The Democracy Arsenal Stat of the Day Posted by Michael Cohen

Like Ilan, I went to a conference yesterday featuring Nir Rosen, but at mine his performance was a tad less impressive. I like Nir's stuff, but this conference was a look at Blackwater and private security companies and unfortunately, I think Nir's hatred for the war in Iraq has warped his thinking somewhat on this issue.

Anyway, after listening to Nir and Jeremy Scahill portray PSCs, like Blackwater, as a bunch of renegade cowboys who are constantly shooting at unarmed civilians, I found this nugget  from Jack Bell, the Deputy Under Secretary for Logistics and Materiel Readiness at the Pentagon, who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday pretty revealing.

The period of August 2004 through February 2008 covers a period of rampant insurgency and sectarian violence in Iraq affecting U.S. military forces. During that time, 19,268 DoD contractor convoy operations were recorded. Of those, only 151 (or less than eight-tenths of one per cent) involved the discharge of a firearm by a private security contractor, and not all of those involved aimed fire at an enemy combatant. This was in spite of the fact that during that time, 1,441 hostile attacks were made against those convoys. These statistics reflect a high degree of discipline and effective management of DoD private security contractors operating within a strict policy framework.

Now of course this doesn't include State Department contractors (and much of Blackwater's security contracts are with State), but these numbers do indicate that the general assumptions about PSCs in Iraq may not be wholly accurate.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

You may be right that some of the critics' accounts exaggerate the rates of PSC malfeasance. But I think people just have a strong, instinctive aversion to mercenaries that is very hard to shake, and is unlikely to go away no matter how disciplined these PSCs become. And it is a very healthy aversion, indeed. After all, a very disciplined, very professional hired killer is still a hired killer. A man who joins his nation's armed forces out of some sense of social obligation or devotion to his countrymen is one thing. But a person who joins a free enterprising, privately contracting military organization because he ... well ... likes that kind of work, is a very dubious sort of fellow, and one that civilized people rightly fear and disdain.

And it seems rather dangerous to tolerate the growth of such organizations in our midst.

[glasnost]

During that time, 19,268 DoD contractor convoy operations were recorded. Of those, only 151 (or less than eight-tenths of one per cent) involved the discharge of a firearm by a private security contractor, and not all of those involved aimed fire at an enemy combatant.

This is just poor reporting. Maybe even "extremely" poor reporting. They just hand you this statistic - generated entirely for the purpose of exonerating the contractors - and you just swallow it. How do you *know* that there were only 151 firearm discharges by contractors? Did you miss the memo where Blackwater tried to intially argue that they hadn't even fired at anyone in Nansur Square? Is the Pentagon expecting contractors to report their own discharges? These people doing their darndest to cover up freaking gang rapes (google Jamie Leigh Jones). And you expect them to scrupulously report weapons discharges?

If you aren't smart enough to understand that you can't believe a single word that comes out of the mouths of your sources without multiple, overlapping, independent, politically disinterested confirmations - you are worse than worthless. You are a discredit to folks like Ilan doing genuinely useful work.

You should never have posted this item. If you can't subject these sorts of statistics to scrutiny independently, you're better off not reporting them at all. It's just wildly deviant from witness reports of indiscriminate and regular weapons fire from contractors. Hell, there have been more than 100 of them *killed*, (more?) and you think there were only 150 instances of "weapons discharged"?

I'm sorry I'm being so harsh, but I'm also filled with anger at your incredulity. Talk about a textbook case of falling down on the job: there's not a reason in the world to believe this statistic.

[Don Bacon]

What flavor Kool-aid did you drink, Michael? Do you also believe that Saddam was allied with OBL and had WMDs? Do you have visions of yellowcake and aluminum tubes? A quick war ending with a Jeffersonian republic in Mesopotamia?

We need more of Nir Rosen and his "warped thinking," not less, to counter the unending lies from the Pentagon. Perhaps you don't believe that the Pentagon has an active disinformation program, but they do.

PS: Can you provide a valid link to Bell's remarks?

[Mark]

I have to agree with glasnost. One of the most interesting things to come out after the Monsour Square shooting is that PSCs report escalation of force incidents on a purely voluntary bases. Many former employees of PSCs have stated that few bother to do so. Blackwater shooters killed a Baghdad cab driver without justification and failed to report it. After it threatened to create a serious deplomatic incident with the Miliki government a investigation was done for DOS, by Blackwater! The maximum penalty was meted out to the shooter's responsible, "window or aisle seat", they were just sent home. When reporters have asked military contract supervisors in Iraq about how incident reports are handled they have reveled that it is a very informal affair. Each company has it's own procedures. Often fairly serious escalation of force incidents can be blown off with a verbal report, "we engaged the bad guys". The sloppyness of the reporting of these incidents is only matched by the indifference to them shown by the military contract supervisors. I would not rely on any statistics based on such system of reporting.

[Michael Cohen]

As I noted above, Blackwater and State Dept contractors are not included in the numbers cited above. Clearly, as I stated in my other post, it is these PSCs who have been at least anecdotally charged with using their weapons more frequently. If you speak to folks who follow this issue closely you will see that Pentagon contractors have been generally seen as performing at a far higher level than State contractors - with far fewer incidents. Indeed, as I noted in my later post, I think it is completely outrageous that, considering BW's shoddy record, their contract with State is being renewed. In short, there is a significant difference between PSCs who work for State and the Pentagon.

Part of the reason that I posted these numbers is to demonstrate that much of the anecdotal reporting about PSCs in Iraq is not telling the complete story. These comments tend to argue my case for me, relying more on emotion than fact. While I certainly recognize the possibility that these numbers are off base it would be equally off base to rely on anecdotal stories of PSC abuse.

Granted the poor oversight provided by the Pentagon is superior to the aiding and abetting of the State Department. I would be shocked if there were not some improvements after Monsour Square. I could not say for sure how the Pentagon would handle, say, the Aegis "trophy video" today if they had it to do over again. The focus might be less on covering it up and more on accountability. The incentive for PSCs to understate aggressive behavior when reporting it is voluntary, as well as the non-standardised way it gets reported and collected, really makes