Frankly, I find Americans eminently more trainable than those @*!! Iraqis!

[cui bono]

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib


The Boys from Baghdad: Iraqi Commandos Trained by U.S. Contractor
by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch
September 20th, 2007

“Starting the month with a bang, the boys from Baghdad executed two baited ambushes … and further confirmed the ability to conduct operations with stealth and violence of action,” writes an unofficial historian for the ERU, in Unit History of 1st Battalion, a report obtained by CorpWatch.(1)

The “boys” that the report praises are members of one of dozens of elite Iraqi commandos units that function as a "third force” to augment the Iraqi police and army, both of which are widely considered to be failures. On this mission in early July 2005, the Emergency Response Unit, backed by the First Battalion of the Fifth Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army, had detained “anti-Iraqi forces” and intercepted roadside bombs.

Their tactics owed much to a secretive U.S. private contractor, U.S. Investigations Services (USIS), which conducted ERU trainings on U.S. military bases in Iraq -- including at Camp Dublin and Camp Solidarity. The trainings began under General David Petreaus as an effort to bolster security in Iraq, and soon evolved into a system for providing support to the deeply sectarian Ministry of the Interior.

<snip>

The ERUs are now officially controlled and paid by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and are accompanied by U.S. trainers or soldiers throughout their training. But a high-level State Department report issued in 2005 explains that the Iraqi commandos were initially rejected by the very Ministry of the Interior that they were intended to support when they were created more than three years ago. Instead, U.S. officials and contractors controlled the ERUs, which became an unofficial Iraqi face to provide local cover for U.S. operations. With no support from the Iraqi government at the time, the ERU had to rely on USIS for salaries, thereby becoming a privately financed militia.

<snip>

It is becoming increasingly clear that such training programs may be causing or at least exacerbating civil war. Part of the blame lies within the complex failures of the U.S. occupation and part with the loyalties and skills of the forces recruited into the myriad security training programs that are associated with different ministries and thus with different, and often rival, political factions.

much more...
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14700

Who Owns USIS?

For the first 11 years of its existence as a private company USIS was owned by the Carlyle Group. In May 2007 USIS was sold again to Providence Equity Partners (PEP) for $1.5 billion. The Rhode Island private equity group specializes in media, entertainment and communications companies. PEP’s most famous acquisition was the purchase of Clear Channel’s television network.(41)

The top advisor to PEP is Michael Powell, a former policy advisor to Dick Cheney, when Cheney was U.S. Secretary of Defense. But Powell is better known for two other reasons: He is the son of Colin Powell, a former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military position in the Department of Defense. Michael Powell's other claim to fame was that when George W. Bush appointed Colin Powell secretary of state, the president chose Michael to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There he presided over the deregulation that allowed Clear Channel to acquire the television stations in a way that would have been previously illegal.(42)

Two years after Michael Powell resigned from the FCC, his client, PEP, bought up the very same television stations.

[judaspriestess]

1. k&r

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ah the new age of Condotieri is upon us

[Robbien]

3. Just a reminder. Clinton was the one who privatized govt security checks to USIS

In 1996, the Clinton administration privatized this office, purportedly to save money, and sold it for $545 million to the Carlyle Group.

The majority of Iraqis they train are Kurds. Our military feels the Kurds are the only ones they can really trust. Having Kurds provide private merc security all over Iraq is one of their biggest mistakes.

[annabanana]

5. GodDAM! . . . . I wish Americans knew this.

There used to be a musical theme at truthout, it prefaced one of the video series. "Who will tell the people". . I wish I could find it.

[cui bono]

7. That's interesting about Clinton.

But are you sure about the Kurds?

[Robbien]

8. Pretty sure

Wish I could re-find the article which was a pretty comprehensive piece on who makes up the mercenary forces in Iraq.

But after a quick search one can find thousands of articles with references about Blackwater and Kurdish fighters (Peshmergas) such as

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/zeitung/Sonderthemen;art893,2376903

The insurgents are mostly Arabs, and the company Pirate and Steeler work for believes Kurds are less likely to be infiltrated. They also have a long tradition of fighting against heavy odds. . . Not all private security contractors are foreign run; Pirate and Steeler work for a Kurdish peshmerga (literally, "facing death") commander. Most of his employees are Iraqi Kurds, but he also employs a dozen former Lebanese militiamen, ten Americans, and one Canadian.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MEY20060518&articleId=2461
According to Global Security, “Erinys Iraq Ltd is the private security company hired to protect Iraq’s oil pipelines under a US$40 million contract awarded in August 2003. Erinys Iraq is an affiliate of Erinys International formed in 2001, landed the Iraq contract to supply and train 6,500 armed guards charged with protecting 140 Iraqi oil wells, 7,000 kilometers of pipelines and refineries, as well as power plants and the water supply for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. A majority of Erinys’ workforce (15,000 Iraqi and 350 international staff) in Iraq are Kurdish peshmerga.”

http://www.investorsiraq.com/showthread.php?t=53546
Mr. Veldwijk said his firm hires 150 to 190 peshmerga, Kurdish fighters loyal to Iraqi Kurdish leaders, to protect its two exploration blocks. "It's not cheap," Mr. Veldwijk said. "It's not so much the peshmerga who make it expensive, but the interface on the managerial side to make sure it works well."

According to P. W. Singer, the author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, their pay ranges from $250 a month for Kurdish fighters to $1,000 a day for former Green Berets.

http://iraqnam.blogspot.com/2007/07/6000-kurdish-fighters-to-guard-iraq-oil.html
Kurds who were recruited out of the peshmerga militias of the KDP and PUK make up a large percentage of the new Iraqi army units operating in Iraq. One estimate is that the KRG could mobilise 175,000 fighters, equipped with tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery.

So from these you can kind of piece together that we hire Kurds because they won't leave for better pay to fight with al Sadr.

Sorry I couldn't find the other article, it was a great summarization of the makeup of security forces.

[Usrename]

4. K&R

mismanagement by design

[Cha]

6. Too true, cui bono.

"Billions of US tax dollars in no-bid Contracts" YUk YUK :silly: