October 2003

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Private Armies, Public Wars

Suraya Dadoo is a researcher with Media Review Network, an advocacy group based in Pretoria (www.mediareviewnet.com).

Shock and sadness greeted the news that a bomb had ripped through a Saudi military installation in Riyadh in May this year killing 91 people, including 10 Americans. The target was a US private military corporation (PMC) called the Vinnell Corporation, which has, controversially, been responsible for training the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) since 1975. SANG is a military force whose main job is to protect the Saudi monarchy from its own people, and to guard Saudi oilfields.

Protestors outside Faneuil Hall, Boston, during September visit by John Ashcroft © Ellen Shub

Vinnell has helped the Saudis build their National Guard from 26,000 troops to around 70,000, and has supplied American arms and training from about 750 retired US military and intelligence personnel employed by the Virginia-based company. The Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan adjunct to the Library of Congress, reported that there were presently an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 PMC workers (mostly Vinnell) inside the Saudi kingdom--a presence which many Saudis despise.

The Riyadh bombing marked the second time in eight years that Vinnell's operations in Saudi Arabia had been the target of an attack. In 1995 a car bomb blasted through an army-training program Vinnell was involved with, killing five Americans and wounding thirty more. At the time, a retired American military officer familiar with Vinnell's operations was quoted as saying: "I don't think it was an accident that it was that office that got bombed. If you wanted to make a political statement about the Saudi regime you'd single out the National Guard, and if you wanted to make a statement about American involvement you'd pick the only American contractor involved in training the guard: Vinnell."

According to Dr. William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and the author of And Weapons for All (Harper-Collins, 1995), the story of how Vinnell ended up becoming the Saudi monarchy's personal protection service is a typical one. The United States government relies on unaccountable private companies and unrepresentative foreign governments to do its dirty work on the world stage, short-circuiting democracy at home and abroad in the process. "In the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal and the end of the Cold War, many observers of US foreign policy have assumed that this penchant for covert policymaking has been put aside, but Vinnell's role in Saudi Arabia puts the lie to that comforting assumption," Hartung said.

The "dogs of war" have their day

For over three hundred years, the accepted international norm has been that only nation-states should be permitted to fight wars. However, several factors have led to the proliferation of PMCs in the 1990s. The unemployment of more than five million soldiers all over the world between 1987 and 1994, and the increasing inability of weaker, poorer governments to counter internal violence have created favorable conditions for PMCs. Western governments' fears of sustaining casualties have placed increased pressure on a UN peacekeeping force unable to keep up with the physical and financial demands of policing conflicts around the world.

Demonstrators informing students that they have the right to "opt-out"--namely, to prevent their contact information from being turned over to military recruiters--outside Lake Washington High School in Kirkland, WA 9/2. Activists held a National Opt-Out Day 9/23, and plan a national week of countering military recruitment activism 11/10-15 (including Veterans' Day). For information, www.youth4peace.org. Photo © Todd Boyle, www.snowen.org.

Not surprisingly, then, the rise of PMCs, particularly American, over the last decade--and the possibility that they may view conflict as a legitimate business activity--has provoked outrage, and sometimes violence, as the Vinnell case in Saudi Arabi demonstrated. This has prompted calls for the "mercenaries" and "dogs of war"--as they have been labeled in the popular press--to be outlawed.

"Mercenaries" are officially prohibited under Article 47 of the Geneva Convention, which defines them as persons recruited for armed conflict, by or in a country other than their own, and motivated solely by personal gain. However, few modern PMCs fit that definition completely and, indeed, spokespeople for such companies insist they rarely engage in combat and provide military skills only to legitimate, internationally recognized governments.

The Vinnell Corporation is only one of at least 90 PMCs that have operated in 110 countries worldwide. Most of these companies provide services usually carried out by a national military force, including military training, intelligence, logistics, combat, and security in conflict zones. Their headquarters can be found mainly in the United States, but Britain, France, Israel and South Africa also house PMCs. The vast majority of their services are performed in covert operations in conflict-ridden countries in Africa, South America, Asia, and the Balkans.

The business of war

American PMCs are making a killing (pardon the pun) through the business of war. As the American government seeks to extend its sphere of influence around the globe, the US Defense Department has entered into 3061 contracts with 12 of the 24 US-based PMCs since 1994. This is according to an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) investigation which revealed that Pentagon records value those contracts at more than $300 billion.

