Mheslep, please read more carefully. The article says that there is no definition of mercenary acceptable by most of countries. And therefore there is no agreement whether private military contractors should be considered mercenaries.
There is an ongoing debate over whether private military companies, and the private contractors that they employ, should be treated just like any other transnational industry, or whether they should be treated like mercenaries ...
There is article 47 of the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions regarding mercenaries, that is most widely accepted, although it is not endorsed by the United States. Privatization of the military is relatively new phenomena that started in 1980s and became huge with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many legal issues are not yet settled. Article says that some contractors can be considered mercenaries even under narrow definition of Geneva Convention (that was created before widespread privatization of the military). Since there is no proper definition of mercenaries, this term has a moral judgment attached to it. Without going into semantics of the word 'mercenary' it is important to notice that the war in Iraq would not be possible without private military contractors. There is a lot of literature written about private military contractors, but the most known and one of the first are the works of Peter Singer, senior fellow and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings.
If one concentrate just on one part of what private military contractors do in Iraq, those that are armed, then according to Singer:
And finally, there is the sector of firms, such as Blackwater, that has provided armed roles within the battle space. These firms do everything from help guard facilities and bases to escort high value individuals, as well as convoys, arguably the most dangerous job in all Iraq. Such firms are frequently described as “private security” or “bodyguards,” but they are a far cry from the rent a cops at the local mall or bodyguards for celebrities that the term is taken to mean. They use military training and weaponry, to carry out missions integral to the mission’s success, in the midst of a combat zone, against adversaries who are fellow combatants, as opposed to parking lot muggers or paparazzi stalkers of Angelina Jolie. In 2006, the Director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq estimated that 181 of such “private security companies” were working in Iraq with “just over 48,000 employees.”
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
Besides these armed forces military contractors do a lot of things that military does and can be thought as taking part in hostilities such as
During the invasion, contractors maintained and loaded many of the most sophisticated U.S. weapons systems, such as B-2 stealth bombers and Apache helicopters. They even helped operate combat systems such as the Army’s Patriot missile batteries and the Navy’s Aegis missile-defense system.
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
So I do not know on what mheslep bases his conclusion about “a small, small part” of armed contractors. The problem is that in reality no one really knows the exact number of contractors since Pentagon does not even track the number of contractors working for it in Iraq, much less their casualties. According to survey of contractors, at least 20% are in security. The problem is that many big contractors were not included in this survey.
Some hint about number of armed contractors and their participation in hostilities can give the death toll among contractors. According to Singer:
If the gradual death toll among American troops threatened to slowly wear down public support, con-
tractor casualties were not counted in official death tolls and had no impact on these ratings. By one
count, as of July 2007, over 1,000 contractors have been killed in Iraq, and another 13,000 wounded
(again the data is patchy here, with the only reliable source being insurance claims made by contractors’ employers and then reported to the U.S. Department of Labor).5 Since the “Surge” started in January 2007 (this was the second wave of increased troop deployments, focused on the civil war), these numbers have accelerated; contractors have been killed at a rate of 9 a week. These figures mean that the private military industry has suffered more losses in Iraq than the rest of the coalition of allied nations combined. The losses are also far more than any single U.S. Army division has experienced.
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
One of the reasons why private military contractors are used (except enrichment of some private corporations) is that their use allows operations, that might be otherwise politically impossible. The US government could send more troops to Iraq, instead of sending contractors, but this would create “massive outcry amongst the public”. There was no outcry when contractors were called up and deployed, or even killed. Death toll of contractors is not included in official death toll, public often does not know about them, besides many of them are not American. It creates perception of less human cost of the war.
Another problem with such contractors is that they are above the law (due to unclear legal status, they are not civilians and they are not also American soldiers). For example,
For example, it was reported that 100% of the translators and up to 50% of the interrogators at the Abu
Ghraib prison were private contractors from the Titan and CACI firms respectively. The U.S. Army
found that contractors were involved in 36% of the proven abuse incidents from 2003-2004 and identi-
fied 6 particular employees as being culpable in the abuses.20 However, while the enlisted U.S. Army soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib abuse were properly court martialed for their crimes, three years later, not one of the private contractors named in the U.S. Army investigation reports has been charged, prosecuted, or punished. […]
In another incident in 2005, armed contractors from the Zapata firm were detained by U.S. forces, who
claimed they saw the private soldiers indiscriminately firing not only at Iraqi civilians, but also US Marines. Again, they were not charged, as the legal issues could not be squared .
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
These are just few examples that shows that private contractors above the law. There are many others. The most famous is of Blackwater. Since it is the most famous I will not go into the details, only a small quote:
Journalist Robert Young Pelton described his month spent embedded with Blackwater contractors in
Baghdad. “They’re famous for being very aggressive. They use their machine guns like car horns.”
Source: P.W. Singer ““Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
The hint how many of such accidents happens can give the following quote:
As far back as 2005, for example, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division (responsible for security in the Baghdad area at the time) tried to keep track of contractor shootings in his sector. Over the course of two months, he found twelve shootings that resulted in at least six Iraqi civilian deaths and three more wounded. Horst tellingly put it, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath.”
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
In the 3 years that followed that CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] order, not one contractor operating in Iraq was prosecuted or convicted for any crime involving an Iraqi victim or any kind of conduct in the battle space.
Source: P.W. Singer “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
One can close one's eyes and pretend that there is only “a small, small” number of private military contractors involved in hostilities but it would be either very naïve or disingenuous. The fact that they are motivated by private gain and the fact that there is no authority over them (at least in practical terms) except their employer create very dangerous situations.
All the quotes of Singer are from “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2007/0927militarycontractors/0927militarycontractors.pdf"
