AWAVE of public concern swept through Pakistan over the news of clandestine

activities of the US contractor DynCorp International that has been reportedly engaged by
the Pentagon to ostensibly provide security to US diplomatic personnel.

Their presence remained unnoticed until some ugly episodes occurred in Islamabad and
Peshawar where DynCorp operatives, in violation of Pakistani laws, publicly displayed
weapons, roughed up Pakistani citizens and were let go under instructions from the
ministry of interior. The resulting uproar led to uncovering the record of DynCorp and
Blackwater, US military contractors, which are suspected to be linked. Their activities in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be very disturbing.

Blackwater faces legal proceedings in the US for crimes such as murder, manslaughter,
weapon smuggling, use of unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force against
civilians, etc. Five Blackwater employees await trial on manslaughter charges and a sixth
has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter in the
aftermath of the September 16, 2007 Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad, which left
seventeen Iraqis dead.

Blackwater is accused of using weapons in Iraq not authorised by the US authorities for
unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis. Ammunition illegally obtained from
LeMas, an American company, designed to explode after penetrating human body was
frequently used to inflict maximum damage. The present Iraqi government has
consequently outlawed Blackwater.

New York weekly The Nation reports that founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, was being
investigated in connection with the murder of an ex-employee. According to this
publication two former Blackwater employees have recently deposed in a federal court
that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and
the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that his companies “encouraged and rewarded the
destruction of Iraqi life.”

The employees also alleged that Blackwater was involved in smuggling of unlawful
weapons in Iraq in Prince’s private planes. These and other charges were filed as part of a
motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other
misconduct.

Blackwater’s role and activities recently became the subject of debate in Washington
amid disclosures that CIA used Blackwater to locate and assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda
in Pakistan. Lawmakers were outraged on such a task being outsourced to a private
contractor.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, member of the House Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform, who is investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004, said, “If
these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers
and murdering innocent civilians.” He said, “Blackwater is a law unto itself, both
internationally and domestically.”
Blackwater went through a rebranding process in its twelve years of existence, changing
its name and logo several times to conceal the bad name it earned. It created more than a
dozen affiliate companies, some of which are registered offshore and whose operations
are shrouded in secrecy to obscure wrongdoing, fraud and other crimes. It now operates
as Xe Services LLC.

DynCorp’s activities in Pakistan also raised alarm when it reportedly bribed officials for
licences to import prohibited weapons and secretly recruited and trained ex-SSG (army)
personnel at Sihala, dangerously close to Pakistan’s nuclear installations, and at another
location outside Islamabad. This fuels suspicion that the Pentagon has outsourced to this
contractor the task of raising a private militia for multiple roles, including a rapid
intervention team, with an eye on Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Earlier reports about a US
team having flown into Dubai on its way to Islamabad for urgent intervention after
receiving a false alarm about the loss of some nuclear material, lends credibility to fears
that the US intends placing a rapid deployment team in Pakistan.

The New York Times (Dec. 2009) reported Blackwater’s covert role in the operation of
American drones. “The operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, where Blackwater contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-
pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft”.

In an environment charged with strong anti-American sentiment and suspicions about US

designs against Pakistan being rife, the activities attributed to Blackwater and DynCorp
are a public relations disaster for the US Government and only adds to trust deficit
between Pakistan and the US.

Until some time ago, the military-industrial complex played a major role in prodding the
American leadership to create enemies and launch military conflicts around the world.
This unholy alliance was recently joined by another player — the ‘Contractors’.

All US military campaigns and occupations now heavily rely on thousands and thousands
of contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors. Sara Flounders in her article
“Obama’s War: Why is the Largest Military Machine on the Planet Unable to Defeat the
Resistance in Afghanistan” says, “Their [Contractors’] only immediate aim is to turn a
hefty superprofit as quickly as possible, with as much skim and double billing as
possible. For a fee these corporate middlemen will provide everything from hired guns,
such as Blackwater mercenaries, to food service workers, mechanics, maintenance
workers and long-distance truck drivers”.

The Associated Press put their number in Iraq at 180,000 in 2007. In August 2008,
Christian Science Monitor put their number at 190,000. Some corporations which have
recently gained notoriety for war profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan include
Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Louis Berger Group, BearingPoint and DynCorp
International.
 Thomas Friedman, a noted columnist, warns of the dangers of a “contractor-industrial-
complex in Washington that has an economic interest in foreign expeditions.” He says the
pattern of outsourcing key tasks, mostly with scarcely audited money and instructions
changing multiple hands, invites abuse and corruption.

Allison Stanger, in her book “One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American
Power and the Future of Foreign Policy,” says the Pentagon outsources many key
functions because it does not have enough soldiers, collaborators or allies to fight its
wars. She says, “Contractors provide security for key personnel and sites, including our
embassies; feed, clothe and house our troops; train army and police units; and even
oversee other contractors.” So influential are some of these contarctors that they are often
called America’s shadow government.

The implementation of US foreign policy responsibility overseas through sub-contracting

is also assuming dangerous proportions. Eighty per cent of the State Department budget
is spent through contractors and grants.

In this new arrangement of outsourcing, sometimes called the new form of public private
partnership, the government transfers its sovereign functions to American enterprises for
implementation of its functions or programmes in countries under occupation or at war,
to fill the capability gap. But this creates a serious problem.

These enterprises are neither aware of the intricacies and compulsions of diplomatic
norms that only the foreign service understands nor are they subject to clear and
unambiguous lines of authority compared to those for their military colleagues. As a
result, private contractors interpret policies and instructions of the departments of State
and Defence their own way, at times even flouting them deliberately, thereby committing
serious violations of law in countries where they operate.

When contractors for the Pentagon or other agencies are not properly managed — as
when civilian interrogators committed abuses at Abu Ghuraib or members of Blackwater
shot and killed 17 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad, it severely undermines the American
position and mission objectives.

Pentagon has another motive for outsourcing its wars. This way it manages to hide the
actual size of its occupation force and its casualties. For instance, according to U.S. News
& World Report, Oct. 30, there are no records of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans and other
migrant workers who were recruited by US contractors to do dangerous jobs and were
killed. These deaths raised no eyebrows. Had the US troops been killed instead, the
Pentagon would have had tough time justifying such high casualties.

For Pakistan the presence of contractors like DynCorp and Blackwater is an ominous
sign. Lessons need to be learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be in Pakistan’s
security interests to withdraw the blank cheque given to the US Embassy to set up an
empire of its own under the garb of its security and demand that these rogue elements
must leave. Pakistan cannot afford to compound the threat it faces from the TTP by
allowing the Pentagon contractors to threaten its nuclear assets.

shahidrsiddiqi@gmail.com