The Circuit (41 page)

I’m not a journalist and I’m not a spy. I’m an ordinary person whose work has enabled him to find out a few things. I wrote this book because I wanted to share my personal experiences and hopefully shed some light on an industry most people only know through the distorted lens of Hollywood or sensationalist novels.

I’m aware that some books written by security professionals centre on killing ‘rag heads’, a term I find incredibly offensive. Ninety-nine per cent of the indigenous people I’ve encountered in hostile environments – be they Palestinians, Iraqis or Afghans – have been absolutely delightful. The ones I’ve worked with directly would lay down their lives to save mine and vice versa.

Shoot-out stories misrepresent the nature of the threat in places like Kabul and Baghdad and warp the public’s perception of how competent security professionals really behave on the ground. Knowledgeable security advisers don’t go looking for a fight. They don’t wave weapons at crowds – or worse, shoot into crowds – on the off chance there may be a terrorist lurking within. Experienced security advisers use proactive skills to spot trouble in sufficient time to get clients to safety without having to draw a weapon.

I certainly don’t hold myself up as the ultimate role model. I’ve had occasions during my time on The Circuit when I’ve messed up big style, like my drama with the Russian–Israeli soldier. I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes and thankfully my clients have never picked up the tab. Furthermore, I don’t pretend for a second that I haven’t benefited from a bit of luck. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your skill level, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, you’re going to get it.

Some situations are unavoidable. But an element of luck is one thing; it’s quite another when your entire proactive regime consists of crossing your fingers and hoping you don’t get whacked.

Today there are tens of thousands of security professionals working in Iraq, Afghanistan and other flashpoints in the War on Terror who lack the proper skills, equipment and/or training to perform their tasks effectively. It is a despicable state of affairs, one that compromises the lives of security professionals on the ground, their clients and the legitimate militaries operating in these areas.

Since 2003, The Circuit has grown fat on outsourced military jobs. The industry and its political backers argue that commercial security companies help stabilize conflict areas by freeing up soldiers for other tasks. Bullshit.

I’ve read the political spin, the annual reports, the Whitehall papers written by CSCs to influence government policy. Trust me: they have no bearing whatsoever on what’s really happening on the ground. Rather than aid stability, CSCs contribute to instability in places like Iraq and Afghanistan by making the military’s primary job – securing the ground – more difficult. Put simply, The Circuit is
undermining
the War on Terror.

How does it do this? First and foremost by enabling politicians to continue implementing flawed policies. I don’t mean to belabour the point but it bears repeating: the primary objective of any military campaign is to dominate the ground and hold it. The US-led coalition didn’t commit enough troops to dominate the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan at the start of either campaign. When faced with declining security and an escalating manpower gap, rather than admit its errors and send more troops, the coalition used The Circuit to cover up its mistakes.

Troop deployments are headline news. Images of brave young soldiers waving goodbye to their families tend to weigh heavily on the public conscience; flag-draped coffins returning home even more so. Hence, why so many military jobs have been outsourced to The Circuit; it’s far more politically palatable than troop deployments. I have yet to see a TV news report on a security adviser shipping out to Iraq or Afghanistan, let alone one of them returning home – in a body bag. Were the lives of the Edinburgh Risk lads who died on Baghdad’s airport road worth less than the life of a soldier?

As I write this, there are approximately 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq. The number of private security personnel working on US government contracts there isn’t far behind: 126,000 men and women.
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I wish I could tell you the total number of private security personnel working in Iraq and Afghanistan but no one knows.
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Even with half the picture, however, it’s clear that what began as a gap has widened into a chasm.

Until the middle of 2006 government leaders and top-ranking officers from Washington to Whitehall argued that things were improving in Iraq. Do you think anyone would have believed that had the US been forced to up its legitimate military presence from 150,000 to 276,000 troops? I have no doubt that had it not been for The Circuit, public calls for a radical rethink on Iraq would have come much, much sooner.

Another way in which The Circuit has enabled the White House and Downing Street to conceal the true cost of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan is by perpetuating the illusion that both countries are stable enough for civilians to operate in. I haven’t worked in Iraq since late autumn 2004, not because it became unstable – that’s the nature of hostile environments. I called it a day because Iraq had degenerated into absolute anarchy and chaos and it’s impossible to operate proactively under those conditions. I believe it is unethical to accept money to look after clients in areas where the best I can offer is reactive security.

The commercial security companies that stayed in Iraq after 2004 may label me overly cautious. By 2007, however, Iraq was clearly no place for foreign civilians, including security professionals, to operate. In May of that year dozens of armed insurgents dressed as Iraqi police commandos surrounded the Finance Ministry in Baghdad and kidnapped a civilian computer consultant and four members of his British CP team. Let me be clear, the CP team did nothing wrong other than agree to work an impossible task. What chance does a private, unsupported CP team have against an organized, sophisticated, deeply entrenched insurgency?

That episode and others like it not only impact the people directly involved. Each time a security adviser and/or a client are kidnapped in a hostile environment, it makes the job of securing the ground that much more difficult for the military. Civilians should steer clear of Iraq and Afghanistan until the security situations improve – drastically.

I’m convinced that if Iraq was an impoverished African nation with no exploitable natural resources, the US and UK would have evacuated their nationals from there years ago. But Iraq isn’t a marginalized African nation, nor is Afghanistan, and politicians are under enormous pressure to show progress is being made in both countries. In this respect, The Circuit has also helped perpetuate misguided policies.

