When President Barack Obama announced that the majority of US troops were leaving Iraq and that only 50,000 troops would stay "to advise and assist" Iraqi security and army forces, he made no mention of a shadow private military.
There are some 10,000 "private security contractors" (read mercenaries) working in Iraq outside the jurisdiction of the Iraqi government and beyond any moral or legal frame. Most important, and infamous, are the Blackwater mercenaries, responsible for such war crimes as the massacre at Al Nisoor Square, Baghdad, on September 16, 2007, when they shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
The Iraq government sued the mercenaries but earlier this year a US court dismissed the case due to "contradictory" statements, despite the fact that the entire episode was recorded.
The Iraq government banned Blackwater mercenaries from the country on September 18, 2007.
But since then, the company has been operating in Iraq under different names, under new US army contracts. In fact, according to one report, published by Gulf News yesterday, Blackwater's business, conducted under different names, has been "rapidly growing all over the world".
It is really worrying when a superpower employs and protects mercenaries who operate in hot spots and conflict zones without the legal or moral codes that define the duties and limitations of conventional armies.
A United Nations report, released in October 2007, stated that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law.
However, the US has not ratified the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention, which bans the use of mercenaries. And the majority of those mercenaries working in Iraq do so under US Department of Defence contracts. Obama, who promised "change", seems to have stuck to the policies of his predecessor when it comes to Iraq, even with regard to the Blackwater mercenaries, whom many say are the brainchild of former vice-president Dick Cheney. Iraq will pay the ultimate price, but Obama must be held accountable.
