BAGHDAD, 23 February 2004 — Ex-Foreign Legionnaires, battle-hardened Serbian soldiers, retired apartheid cops: a colorful gaggle of shadowy hirelings is setting up camp in Baghdad, which has quickly become the world capital of private security.
“There has never been so much work. You’ve got the adrenalin junkies like me and those who are cop-cruisers (local police) back in the States... but there are enough contracts for everybody,” says Misha, a team leader for a security company in Iraq since last autumn.
The most privatized occupation in history allows Washington to outsource some of its security detail to hired guns, whose actions are easily deniable and deaths not included in war casualty lists.
Officials from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, including Paul Bremer, are guarded not by the US military but by private security firms.
The death of a former member of apartheid-era South Africa’s notorious Koevoet (crowbar) counterinsurgency police unit in a car bomb attack against a Baghdad hotel last month went almost unnoticed.
Even so, day-rates peaking at $1,000 have turned Iraq into a modern-day Klondike for the free-lancers of war willing to run the risk.
“This place is a gold mine,” says Erwin, a former sergeant in the US Army. “All you need is five years in the military and you come here and make a good bundle,” says the 28-year-old who organizes convoys for government contractors.
Fighters from the world over have had no difficulty marketing their combat experience to clinch lucrative contracts with the scores of private security companies operating in Iraq.
Former members of the Serb “White Eagles” militia, the British army’s SAS or Nepalese Ghurkas, volunteers from Fiji or Sao Paulo’s anti-riot police — from the most decorated servicemen to the most infamous — are converging on Iraq to earn big bucks.
According to some reports, private security companies have more men on the ground than any member of the coalition forces besides the United States, with military contractors narrowly outnumbering Britain’s 10,000 troops.
Armed employees of Custer Battles, a US firm, man checkpoints at Baghdad airport.
Erinys, a British company with offices in the Middle East and South Africa, protects Iraqi oil fields.
British-based Global Risk and the US-firm Black Water provide armed security for the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Guns-for-hire like Misha refuse to reveal their pay. But the 33-year-old Serb — who served 10 years as a sniper in the former Yugoslav Army before his private career took him to several African countries — says: “For experienced people, wages can be over $15,000 a month.”
“I love what I’m doing, but the good thing is that at this rate I can retire in six years and buy a nice bar somewhere,” he says.
The hordes of heavily armed security guards wearing beige journalist-style jackets stretched over their bullet-proof vests and tearing through the traffic in spanking new SUVs draw nothing but scorn from other private firms with more expatriate experience.
“It’s the best way of getting stupidly attacked,” says Jean-Philippe Lafont.
The 38-year-old set up the first French security company in Iraq just a few days ago.
