Private Security Companies in Iraq: A PEJ Study

Exactly how many Americans are serving in Iraq and what they are doing there might not seem like complicated questions. Stories in the media regularly talk about the 150,000 U.S. military personnel in the Iraq theater, but report little on private security.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has done an extensive survey on
some 30,000 employees of U.S. and European-based Private Security Companies (PSCs), who work in some of Iraq’s most dangerous areas.

These PSC employees are not like other contractors in Iraq. Many of them carry weapons and are hired to protect important people, facilities and convoys. They have been involved in firefights and scores of them, the exact number is unclear, have perished. Yet there are many basic unanswered questions about these armed forces, which add by 20% the number of foreign troops in the country.

As a starting point, the financing can be difficult to track. Some PSC personnel are paid directly by the U.S. government, while others work as sub-contractors or sub-sub-contractors for other companies doing business in Iraq.

The issue of who is in charge of them in the field also can be confusing. While PSCs work alongside the U.S. military in Iraq, ultimately they serve at the discretion of the groups that hire them. Those employers may be the government, but they could also be some third party.

One thing is clear. Private security companies are doing jobs once largely undertaken by the military. And experts say they are being used in unprecedented numbers in the war in Iraq.

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