"Thousands of former soldiers and police officers from Britain, the US, Australia and South Africa are earning wages as high as 600 pounds a day to protect Western officials, oil company executives and construction firm bosses in Iraq."

"With the casualty toll ticking ever upward and troops stretched thin on the ground, the Bush administration is looking to mercenaries to help control Iraq. These soldiers-for-hire are veterans of some of the most repressive military forces in the world, including that of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and South Africa's apartheid regime.

"The rate of growth in the security industry is phenomenal," said Deborah Avant, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington. "If you had asked a year ago whether there would be 15,000 private security in Iraq, everyone would have said you're nuts."

(The author notes that because these "agents" are employed by private firms, their injuries and deaths are not subject to release. The same could be said about their deployment and tactics.)



"In February, Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based Pentagon contractor, began hiring former combat personnel in Chile, offering them up to $4,000 a month to guard oil wells in Iraq. The company flew the first batch of 60 former commandos to a training camp in North Carolina. These recruits will eventually wind up in Iraq where they will spend six months to a year.

"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals -- the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater USA, told the Guardian."




I read this story about worldwide US troop deployment in Sunday's Plain Dealer: "The US has more than 150,000 soldiers and Marines either on combat or other high-risk duty in the far-flung tinderboxes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and the Balkans. Overall, the US military has about 2.7 million active-duty and reserve troops with more than 400,000 of them deployed in various concentrations in 135 countries...

"A wholesale rotation is under way in Iraq, with 100,000-plus U.S. troops leaving while others are rolling in to replace them. As best can be determined the U.S. force in Iraq and environs in coming weeks will total at least 120,000. Unlike the current makeup, which consists overwhelmingly of active-duty GIs, the new force will comprise about 40 percent reserve and National Guard troops."

That last sentence hit me for some reason. Perhaps it was the story I had read in the Cleveland Free Times about the controversial deaths of two Ohio Guardsmen in December. Perhaps it reminded me of the restrained emotion and tears at a farewell dinner for a 40-some-year-old King County Metro driver who was about to ship out to Iraq in November. Or maybe it was a line I read somewhere about how the influx of so many unexperienced reservists could result in higher casualties.

In any case, as I searched for the Scripps story above, I found this one in the SeaTimes: "To meet the demand for troops in Iraq, the military has been deploying some National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who aren't fit for combat. More than a dozen members of the Guard and reserves said they were shipped off to battle with little attention paid to their medical histories...

"How many soldiers are unfit is unclear. Each soldier interviewed said he or she knew of others who -- like themselves -- were sent to Iraq despite health problems ranging from allergies requiring refrigerated medications to heart disease.

[A medical command] memo said the problem was a "KEY medical issue" and went on to say, "Frankly, we are burning out a lot of time and effort on shipping back folks who never should have come in the first place. Also runs a high risk of damaging folks."

Also: "More than two dozen suicides by U.S. troops in Iraq, and hundreds of medical evacuations for psychiatric problems, have raised concerns about the mental health of soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom. An Army Medical Department after-action report obtained by UPI suggests that the Army sent some soldiers to war who were mentally unfit in the first place."




There are so many other ways in which human energy and material resources can be used... and so many human needs that go unmet. This situation in Iraq will not bring more peace or happiness or democracy into the world. We have to be the agents of such change.