Obama Lied, Contractors Hired
Private security contractor is use up in Afghanistan. I blame Bush! I dunno if it’s his fault, but this AP article sure talks a lot about crimes of the Bush era, while avoiding any accusations of rank hypocrisy, reckless cynicism in the current admin. I suppose it’s a refreshing change from the shrill coverage of presidential/DoD policy matters we’ve come to expect from the AP in recent years:
WASHINGTON – The military buildup in Afghanistan is stoking a surge of private security contractors despite a string of deadly shootings in Iraq in recent years that has called into question the government’s ability to manage the guns for hire.
In recent online postings, the military has asked private security companies to protect traveling convoys and guard U.S. bases in troubled southern provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar. And if truckers hired to transport fuel for the military want protection, they can hire their own armed guards, the military says.
The Bush administration expanded the use of such companies with the onset of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because it can save the military time and money. But the practice lost much of its appeal with Congress after September 2007, when five guards with what was then called Blackwater Worldwide (the company recently changed its name to Xe) opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square and killed 17 Iraqis.
Those killings followed a 2006 incident in which a drunken Blackwater employee fatally shot an Iraqi politician’s bodyguard.
Now, as President Barack Obama plans to send more U.S. personnel to Afghanistan to boost security and diplomatic efforts, more contractors are preparing to deploy, too.
Still, serious questions remain as to how these private forces are managed, when they can use deadly force and what happens if they break the rules.
Buried 12 graphs later:
In October 2007, the House voted 389-30 to give U.S. courts jurisdiction over all contractors in a war zone. But momentum on the bill stalled after the Bush administration raised objections. The Senate version of the bill, introduced by Barack Obama when he was an Illinois senator, never received a vote.
Last month, two sponsors of the bill, Reps. David Price, D-N.C., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., asked President Obama in a letter to pick up where he left off by helping Congress define which tasks only government should perform.
Currently, there are 71,700 contractors in Afghanistan, which is more than twice the number of U.S. troops. With more than 3,000 of those contractors carrying weapons, the Defense Department established an office to oversee them.
That office, known as the “armed contractor oversight directorate,” just agreed to pay $993,000 to Aegis Defense Services, a London-based security and risk management company, to help do that job.
Gates assured Levin that the military’s contract with Aegis would not result in contractors overseeing contractors.
Instead, the nearly $1 million dollar deal would provide administrative support only and that the company’s workers would not have “direct input into daily operations, force protection, or combat operations,” Gates said.
So, what is the Obama admin’s position on former Sen. Obama’s contractor bill? Stay tuned, maybe AP will bury that in another article.
Topics: Afghanistan, Obama, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:22 am Comments (1) on Sunday, March 22, 2009
One Response to “Obama Lied, Contractors Hired”
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March 23rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
I worked on the Karzai protection detail (KPD) as an augmentee for DynCorps. They were the absolute consummate professionals, and every one of them had either an American flag on their door, or something similiar to show their patriotism. Really steams me when they get labelled “Mercenary” for taking a pretty much thankless job where they will get shot at. Yes, they do get paid well, but they also can’t do the job very long because it wears you down. Besides, if the US military had been protecting him openly, it would have looked a bit bad.