AS American invasion of Iraq surges ahead, it is not the professional soldiers alone who are playing a decisive role. Equally vital is the contribution of thousands of corporate soldiers and contractors in taking the war to its logical conclusion.

In fact, America’s corporate military’s role in this war is deemed more critical than in any previous conflict including the last Gulf war. This is so because the complexion of American army, according to the latest issue of prestigious magazine ‘Fortune’, has changed dramatically in the past decade, shedding almost one-third of its soldiers even as it has taken on missions from Kosovo to Kabul. The increasing complexity of military hardware, along with Pentagon’s push to privatize war, makes the military more and more dependent on contractors.

In other words, the Pentagon is outsourcing as many tasks as possible. Even recruiting has been privatized. By one estimate, the Pentagon was to spend at least $30 billion on private military companies this year. Iraq war may double this amount. The companies benefiting most from outsourcing are Vice President Dick Cheney’s former firm Halliburton, Cubic, DynCorp, ITT, and MPRI. These firms are so much involved in war business that it is now “difficult to extricate them from the process,” says ‘Fortune’ quoting a CEO of a military company.

Halliburton was awarded a contract of a billion dollars, according to US army officials, to build tent cities in Kuwait and provide logistical support for the war. Cheney had served as chief executive of Halliburton until he quit to become Bush’s running mate in 2000 presidential race. Today he still draws a compensation of up to a million dollars a year from the company, according to website ‘CorpWatch’.

And according to ‘Wall Street Journal’, Halliburton is also one of the five large US corporations invited to bid for contracts in what is likely to be the biggest-ever reconstruction project since the World War II, after Iraq is fully bombed and destroyed. The others are Bechtel Group, Fluor Group, Parsons Corp and the Louis Berger Group. The reconstruction plan will require contractors to rebuild at least half of the war-damaged but economically important roads and bridges — about 1,500 miles of roadway — within 18 months.

While the men and machines are from the regular army, everything else — from explosive charges to electronics — is being supplied by a publicly traded company called Cubic whose profits rose 41 per cent in fiscal 2002 and whose stock price has tripled over the last four years. Most of the private military companies (PMCs) have headquarters close to the Pentagon, are staffed largely by ex-military personnel and former top defence department officials. They are the emerging face of America’s military-industrial complex. According to ‘Fortune’, “sometimes it is difficult to tell the civilians from the warriors on today’s battlefield.”

While executives at DynCorp, which saw its revenues rise 18 per cent in 2002 to $2.3 billion, emphasize that most of their work consists of non-combat jobs (like maintaining planes, installing software), certain missions “blur the lines”. For example, DynCorp has won a state department contract to protect Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, who survived an assassination attempt last year. Under this contract, their employees in Kabul carry guns and perform combat duties usually assigned to regular armymen. Similarly MPRI, one of the biggest military companies, had trained foreign militaries in places like Croatia and Bosnia on behalf of the government of the United States.

So far, state has theoretically been thought to be having a monopoly on the use of force. This theory is about to become redundant. The new role of private military companies shows state doesn’t have that monopoly any more. Security business is a huge, expanding industry and is gradually taking over wartime tasks from the traditional actors. The PMCs are seen playing lead roles in many conflict zones.

As the US military continues to be downsized and privatized, the number of private contractors is soaring. Back in 1991 during the first Gulf war, the US army had 711,000 active duty troops. Today it has 487,000 — a 32 per cent drop. Cuts in the number of navy and air force personnel have also been just as steep. The marine corps has been relatively stable with only 10 per cent drop. So, the space vacated is being filled by the private companies.

According to an estimate, there was one contractor for every 50 to 100 soldiers in 1991 war. In this war, there is one for every ten. It shows how heavily Pentagon now depends on private sector for war business. But this dependence has also raised some thorny questions which has not yet engaged attention of the top policy-makers. These are: can corporate employees carry arms? If they run from their posts when attacked, will they be considered deserters? If taken prisoners, will they be considered POWs?

Meanwhile, Halliburton is among a few firms that are making a killing on the Iraq war. It is already profiting from wartime contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In December 2001, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, secured a 10-year contract under which the federal government has an open-ended mandate and budget to send KBR anywhere in the world to run military operations for a profit, according to ‘CorpWatch’. At present, the KBR is supporting military operations in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Georgia, Jordan and Uzbekistan. Specific locations along with military units are considered classified. The company is expected to earn about $830 million for this contract.

Its contract in Kuwait began in September 2002 under which it built tent cities for American troops. Army officials say the contract has helped cut costs by hiring local manpower at a fraction of salaries that would have been paid to regular soldiers. The KBR has, it is interesting to note, almost transformed Kuwait into an armed camp; its tent cities providing accommodation to about 80,000 troops. And some of the encampments are named after the US states associated with the September 11 attacks such as Camp New York, Camp Virginia and Camp Pennysylvania.

The headquarter is at Camp Arifjan where even fast-food chains like Burger King, Subway and Baskin-Robbins have set up temporary outlets in trailers or shipping containers. There is also a gymnasium; facilities for playing basketball and a volleyball; and a gravel terrace with plastic picnic tables and chairs which serves as a large restaurant. Since 1999, the KBR has served 42 million meals, washed 3.6 million bags of laundry and has earned $3 billion for that.

It is probably too late, says ‘Fortune’, to reverse the US military’s dependence on private sector’s skill and know-how. Although the Pentagon is considering new weapons that would not make it much dependent on contractors, there are reports its technical functions have already been outsourced. It seems the US military has almost lost its earlier organic capacity. So it feels forced to go to war with contractors. But this dependence can put it at risk as well. It also places added burden on the commanders. They do worry about their soldiers but now they have to provide protection to the corporate soldiers as well.

Once the Iraq war comes to an end and the bulk of the US forces leave, the companies like MPRI and DynCorp will clinch lucrative contracts to train post-Saddam Iraqi army and police forces. Reconstruction of Iraq is about to become the multi-million dollar business for which companies from the US and European (allied) countries will compete for a share.

Even before the first shot was fired in this war, Washington had launched a tender for $900 million. Experts have put the cost of rebuilding Iraq at anything between $25 to 100 billion. Apart from the destruction being wrought at present, most of Iraq’s infrastructure was already in dilapidated condition and could not be updated during the past decade due to sanctions. The railways have not worked for 12 years, oil industry’s equipment is obsolete and most of the industry remains paralysed. All these damages constitute a blessing for the American contractors.