Making a killing

Saturday, 11th December 2004

Peter Oborne on the privatisation of security in Iraq and the rise of a new, respectable breed of mercenary

These firms are doing a reasonably good job, certainly when compared with the US army. There have been no major contract failures, and very few allegations of abuse. Soldiers with long years of experience in the British army do not forget their standards when they leave it. Even so, there is a feeling that the new private armies have hit their limits in Iraq. It is just too dangerous. One operator privately remarked in Oxford that he wouldn’t get involved there today, but for the fact that his company was already there. Even the short journey from the airport to Baghdad’s Green Zone has become too perilous. When Robert Hill, Australian defence minister, landed at Baghdad airport last week, he was told that it was too dangerous for him to make the journey to the Australian embassy. These perils make it impossible for reconstruction work to be done, and the PSCs are not prepared to risk their lives to make it happen. Some of the private security companies in Iraq are starting to talk of packing their bags.

This is the ancient problem with hiring mercenaries, private security companies, call them what you will. Machiavelli remarked ‘they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you’. That is as true today as it was 500 years ago. The ordinary British soldier who pounds the streets of Belfast or Basra for £300 a week is serving his country. The ex-SAS man on £500 a day is there for the cash. As the crisis in Iraq deepens, we may yet learn why wise rulers have normally preferred to rely on standing armies.