The US oil, pharmaceutical and construction companies are not the only ones who would profit from the current invasion of Iraq by coalition forces; private military companies (PMCs) and private security companies (PSCs) are likely to enhance their positions further in post war Iraq. The PSCs and PMCs, whose motives in many ways resemble those of erstwhile mercenaries, are budding industries with claims to possess the means for both waging war and building peace. They market battlefield skills, which either enhance the capabilities or substitute for regular military forces. These ‘corporate warriors’ dodge being referred to as mercenaries not because they hate fighting for profit but because the current international legal regimes still views privatization of security as a detestable phenomenon. In the 1990s there has been a rapid rise in the number of PMCs and trade in military services. The global trade pundits estimate the global market of this not so transparent industry at $100 billion. The international security trade is expected to rise to $202 billion by 2010.

In the current war in Iraq, US military forces have extensively outsourced many of their chores to private contractors. According to PW Singer of the Brookings Institute, it is estimated that deployment of PMCs in the current Iraq war is ten times their presence during the 1991 Gulf war; the ratio of professional private solider to that of a state solider could be one civilian for every ten military personnel. These private contracts are embedded with the fighting units and are providing services ranging from running mess halls and laundry services to real time voice and data links to aircraft and missile maintenance in war zones.

It is reported that Pentagon spends at least $30 billion – 8 percent of its overall budget – on PMCs. According to Pratap Chatterjee, a US based investigative environmental writer, a company named Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the Dallas-based Halliburton Corp. (once run by Vice President Dick Cheney) has been awarded a 10-year deal called Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) by Pentagon which is primarily an open ended mandate and budget to send Brown and Root anywhere in the world to run humanitarian and military operations for profit. In the late 1990s, Halliburton’s KBR unit provided nearly all food, water, laundry, mail and heavy equipment to roughly 20,000 US troops stationed in the Balkans.

Other US based PMCs actively engaged in the Iraq war are Cubic, DynCorp, IIT and Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI). DynCorp’s revenues rose by 18 percent in 2002 to $23 billion. Last year it was bought by Computer Sciences Corp., an IT-consulting giant, for nearly $1 billion. According to Dan Baum, a US based journalist, this military techno-industrial complex manages both bits and bombs for Uncle Sam. DynCorp was also hired by the US government to oversee the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and to guard the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, after a failed assassination attempt on him.

Similarly MPRI was bought for $35 million by L-3 Communications. Its revenues exceed $100 million a year, mainly from Pentagon and State department contracts. The company advertises itself as a professional services company engaged in defense related contracting in the US and international markets. The firm’s core competence lies in a broad range of defense matters, law enforcement expertise, and leadership development in public and private sectors. Internationally, their work ranges from Democracy Transition Assistance Programs, Long Range Management Programs and Military Stabilization Programs involving training and equipping armies around the world to attain greater efficiencies, economies, and effectiveness. As part of these programs, one of its major contracts was signed with the Bosnian government in 1995 to ‘train and equip’ the Bosnian Army. The firm also actively participated in ‘Operation Storm’ in which the Croatians recaptured Krajina from the Serbs.

With such profit making conglomerates at play vying for $100 billion reconstruction programme in post war Iraq, America may win the war and install a puppet regime but peace will continue to elude Iraq for many years to come. According to “The Army Day After: The Army in a Post –Conflict Iraq,” a December 2002 paper produced by the US Army War College’s Centre for Strategic Leadership, post conflict Iraq security tasks are likely to include “control of belligerents; territorial security; protection of the populace; protection of key individuals, infrastructure and institutions; and reform of indigenous security institutions.”

The post war chaos is going to provide a ripe market for PMCs to sell their products. It would be foolhardy to dream peace after the fall of Saddam, because the basic raw material for the private security industry is fear and insecurity and they would exploit it to the hilt.