But the lines between warriors and civilians have blurred amid the carnage of Iraq's insurgency.

Employees of Titan and other corporations have become part of an experiment in government contracting run largely by trial and error. Several current and former Titan employees say they worked in a land of chaos and lawlessness, where company rules were often vague and employees were sometimes left to fend for themselves.

They complained of flak vests that lacked body armor, satellite phones that never worked and unsafe vehicles. Some say they were asked to drive Iraq's perilous roads in "thin-skinned" trucks while carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in payroll cash, but weren't allowed to carry guns.

"We called it 'the Wild West.' It was uncontrollable," said Marc Hill, a Titan manager from Arizona who was based near Baghdad from June 2003 until March 2004. "There was very poor planning, and they put people's lives in danger."

[IndianaGreen]

1. but they got paid well, and they didn't complain about the war

and the cruel occupation of Iraq.

These contractors should just come back home and stop being part of the military machine!

[leftchick]

2. I can't help but wonder....

What part of hiring these contractors is "cheap"?

[HawkerHurricane]

3. It cheapens the military itself

There are units trained to do these jobs: the Navy's SeaBees and the Army Corps of Engineers come to mind.

The purpose of these contractors is to have them do jobs the military can do themselves using no-bid contracts, thereby shifting money from military units to privately held companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root...
There is no military purpose for this. None.

(The Navy's SeaBees <Construction Battalions> were formed early in WW2, after incidents with civilian contractors on Wake Island. Now, we put the SeaBees out to pasture and the civilian contractors are having incidents again.)