Blackwater: Friend or Foe?

The National Review recently ran an article by Mario Loyola which recommends that Blackwater and the other PMC should leave Iraq.

The US Army follows strict rules of engagement, with soldiers often fighting against their survival instincts, refusing to return fire when fired upon if they cannot positively “ID” the shooter.

Security contractors like Blackwater are heavily armed, and act for their own protection — not for winning the war. The COIN [counterinsurgency] strategy doesn’t apply to them. This is resulting in a situation where perhaps 25% of the perceived coalition "force" is operating outside the chain of command, and in violation of the stated strategy.

Our soldiers are exercising deadly restraint to win over the population — and all of their work can unravel because of just one shooting incident carried out by private contractors. The resulting effect is an increase in risks for the US Military.

Not all private contractors are negligent - indeed some are very professional outfits - but Blackwater has a particularly bad reputation in the PMC community. Here is a short clip about Blackwater:



You can read an account of the life of a Baghdad PMC in John Geddes' excellent Book "Highway To Hell".