The Shadow Army

“Who Will Stop the US Shadow Army in Iraq?”, Jeremy Scahill asks on TomDispatch.com and TruthOut.com. In addition to the 145,000 active duty U.S. forces in Iraq, there are an estimated 126,000 private military “contractors”, employed by companies such as Blackwater, Halliburton and Halliburton's subsidiary KBR. Many of them earn much more than the U.S. soldiers or even the Secretary of Defense. “We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of Defense,” said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. “How in the hell do you justify that?”

“House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman estimates that US$4 billion in taxpayer money has so far been spent in Iraq on these armed “security” companies like Blackwater – with tens of billions more going to other war companies like KBR and Fluor for “logistical” support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of the House Intelligence Committee believes that up to forty cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors.”

We know – or at least we think we know – how many American soldiers have died in Iraq, with the media publishing a daily running total, but it is far from clear how many contractors have died. CNN keeps on repeating like a stupid parrot that 7 contractors have so far been died in Iraq. This is a pure lie. If you don't know, at least say you don't know, instead of misleading the world. According to Scahill and the Baltimore Sun, “ although contractor deaths are not effectively tallied, at least 770 contractors have been killed in Iraq and at least another 7,700 injured.”

Finally, there is the question of accountability. These contractors can murder with impunity without ever being held accountable in a court of law. Scahill continues: “While dozens of American soldiers have been court-martialed – 64 on murder-related charges – not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for a crime against an Iraqi. In some cases, where contractors were alleged to have been involved in crimes or deadly incidents, their companies whisked them out of Iraq to safety.” One armed contractor recently told the Washington Post, “We were always told, from the very beginning, if for some reason something happened and the Iraqis were trying to prosecute us, they would put you in the back of a car and sneak you out of the country in the middle of the night.” According to another, U.S. contractors in Iraq had their own motto: “What happens here today, stays here today.”

The private contractors are not subject to the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the U.S. civilian courts and certainly not the Iraqi courts. They are a brutal shadow army of killers accountable to nobody.

Not only the U.S. army should leave Iraq immediately, this illegal mercenary army must also be withdrawn – and forthwith sent to an international war crimes tribunal.

Learn more about Blackwater in Jeremy Scahill's book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army”.