Headed "Britain's secret army in Iraq: thousands of armed security men answer to nobody" creates the impression that this is a piece of journalism that reveals the dirty truth about today's mercenary armies but the piece (which extends to p. 21), in spite of its length merely scratches the surface of the role of PMCs in waging war on the planet.

And what of the fact that this is the first major piece of mainstream media reporting (a process that is at least fifteen years in the making) to 'investigate' this aspect of imperial USUK's privatisation of the war business?

Although it mentions the thousands of former SAS, South African, US and Australian special forces being employed in Iraq and Afghanistan (at a reported cost of $800 million), it doesn't mention their role in the 'protectorates' of the former Yugoslavia and most important of all, it fails to include in its definition of mercenary, the role of companies like Halliburton, Dresser Industries and Brown & Root, Dyncorp and the many other companies who have taken over the role of 'servicing' the US and UK military occupations around the planet. These companies now do virtually all of the business of war except pulling the trigger on the front line or flying the bombers and fighters.

It also gets its facts wrong when it says that it's UK PMCs who have the biggest share of the contracts in Iraq. This only holds true if you only consider the number of security guards. The thrust of the Independent piece is that these are merely "security men" when the reality is something else again.

For example it mentions Control Risks £23.5 million contract to "protect about 150 British officials and contractors" but fails to mention that Control Risks is Paul Bremer III's company, the Gauleiter of Iraq and Control Risks just like Choicepoint and Sybase, are integral to the implementation of the Patriot Act. And agaqin, even though the piece mentions Kellogg Brown Root, it fails to mention that it's owned by Halliburton, by far the biggest PMC in Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter).

There are some thirty-five PMCs in the US the main ones being Vinnell, MPRI (Military Professional Resources Inc.), Kellogg Brown Root (Halliburton), Dyncorp, SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), BDM International, Armor Holdings, Cubic Applications, Inc, DFI and International Charter Inc. Between them and others, they have trained armies in forty-two countries. Dyncorp protects the entire Afghan government as well as training its nascent army. Dyncorp also 'trained' Haiti's police force after the US reoccupied the country in 1994.

Although virtually all of the 'hands on' work is done by former soldiers, the real key to their success is that they are (or were) set up and owned by former high ranking officers with close ties to the US governments of Reagan and the two Bushes and of course, the DoD. It's more 'revolving door' operations; out of the military into business and back again of which Richard Cheney (former CEO of Halliburton) is a textbook example.

And these are big companies. Dyncorp employs 23,000 people, Cubic 4,500, but all can call on thousands of former members of the military should the need arise. The cost is hard to ascertain but in 1990 it was $55.6 billion, a figure that it is estimated will rise to $202 billion by 2010. A reasonable guestimate for its current cost has to be in excess of $100 billion a year.

There is also another even more insidious side to the privatisation of war,

"Privatisation is a way of going around Congress and not telling the public. Foreign policy is made by default by private military consultants motivated by bottom-line profits."
Colonel Bruce Grant (quoted in "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson),

Camp Bondsteel in the Balkans was built by Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) at a cost of $36.6 million and costs $180 million a year to run. It's also the largest and most expensive base built by the US since the Vietnam War. KBR also built and runs bases in Kuwait, Turkey and now Uzbekistan (that bastion of Western democracy that boils its political opponents alive).

When Cheney was Bush the older's secretary of defence, he commissioned KBR/Halliburton to produce a secret report (at a total cost of $8.9 million) on privatising every conceivable aspect of the military's 'business'. The same company then went to double its earnings under Cheney as Bush's the younger's vice-president from $1.2 to $2.3 billion. After Gulf War II, Halliburton rebuilt Iraq's oilfields for $23.8 million, the same oilfields that his company has just helped destroy.

Cheney left Halliburton to become Bush junior's vice president and Halliburton got a tax rebate of $85 million due to having moved so many of its subsidiaries to tax free havens. KBR have also been contracted by the DoD to work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans and Saudi Arabia. KBR "build, maintain and protect" US installations from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf.

Former high ranking military have become multi-millionaires after forming PMCs such as MPRI (sold to the weapons/communications conglomerate L3 for $40 million in 2000).

It was Croatian and Bosnian military forces, trained by MPRI that went on to exterminate Serbians. It was Dyncorp employees in Bosnia who kept underage girls as sex slaves and then sold them across Europe.

All in all, PMCs service over 700 US military bases around the world. Camp Doha in Kuwait for example, now managed by ITT, its total cost since its construction is over a half-billion dollars, monies that the Kuwaiti government is bound to repay to the US!

PMCs are about more than a few thousand 'security guards' protecting some vips and foreign corporate personnel as the Independent's story would have us believe, whether under government control or not. They go to heart of the privatisation of war itself, in part to make money for the corporations (with lucrative cost-plus contracts) but just as important by privatising war, not only is public oversight sidestepped, government itself whether the US Congress or the British Parliament, no longer has control over the operations of its own military.

PMCS are yet another expression of the corporate security state being built by the imperium and an indication of the increasing militarisation of life in order to wage the 'war on terror'. Above all else, the Independent's article, by focusing solely on the 'security guard' aspect of the role of PMCs, not only downplays the significance of the privatisation of war, it avoids the fundamental issue of the cosy relationship between PMCs and those who plan and execute the imperium's policies, policies that are in many instances also being prepared by the PMCs.