Where the money goes. War Resisters League, 2003 (www.warresisters.org)

Interestingly, more than 2700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) and Booz Allen Hamilton. KBR is a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, which Richard Cheney, the US vice president, headed as CEO from 1995 to 1999.

In 1992, the Pentagon, then headed by Cheney, who was Defense Secretary at the time, paid KBR $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave KBR an additional $5 million to update the report. KBR was also awarded contracts in 1995 and 1997 to provide logistical support in the Balkans, where the US military has been enforcing the 1995 Dayton Peace accord that ended the war in former Yugoslavia. Those contracts spiralled to $2.2 billion worth of payments over five years, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported the ICIJ.

Frank Carlucci, who served as Defense Secretary in the waning years of the Reagan administration, was chairman of Vinnell's parent company BDM when it acquired Vinnell. He is still chairman of the Carlyle Group, a merchant banking firm that owns BDM and counts George Bush, Sr., his secretary of state James Baker, former British prime minister John Major, and former Filipino prime minister Fidel Ramos, as advisers and consultants.

In 1975, Vinnell won a $77 million contract to train SANG and protect oil fields. The Saudi deal was considered the first time a US civilian company had obtained an independent contract to provide a foreign government with military services, a development initially greeted by significant skepticism and debate. Copies of 1991, 1995, and 2000 contracts, reviewed by ICIJ, show a total estimated value of nearly $500 million, and include training in counter-intelligence, "chemical defense," and other areas of operational security. Vinnell refused to comment on the contracts. From 1995 to 2000, subsidiaries of Vinnell's parent company BDM reportedly obtained more than $150 million in contracts to provide logistical support and services to the Saudi air force.

Vinnell has also been awarded a $48 million contract to train the nucleus of the new Iraqi Army. According to a Pentagon press report, work was scheduled to begin this summer, and is expected to be completed by the end of June next year.

The strong links between the US government and PMCs that have been awarded contracts raises serious questions about the revolving door between government and the private sector. These deals also reflect how pervasive America's reach is, in terms of military involvement, and the lengths to which the American government is willing go to protect its own interests.

From Bosnia to Colombia …

In 2001, the United States government was accused of aiding and abetting terrorists in Macedonia. The Americans were rumoured to have hired the services of Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) to train and assist the rebels of the NLA, the Albanian National Liberation Army, which skirmished for months with the Macedonian police and military.

MPRI's presence was also noted in other Balkan trouble spots, such as Croatia, Kosovo, and Bosnia, where its performance has been less than sterling. Other governments, most notably those of Colombia and Nigeria, were less buoyant about the utility of MPRI«s services. Colombian officials complained "the MPRI«s contributions were of little practical use," while according to the Center for Democracy and Development, the vociferous objections of the Nigerian military led to the dismissal by the president of senior army officers, among them General Malu, the Nigerian chief of staff.

According to reports, the Bush administration has already given the go-ahead to MPRI to train the Guinean security force that will be in charge of guarding the off-shore oil installations in the tiny African country.

DynCorp, which has been involved in Colombia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Bosnia, was caught in a scandal in 2000 when two employees deployed on the company's $15 million annual contract for logistical support in Bosnia and Kosovo alleged that several of their colleagues had colluded in the black-market trade of women and children. DynCorp later said the company did not tolerate such behavior and fired those accused of the offenses.

Aviation Development Corporation flies surveillance planes for the CIA. Its involvement was revealed when, in Peru, it misidentified a civilian light plane as carrying narcotics, and the plane was shot down by the Peruvian air force.

It must be remembered that this article focuses specifically on the US government's use of American PMCs. The track record of South African and British PMCs in conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Congo is just as abysmal.

The litany of charges and allegations against PMCs is endless, and with no regulation of the involvement of PMCs in global conflict, the situation is likely to worsen. The lack of transparency regarding the awarding of contracts further heightens suspicion and mistrust around the world regarding America's motives in its use of private military outfits to secretly do its dirty work. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost through the use of a secretive network of companies and shadowy intelligence operatives. The Cold War is over. The culture of deception and covert dealing should have come to an end with it.

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