Reconstruction projects shouldn’t begin until the military has secured the ground – which can take years. That’s why politicians and military brass boast about how many reconstruction projects have been
implemented
in Iraq and Afghanistan as opposed to how many have been completed. It maintains the illusion that things are moving forward.

The experience of Bechtel is very instructive in this respect. In 2003, the US engineering giant was awarded a US$2.3 billion contract to rebuild Iraq’s physical infrastructure: water, sewage, electricity and so forth. In November 2006, Bechtel announced it was leaving Iraq. Given what its employees endured, it was amazing the firm hung in there as long as it did. On a Bechtel project in Basra, for example, the site security manager was murdered, the site manager received death threats, a senior engineer’s daughter was kidnapped, twelve employees of the electrical-plumbing subcontractor were killed, as were eleven employees of the concrete supplier – and that was one project.
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During its three years in Iraq, Bechtel spent enormous sums beefing up security for its employees; hiring CP teams, investing in armoured vehicles and fortifying installations. It’s estimated that of the US$21 billion allocated for Iraqi reconstruction, 34 per cent was spent on commercial security.
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Money that should have gone towards improving the lives of Iraqis wound up lining the pockets of CSC executives and shareholders.

Another popular benchmark politicians and the military hierarchy love to reference as an example of progress is the number of national police and army recruited and trained in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here again, The Circuit is facilitating damaging policies.

Training local police and military in Iraq and Afghanistan is a job largely outsourced to The Circuit. As pressure mounts in the US and Britain to hand over more responsibilities to local security forces, so too does the drive to rush recruiting and training timetables. If the government tells a commercial security company to cut a ten-week training course down to five weeks, do you think the CSC is going to say no to the client, or take the money?

Squeezed timetables have already resulted in poorly trained and sometimes poorly vetted local recruits. Before the British took over Helmund in 2006, US forces were in charge there. According to several of my Afghan sources, in 2004, in an effort to step up the handover of security to Afghan forces, the Yanks recruited 500 local police in Helmund. In addition to training, the recruits received uniforms, weapons, vehicles and other equipment to do their jobs. Within eighteen months of completing the programme, 450 of the original 500 recruits had either switched allegiance to the Taliban, left the police to apply their skills in Afghanistan’s booming drugs trade (which funds the Taliban), or formed private armies to wreak havoc in their own little fiefdoms. I wonder how many of them turned their weapons on British soldiers.

I get very upset when I think about what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan; how many brave soldiers have died or been maimed as a result of flawed policies and poor leadership. It’s outrageous that not a single serving general, British or American, has resigned over the handling of the conflicts. Penning best-selling retirement memoirs criticizing government policy is too little, too late. The troops deserve better . . .
now
.

I see The Circuit in much the same way. When contracts aren’t administered ethically and competently, lives are lost. It hurts me to know that there are executives on The Circuit receiving big fat bonuses funded by the deaths and maiming of brave men and women on the ground. It has to stop.

I strongly believe that things wouldn’t have got so bad were it not for the fact that The Circuit is largely unregulated.
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Thus far, The Circuit’s independence has suited the US and UK strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. It comes as no surprise then that cleaning up The Circuit would go a long way towards forcing both governments to admit their mistakes and, hopefully, not repeat them.

First, let me state that it would be impossible to regulate every CSC operating worldwide. That would require the establishment of an international regulatory body with real powers. If the United Nations is any guide, regulation at the global level would be at best symbolic and ultimately a huge waste of time and resources.

Regulating CSCs incorporated in Britain, however, is absolutely achievable and in my opinion the way ahead for the whole industry. The military feeds The Circuit and British soldiers are the best in the world. I’d like to see that same level of professionalism carried over to the commercial sector. Britain can set the standard by implementing three key reforms: first, limit British CSCs to servicing only commercial contracts; secondly, require British CSCs to perform due diligence on all employees, including independent contractors, to ensure that only properly qualified personnel are assigned to specific tasks; thirdly, establish an independent, regulatory body to draft, implement and enforce a code of conduct for the industry.

I know my first suggestion – limiting CSCs to commercial contracts – will be greeted with collective moans from both government and the industry. Obviously, if the government can’t outsource military jobs, it will have to commit more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. It will also prevent the implementation of poor exit strategies in these countries by eliminating the option of replacing professional soldiers with commercial security personnel. But the real benefits will be felt in future. If the government can’t turn to The Circuit, odds are it will think twice before committing to policies not justified by our military strength.

The loudest objections to the idea of limiting CSCs to commercial contracts will most likely come from inside The Circuit. Outsourced military jobs in hostile environments are a goldmine; looking after government personnel, providing security for government installations, running convoys and security sector reform (training military and police in places like Iraq and Afghanistan) – all these tasks are incredibly lucrative.

There’s enough evidence in the preceding pages to demonstrate that when it comes to hostile environments, The Circuit will never operate with the same level of professionalism as the military. Take, for example, looking after government personnel in hostile environments. Commercial Close Protection teams are cap in hand so when a client wants to do something stupid – like dine at an international restaurant in Kabul – it’s very hard for the CP team to say no or to get the support of its managers back in the UK. The pressure to keep revenues flowing at CSCs is enormous and in the end most firms will cave in to the client’s wishes rather than risk losing the contract.

That wouldn’t happen with a military CP team. If a British diplomat wanted to ignore his CP team and engage in a reckless activity, the military CP team could take up the issue with its superiors in the UK who can then go across to the diplomat’s bosses and nip the whole scenario in the bud. In most instances, the military chain of command ensures best practices are maintained. That chain of command doesn’t exist on The Circuit.