PMSC After the Iraq Transition
PMSC After the Iraq Transition
By David Isenberg
You thought private security and military contractors were downsizing in Iraq? Think again.
On February 1 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report “Iraq: The Transition from a Military Mission to a Civilian-Led Effort.”
In accordance with the 2008 U.S.-Iraq security agreement, the American military is scheduled to withdraw its remaining 50,000 troops by December 2011. What does this mean for PMSC?
To start with, the diplomatic mission that remains will be of unprecedented size and complexity. It is projected to consist of some 17,000 individuals on 15 different sites, including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers, 2 consulates, 2 embassy branch offices, and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites. According to the report, “roughly 17,000 individuals are expected to be under ‘‘chief of mission authority,’’ mostly third-country nationals working as life-support and security contractors.” Good luck in making sure that you have people you can trust; the report notes “Thousands of critical life-support and security personnel contractors need to be vetted and hired.”
Current planning calls for 5,500 security contractors to be employed by the State Department in Iraq, roughly double the current number. About four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations, a continuation of current practice at both civilian and military sites. Though the numbers remain in flux, current plans call for about 600 guards in Irbil, 575 in Baghdad, 335 each in Kirkuk and Mosul, and about 3,650 in Baghdad. Most of State’s security contractors, both perimeter and movement, will be hired through the Worldwide Protective Services (WPS) contract, the successor to the current Worldwide Personal Protective Security (WPPS II) contract. However, some of the specialized security functions ill be contracted separately.
Second, oversight will be a continuing challenge.
In an April 7, 2010 letter sent to his counterpart at the Department of Defense, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy highlighted the magnitude of the challenge:
Secure ground and air movements within Iraq, essential to DOS’ current and proposed provincial presence, are now possible only because of U.S. military capabilities and availability of support. Without such support in the future, DOS will be forced to redirect its resources towards obtaining and supporting less-appropriate vehicles and airframes to allow the [branch offices and consulates] to function in an insecure environment. We will continue to have a critical need for logistical and life support of a magnitude and scale of complexity that is unprecedented in the history of the Department of State. [State] does not have within its Foreign Service cadre sufficient experience and expertise to perform necessary contract oversight.
Contractors will be moving embassy personnel in the air, as well as on the ground:
Connecting the satellite sites will be a contractor-operated air wing, operated by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. A fixed-wing component of four turboprop aircraft, which seat roughly fifty passengers, will transport officials across international borders and between Baghdad, Basrah, and Irbil.
Contractors will not be replacing all military functions:
As reported by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, an independent legislative commission created by Congress, the State Department has identified fourteen military functions that will be lost once the U.S. military is gone from Iraq. The State Department is looking to reproduce limited versions of many of these functions through security contractors. But there are roles that a diplomatic mission is not capable of replacing. The U.S. military’s strategic over-watch function in Iraq provides a deterrent to armed militia groups, demonstrates American resolve, and bolsters the political order.
By the way, those fourteen functions are:
• Recovering killed and wounded personnel
• Recovering damaged vehicles
• Recovering downed aircraft
• Clearing travel routes
• Operations center monitoring of private security contractors
• Private security contractor inspection and accountability services
• Convoy security
• Explosive-ordnance disposal
• Counter rocket, artillery and mortar notification
• Counter-battery neutralization response
• Communications support
• Tactical-operations center dispatch of armed response teams
• Policing Baghdad’s international zone
• Maintaining electronic counter-measures, threat intelligence, and technology capabilities.
It won’t just be the State Department using contractors. The committee report notes that the DoD’s Office of Security Cooperation will be augmented by a still undetermined, but steadily increasing number of skilled contractors (currently estimated somewhere in the range of 800), supplemented by perhaps 3,000 or more life-support and security contractors.
