“Making a Killing” by James Ashcroft. 2006
I picked this title up for £3 from Fopp (which is an excellent source of cheap books and CDs by the way). I’d never heard of it and it had a tacky looking front cover with the nasty tagline: “The explosive story of a hired gun in Iraq”. It sounded like a trashy war novel written by some jumped up mercenary on steroids.Judging this book by its cover was however something of an error. It’s actually a very good read, both entertaining and informative. James Ashcroft was a Captain in the British Army who left for a financial job in London some time ago. Like most British Army officers he was widely read, travelled and educated and found no problems in securing a high paying job in the city. However he soon got bored of the daily grind and started itching for the adrenalin rush of soldiering again. When an old friend offered him $1000 a day to work for a private security firm in Baghdad he didn’t hesitate in hanging up his suit and tie.
Cont…
posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 6:12 PM
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The thing that most stood out to me was the degree of interaction these guys had with the local population. Unlike the Coalition Forces the numerous private security firms couldn’t hide away in the Green Zone. They worked very closely with the local population. Things like getting on friendly terms with the neighbours, being invited for dinner by their employees and doing the weekly shopping in the local stores sounded unusual. Also things like hiring local builders to refurbish their newly acquired office quarters and finding local cooks and secretaries to staff it all helped build friends in the local community, something the Coalition Forces failed to do. In this sense the contractors were actually the real face of the western presence for many Iraqis, whether this was good or bad largely depended on the company. Not all it would seem were as progressive as this, some came with bad attitudes from the start and others developed them through bitter experience – but others genuinely tried to foster good relations with the locals.
The company the author works for split its time between dressing and driving like the locals (unlike the Americans who drove in massive convoys honking horns and firing warning shots to clear a path in the rush hour traffic) and attending cocktail parties with the CF authorities in the middle of Baghdad in an effort to make contacts and acquire lucrative contracts. In the early days of the occupation the Americans had provided the provisional government with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. They came in vacuum packed cubes of $500,000 each and they were much sought after by all who came across them, and countless went missing.
The company eventually secured a deal from the provisional government to train a protection force with the responsibility of safeguarding the water infrastructure in and around Baghdad. Hired guns tasked with hiring and training more hired guns. Problems communicating with the locals arouse and many familiar stories were told about the poor work ethic of the Iraqi people*. Men tried to register imaginary friends in order to collect multiple pay packets while group leaders would happily accept bribes to sign people in for a days work when they never actually showed up. This sort of low level corruption is widely reported in this account and many others. Tackling it seemed like an ongoing process and one that never seemed to make much progress. Tribal and family loyalties also played an ugly part in the eventual failure of this private firms task. Their workforce was split in two by an argument amongst the locals, with one side backing the contractors and another wanting them dead. It culminated in a fire fight and the western contractors had to leave their company headquarters in the Iraqi suburbs and flee.
Perhaps the most interesting thing however was just the wide array of people that hired these private security firms. The Americans had a system whereby rather than having American soldiers protecting American generals the bodyguards for the top brass would actually be sought privately. Iraqi government agencies also made widespread use of them and there wasn’t a single journalist in Baghdad without their own personal protection team. Yet also every single charity and NGO would use them too. The term ‘mercenary’ conjures up an image of some bloodthirsty brute who gets kicks out of killing. Few people realise that people like Oxfam and Save the Children frequently employ mercenaries to protect their personal or that they are frequently involved in protecting humanitarian aid convoys and the like.
I personally believe, for better or worse, hired guns are the way of the future. For some reason the death of a ‘western contractor’ has less political clout than that of a western soldier. Why this I am not entirely sure but it certainly is the case and explains why everyone from NGOs to America’s military are so keen to employ them. It also explains why retention of experienced personal in the British and American armies is so low. Who would continue working for the army when you could do effectively the same job, but for ten times as much and with far greater personal freedoms, with a private firm?
All in all it was a surprisingly good read that shed light on a side of the conflict you rarely hear reported but employs hundreds of thousands of personal and is incredibly influential.
* Interestingly some of the most helpful locals they found were ex-Iraqi military personal who had great respect for the British since they had actually been taught and instructed by the British, in Britain, during the days when Saddam was fighting Iran. This supports my belief that actually when it comes to building international relations the military is one of the best in the business, with thousands of foreign soldiers, sailors and airmen working along side our own every year and to the benefit of all.
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