Battlefield Contractors: Ethics and Oversight of Private Military Forces

Introduction: A Long History of Military Contracting

The use of private contractors to assist U.S. military forces in times of conflict is not a new concept. According to author Gordon Campbell, Washington has always used contractors in times of war. There are many contemporary issues and potential problems when the U.S. military signs deals with private military contractors, as it did in Iraq and has continued to do in Afghanistan. The main issue revolves around the concept of hiring 180,000 private contractors to support — and in some cases substitute for — U.S. service personnel in war zones. Is the practice ethical? Is it practical? Does it help the war effort? This paper reviews those issues and provides perspective from both sides using the available literature on the topic.

The American military hired private contractors to haul supplies for Union troops during the Civil War, and during World War II there were private civilian contractors providing a number of services, Campbell explains. During the Vietnam conflict, contractors were "becoming a major part of logistical capabilities by providing water and ground transportation, construction, and by supplying oil and gasoline along with high-level technologies" (Campbell, 2000, p. 2). More recently, during the Gulf War, about 5,000 civilians hired by the U.S. government were on hand to provide certain kinds of support, and an additional 9,200 employees were hired by private contractors, providing logistical support along with water, food, and construction services (Campbell, p. 2).

The Ethics of Paying Civilians to Enter Harm's Way

After reviewing this history, Campbell raises ethical questions about private contractors. Should contractors be armed? What are the rules of engagement for contractors? These questions are salient to the issue, and Campbell offers his perspective.

The U.S. soldier is trained not only to defeat the enemy but also to support fellow soldiers. There is a sense of reliance and trust created between trained soldiers in battle, but that same reliance and trust is not part of the relationship between a private contractor and a U.S. Marine. Moreover, when a contractor is seriously injured or even killed due to ineptitude, that could put a mission at risk and get soldiers killed (Campbell, p. 4). Campbell makes a strategic point here: a battlefield soldier is trained to protect himself and his military colleagues. The most a contractor can do "is protect himself, because he can't protect his buddies, his operation, equipment, or position" — and if he does try to protect his operation with lethal force, he becomes "an illegal belligerent who has forfeited his rights and privileges of POW status, should he be captured" (Campbell, p. 4).

At least two serious potential problems arise when a contractor is in the field of battle. One is that there could conceivably be a conflict between the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which all uniformed military personnel are obliged to follow, and Government Contract Law, which covers employees who are neither soldiers nor government employees. The contractor can only be directed by the Contracting Officer under the terms and conditions of the contract. Any performance issue relating to the behavior of employees working for the Contracting Officer remains in that officer's hands (Campbell, p. 6).

Adding to the complexity involving the UCMJ, conflicts will arise when a military officer makes demands on a contractor's employees. What if a military officer, while under fire from enemy troops, gives orders to contract employees and those employees sustain injuries? Who prevails in later litigation? Campbell explains that the government will likely lose. There will be no "extension of UCMJ authority to non-military actors" because, unless there is a specific declared war, there will always be a separation of power between military personnel and private contractors (Campbell, p. 7).

Campbell asserts that ethics is central to these matters: "Ethics demands that contractors and their employees understand what they are signing up to do"; ethics demands that private contractors be properly trained to "accomplish their tasks in hostile environments so as not to put military personnel at risk" (p. 8). If the policies that sent civilian contractors into harm's way are driven by money, "ethics requires us to examine the worst-case scenario" (Campbell, p. 8). In his conclusion, Campbell insists that "ethics would also seem to demand the military retain core levels of all capabilities necessary to enable it to fulfill the strategic and contingency plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" (p. 8). In other words, it would be more ethical to have uniformed troops perform as many duties as possible, in order to avoid "the ethical dilemma of placing civilians in harm's way" (Campbell, p. 8).

On the subject of ethics, Joanne Myers, PR Director with the Carnegie Council, explains that "some of the most disturbing news coming from the war in Iraq in 2005 was created not by the U.S. military, but by private military contractors" (Singer et al., 2005, p. 1). What troubles Myers initially is the "entrance of the profit motive onto the battlefield," which raises a pertinent question: what ethical standards should be applied "when our national security is at issue and people's lives are constantly put at risk" (p. 1)?

Myers and author P.W. Singer both share serious concerns about paying billions in taxpayer dollars for a private military force that seemed to act on its own in Iraq. Singer, a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution and author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, is concerned that because private military forces are available, "any actor in the global system can access these skills and functions simply by writing a check" (p. 2). He notes that there are an estimated 550 million small arms in the global market — one for every twelve human beings — and that an AK-47 can be purchased for "the price of a goat in Kenya" or "the price of a rooster" in Uganda (p. 2). With so many weapons available, the possibility of violence against innocents is greatly increased.

Ethical Standards and Hired Contractors in Iraq

Purchasing private military forces, as the U.S. did in Iraq, is not cheap. The KBR Division of Halliburton — whose CEO before 2000 was former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney — was paid between $13 and $16 billion for its services during the Iraq War (Singer, p. 3). That sum is two and a half times what it cost U.S. taxpayers to fight the entire 1991 Gulf War. According to the U.S. Army, approximately $1.8 billion paid to Halliburton is either unaccounted for or represents overbilling of taxpayers — a significant waste of revenue paid to a company with close ties to the sitting vice president.

At the time Singer's article was published in 2005, more than eighty private military companies were operating on the ground in Iraq, with over 20,000 private military contractors present — more than the rest of the coalition combined (Singer, p. 4).

What is truly worrisome to Singer is that the private security companies paid to support U.S. troop activities in Iraq were involved "in many of the most controversial aspects of the war," including the incidents at Fallujah and the subsequent uprising, as well as the tragedy of the Blackwater employees killed there. The disturbing images from Abu Ghraib prison — showing inhumane treatment of prisoners — resulted from abuses at least partially perpetrated by private security firms. One hundred percent of the interpreters and as many as fifty percent of interrogators at Abu Ghraib were private military contractors (Singer, p. 4).

In its investigation of those abuses, the U.S. Army determined that "36 percent of the identified abuse incidents involved private military contractors," and that "six private military contractors were individually responsible up to a potentially criminal level" (Singer, p. 4). Nevertheless, none of those individuals has been "prosecuted, punished, or imprisoned" (Singer, p. 4).

Further adding to concerns about these forces, some private contractors have violent histories. A former British Army soldier working for the coalition in Iraq had been jailed for "cooperating with Irish terrorists" before being hired (Singer, p. 5). Another private contractor admitted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa that he had "firebombed the houses of thirteen political activists" and apparently took the mercenary work so that he "wouldn't be prosecuted for the planned murder of a number of political activists to which he had confessed" (Singer, p. 5).

On the question of legal accountability, Singer echoes Campbell's concern: "The Supreme Court found that you cannot court martial a civilian — they don't even exist under the law — we don't have the accountability structures in place" (Singer, p. 6).

Conclusion

There is no doubt a legitimate need for private security contractors and other non-military contractors when the U.S. is engaged in conflict. This paper has examined the areas in which private contractors are employed and the advantages and disadvantages of their participation. However, American taxpayers and politicians should be concerned when billions of dollars are spent on questionable activities by hired mercenaries — and outraged when security firms like KBR, a unit of Halliburton, fail to account for over a billion dollars assigned to them. Better oversight by Congress and other agencies could potentially reduce or eliminate waste and may help prevent the unnecessary killing of innocent civilians by private security firms such as Blackwater.