In the shifting battlefield of Iraq, military support and military consulting have become more dangerous. Unlike the firms in such places as Bosnia or Kosovo, in Iraq these contractors have taken an increasing number casualties. While these roles had originally been contemplated to lie outside the battlefield, the front lines have become all-encompassing, bringing everyone under fire. For example, Thomas Hamill, the struggling Mississippi dairy farmer turned convoy truck driver captured by insurgents last week, was doing a job quite similar to, and no less dangerous than, that carried out by Pvt. Jessica Lynch. The only difference is that he is a private contractor and she was regular Army. In response to the reality of these dangers, many of these support contractors and consultants have armed themselves. With the U.S. military unwilling to provide weapons, many are now turning to the black market.

But the most dramatic and controversial expansion of PMF involvement is in the combat realm. Before Iraq, PMFs had fought in several combat zones, the most notable being Executive Outcomes' participation in the Sierra Leone and Angola wars. But Iraq is the first time that firms have played tactical roles alongside large numbers of U.S. troops in the field.

In Iraq, tactical PMFs, also known as military providers, play three key roles: They help defend key installations, protect key individuals such as Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer, and escort convoys. Each is obviously critical to the mission's success. If bases, buildings and other key installations are captured or destroyed, if key leaders like Bremer get killed, or if the supplies don't flow, then the operation collapses.

A listing of some 20 firms that offer such services is available from the State Department's Iraq travel Web site, but curiously does not mention Blackwater. The same issues -- the contractual process and the lack of oversight -- suffuse this sector (in one study of $58 million in protection contracts let by the CPA, five of six contracts were no-bid). But the stakes are far higher than wasted taxpayer money.

Sometimes, these assignments are described euphemistically as "private security" to make them sound less military. But these are not private guards who stroll at the local shopping mall. They involve personnel with military skills and weapons who carry out military functions, within a war zone, against military-level threats. Custer Battles, for example, is a Virginia firm that has the airport security contract in Baghdad. Airport security in this context does not mean bored attendees standing by an X-ray machine, but rather former Green Berets and Ghurka fighters defending the airport from mortars, rockets and snipers.

In short, the roles performed by these firms entail the same risks or even greater ones than those faced by U.S. military forces. As fighting has spread, PMFs have been at the forefront. Blackwater, the firm that lost the four men in Fallujah, just days later defended the CPA headquarters in Najaf from being overrun by radical Shiite militia. The firefight lasted several hours, with thousands of rounds of ammunition fired, and Blackwater even sent in its own helicopters twice to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded U.S. Marine. The same night, Hart Group, Control Risks and Triple Canopy were all involved in pitched battles. Unfortunately, the Hart position was overrun. Abandoned by nearby Coalition forces, the firm's employees had to leave one of their comrades dead on a rooftop on which he and four colleagues had been fighting after their house had been captured.

The extent of these firms' combat role is largely off policymakers' radar screen. Not only is Congress woefully ignorant of the contracts that its budgets have paid for, but senior Pentagon officials are, at best, in self-denial about the depth of the outsourcing. When pressed on the issue at a news briefing just days after the Fallujah deaths, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's response was a prototypical nonsensical Rummyism.

Reporter: Why is the armed services privatizing armed security?

Rumsfeld: The armed services are not privatizing armed security.

Reporter: Those men were providing security for...

Rumsfeld: Society.

Reporter: A convoy.

Rumsfeld: The society is privatizing security.

Reporter: However you want to say it.

Likewise, discussions with high-ranking military officers reveal that many at the most senior levels have not factored what privatization means for operations on the ground. One high-ranking general involved in Iraq operations at the Pentagon had not even heard of the battles above, let alone the Blackwater firm, still contending that firms handled only secondary tasks like K.P. duty. Indeed, when the command staff of CENTCOM toured the Najaf battle site just hours after the heroic stand by the Blackwater employees, their briefing did not even mention the key role of the firm in saving the day.

In a field that often lacks transparency and sometimes includes shady characters, Blackwater is a firm with a reputation for professionalism; it has never had a major allegation of malfeasance leveled against it. Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also one of the few that has opened up its facilities to the press.

Blackwater was originally located in the military training sector and got its start in 1996. Founded by an ex-Navy SEAL, Gary Jackson, the firm has a 5,200-square-acre facility located in tiny Moyock, N.C. Moyock may be in the heart of North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp, but it is just 25 miles south of Norfolk Naval Base. Blackwater's facility is the largest privately owned firearms training complex in the nation, and many consider it to have the best tactical shooting program. More than 50,000 personnel have gone through its training, and experts ranging from SEALs to SWAT teams (the World SWAT Challenge is held onsite) laud its facilities. In the current threat environment, the firm has focused on anti-terrorism programs, such as signing a $35 million contract to train more than 10,000 U.S. Navy sailors in force protection.

When the company was founded, Jackson described the business endeavor as like playing "roulette, a crapshoot." But the firm soon thrived. It later added an overseas contingent and starting offering private military personnel for hire, primarily to the U.S. government. As Jackson discussed with the Guardian newspaper of London, "We have grown 300 percent over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones. We have a very small niche market; we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."

Although the firm started out employing ex-American military, primarily from the Special Forces, growing demand has led it to look to other and often cheaper labor sources. The firm reports that 30 percent of its current personnel do not have military training, usually being former policemen. In February, it hired some 60 former Chilean soldiers from the Red Tactica firm, offering them contracts worth around $4,000 a month to guard oil facilities in Iraq from insurgent attack. Concerns were raised that many of them had a history with the Pinochet regime. Michelle Bachelet, Chile's defense minister, questioned "whether paramilitary training by Blackwater violated Chilean laws on the use of weapons by private citizens" and ordered an investigation. Jackson responded, "We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals -- the Chilean commandos are very, very professional."

By the time of the lethal Fallujah incident, Blackwater had expanded significantly and reported that it had 450 personnel on the ground in Iraq (a far different number from the "five to six" one Pentagon general I spoke with thought the firm employed). Plans were in the works to create a training facility for Iraqi forces, parallel to the Moyock one, at a former Iraqi Air Force Base outside Baghdad. Its most visible operation was a $21 million, noncompetitively awarded contract to protect CPA head Paul Bremer. It provided for his security, as well as two helicopters for transport. So, while the U.S. president, U.S. senators, and U.S. generals have official security and transport, in the Iraq War zone, the top U.S. official does not.

The contingent outside Fallujah had some 20 armed personnel whose primary task was reportedly the protection of logistics convoys, manned by another contractor. This involved escorting trucks carrying food, kitchen equipment and personnel for Regency Hotel and Hospitality. Regency is a subcontractor of Eurest Support Services (ESS), which in turn is a division of the Compass Group, the world's largest food service company. In Iraq, the firm feeds the troops at more than a dozen U.S. base camps.

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