In September 2005, the BBC reported the deaths of four British 'security contractors' in Iraq, killed when their convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb.[1] The use of various terms - 'security guards', 'security consultants', 'risk consultants' - masks the fact that there is a large force of privately managed, armed civilians, active in Iraq, who are taking an active part in the imposition of corporate control.

There are around 30,000 private security staff working active in Iraq, mostly in outfits run by British or US ex-army officers.[2] Several of the 'private military companies' (PMCs), such as Erinys and Aegis, run forces of thousands, and due to the Iraq private security boom even 'risk management' consultant firms, such as Control Risks, have recruited hundreds of personnel to act as security guards[3]. Mercenary soldiers are prohibited under protocols of the Geneva Convention (1977)[4] from taking part in a conflict, and the private military and private security companies in Iraq walk the fuzzy line between legal and illegal, as they may have to use armed force against attackers, yet are officially prohibeted from taking part in offensive operations. However, their duties include protecting the operations of the corporations, such as Bechtel, that are involved in aggressively 'reconstructing', that is, privatising, Iraq, and employees of Erinys have been accused of using brutal methods to interrogate a boy they suspected of stealing from an oil company compound.[5] A home-made video, alledgedly showing Danny Heydenreycher, a South African employee of Aegis, shooting at civilian cars in Iraq, has also recently surfaced, fueling suspicion that the security firms may not be as passive in their tactics as they claim.[6]

There is also the fact that British PMCs have a crossover with right wing terrorists. Hart Group employed Gray Branfield, a South African soldier who had assassinated the ANC's chief representative in Zimbabwe in 1981.[7] An ex-Royal Marine employee of ArmorGroup was fired when he was recognised as a former collaborator with the UFF, a Northern Ireland loyalist paramilitary group.[8] With British PMCs recruiting hundreds of former members of apartheid-era South African security forces, and with the British army's links with loyalist terrorists[9], there is a worry that many of those operating as 'anti-terrorist' security contractors in Iraq could have been active terrorists themselves.

A very large proportion of the world's PMCs have been set up by British ex-army officers, graduates of training schools such as Sandhurst, which has strong connections to major UK private schools. Many of the PMC founders have also seen service in one of the elite UK regiments, like the Scots Guards. The names chosen for a British military corporation may reflect the public-school social background of the founders. For example, Tim Spicer named his outfit Aegis,a term meaning protection, drawn from the name for Greek gods Zeus and Athena's shields; the founders of Erinys named their firm after the tireless avengers of Greek mythology. Other names that betray a preoccupation with the classics are Rubicon International, (Rubicon being the river that Julius Caesar crossed to take power in Rome); and Janusian - Janus being the Roman god of doorways, who was literally two-faced. More banal names, such as 'International Security and Surveillance Limited' possibly indicate a more rank and file origin.[10]

The question mark that hangs over private military and security companies in Iraq is a feature of the lack of regulation of this industry. The various contracts with corporations and government groups in Iraq have given the global PMC market a huge boost – with the industry growing from $900m in 2003 to $1.7 billion in 2004[11]. Eager to keep this gravy train running, many of the PMCs have created a trade association, the Washington-based International Peace Operations Association (IPOA). This group, which includes ArmorGroup and Olive Group among its members[12], advocates a voluntary code of conduct for PMCs. This code includes pledges on ethics, arms control and human rights, but is not enforced by any measures other than possible expulsion from the IPOA.[13] Such voluntary initiatives are common among industries that wish to gain respectability and an air of responsibility and head off government or international regulation.

The modern British military entrepreneur is a direct descendent of the freebooters who, with tacit British state support, played such an important part in expanding and defending the British empire. General Gordon, who met a famous death in Khartoum, 1885, made his name commanding a mercenary force in China, paid for by the transnational merchant community of Shanghai to defeat the Taiping Rebellion.[14] Cecil Rhodes, the warlord who massively extended the British Empire in southern Africa, did so with a force of paramilitary police employed by his British South Africa Company[15], and the world's first corporation, the East India Company, also raised its own private military force. This process, of private companies extending the British empire, finds its modern expression in the activities of British-led private military companies that are playing an important part in the creation of a corporate dominated Iraq.

References
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4222732.stm

[2] http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1544738,00.html, www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23707

[3] www.sandline.com/hotlinks/Economist-Baghdad.html

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_I

[5] www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350866,00.html

[6] www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12829

[7] www.motherjones.com/commentary/notebook/2004/11/11_200.html

[8] http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2004w24/msg00003.htm

[9] www.relativesforjustice.com/publications/fru.htm

[10] www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,207378,00.html

[11] www.armorgroup.com/ir_markets.asp

[12] www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12829

[13] www.ipoaonline.org/conduct/

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon

[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Police