Coming soon? Filipino "contractors" in Iraq

It's only a matter of time before we see heavily armed Filipino "contractors" in Iraq--if they aren't there already.

But unless some journalist blows the whistle, we'll never know for certain if that grim, Pinoy looking guard dressed in civvies and toting an M4 automatic rifle is a real Pinoy. He might also be a Colombian, Fijian or an American of Filipino descent.

Mercenaries are back. Only today, they go by the more respectable name of "contractors" who "officially" provide "only" outsourced combat support for a numerically weak U.S. military.

Contractors, however, are involved in combat in Iraq, which is inevitable since the insurgency is a guerilla war with no front line. Or in U.S. bureaucratese, Iraq is a "non-linear battlefield" (NLB).

Iraq is the largest market for the new "private military companies" (PMCs) that together constitute an industry worth more than US$100 billion (P5.4 trillion). Contractors are also in Afghanistan and in South America, particularly Colombia, assisting in the anti-drug war.

The more than 20,000 contractors in Iraq are the second largest armed force in that country behind the U.S. Most of these contractors are ex-U.S. military men. Special Forces operators, especially those from the U.S. Army and Navy, and the British Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS) are in particularly high demand for contract work.

Some of the other contractors known to be in Iraq are Australians, South Africans, Fijians, Colombians (trained by U.S. Special Forces) and Nepalese (Gurkhas).

As a group, contractors have suffered the second highest number of combat casualties (killed and wounded in action) next to the U.S. An Internet website lists the deaths of some 250 contractors of varied nationalities in Iraq. In contrast, Britain has less than 100 combat deaths.

Although no figures for wounded have been announced, some sources estimate this figure at six times the number of dead. Over a thousand casualties for a group whose "official" job is to act as security guards for facilities and offices, and bodyguards for important people.

The four Americans whose gory murders in Fallujah clinched the U.S. decision to storm that city in November 2004 were contractors.

Contractors are mostly employees of PMCs such as Kellog, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, Inc.; Control Risks Group (CRG), which has an office at the Citibank Tower in Makati; MPRI; Custer Battles; Erinys and Blackwater.

The are, as yet, no purely Filipino PMCs but the Philippines does have in abundance the raw material that goes into the making of contractors: trained combat infantry. In the Philippines' case, many of its infantry are veterans of years of guerilla warfare. It is an advantage not possessed by any other contractor country except Colombia.

The stunning growth of PMCs is in inverse proportion to the progressive weakening of the U.S. Army. With only 1.4 million men and women today as against over two million a decade ago, the U.S. Army is now involved in two simultaneous wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and is preparing for a third (Iran). A conflict in Korea cannot be ruled out.

The regular U.S. Army and its reserve component, the National Guard, are stretched close to breaking point on the ground as it is. There are no indications that Washington contemplates restoring conscription to significantly increase the combat strength (or "end strength") of its all-volunteer army.

Without this militarily sound but politically suicidal move, however, the U.S. Army is left with no choice but to continue outsourcing its combat support operations to PMCs to free more men for combat.

These support operations include feeding the troops, equipment maintenance, administrative work and construction. KBR, the largest employer of contractors in Iraq, employs Filipinos in non-combat roles inside fortified military bases.

Should the U.S. Army find itself involved in three or four wars within this decade, its reliance on PMCs will inevitably extend beyond combat support into active combat. There simply won't be enough uniformed fighting men to go around.

The butcher's bill in Iraq for the U.S. comes to more than 10,000 casualties since 2003, most of these are combat infantry. These losses will take years to replace. Turning a raw recruit into a proficient combat soldier takes some two years of intense training at huge cost. Producing combat leaders takes longer, up to a decade for battalion commanders.

With conscription a non-option, the only recourse for the U.S. Army is outsource its "non-mission critical" functions so it can comb out more men and women for its core competency, which is warfighting.

The U.S., however, has a huge pool of retired or resigned servicemen already trained in the U.S. way of war. Contractors are being drawn from this pool.

Money draws contractors to Iraq and Afghanistan. Combat contractors are paid lavishly by any standard. Ex-SAS men can receive up to 14,000 British pounds monthly (P1.5 million). Even for those at the bottom of the pay scale such as the Fijians, monthly salaries are in the region of US$1,000 (P54,000).

But more ominous than their involvement in combat (a fact that goes against current U.S. doctrine) are indications that the U.S. is leaning towards making contractors an organic component of its future armed forces. And this will profoundly alter the complexion of future war.