The U.S. addiction to privatizing wars: Bernd Debusmann

By Bernd Debusmann

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Whether the controversial U.S. private security company Blackwater leaves Iraq or not, the United States is unlikely to shake its dependence on civilians fighting its wars anytime soon.

The superpower is too hooked on hired help.

Even if there were political will to stop using civilians for roles previously carried out by the military, it would take years to reverse a relentless trend towards outsourcing that began with the end of the Cold War and has accelerated since.

For the first time in its history, the U.S. is fighting a war with more private contractors than military personnel. The ratio in Iraq is estimated at around 180,000 to 160,000.

Contrary to popular perceptions, only about 2,000 are doing the high-profile protection work for which Blackwater is known.

Estimates of other "arms bearing contractors" vary widely, from 13,000 to 30,000. The vast majority of the overall contractor force are Iraqis and nationals of 30-odd countries who perform a wide variety of largely logistics jobs, from cleaning toilets to driving trucks.

In the words of Peter Singer, a leading expert on the private security industry, America's dependence on the private market "not only creates dangerous vulnerabilities but shows all the signs of the last downward spiral of an addiction."

The Army plans to grow its active force by 65,000 over the next four years and the Marine Corps by 27,000. But even then, the military will have to rely on private contractors in a war of the scale of Iraq.

The government's rationale for outsourcing: it saves cost and increases flexibility - much like private corporations which slash their work forces and then outsource jobs to contractors working without health or pension benefits.

How badly reliance on contractors can backfire came into focus in mid-September, when Blackwater operators guarding U.S. diplomats opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square. When the shooting stopped, 17 Iraqi civilians lay dead and a furious Iraqi government demanded Blackwater's prompt expulsion.

(Blackwater is still in Baghdad. Iraq became a sovereign country in June, 2004, but sovereignty has its limits.)

The Blackwater incident prompted a heated debate and a Congressional hearing in Washington which focused on the company's aggressive tactics but skirted discussion of a more basic question: why does the world's mightiest military power need civilians to fight its wars and guard its diplomats?

ADDICTION FAR ADVANCED

It was under Bush that a civilian who had never heard a shot fired in anger, then deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, dressed down a four-star general for suggesting the post-combat occupation of Iraq required several hundred thousand troops.

Then Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki's estimate proved correct and it is ironic that the U.S. now has in fact a force of more than 300,000 in Iraq - the difference being that more than half of them are civilians.