Josh Marshall is pledging to make it a major focus for TPM over the coming months, a project that he's kicked off with a series of posts outlining the problems it has created. Today's post sets out the issue as clearly as I've ever seen:
In testimony yesterday, Sec Defense Bob Gates said that one of the issues he's most concerned about is the way that private contractors in Iraq lure away active duty members of the military with promises of much higher salaries -- often to do more or less the same stuff they're doing in uniform. In fact, that problem is so bad that he's looking into whether or not he can get soldiers to sign non-compete agreements to prevent them from getting headhunted by the private contractors who are allegedly there in Iraq working for us.
This really casts in a sharp, almost comedic relief what's happening in the privatization of our military and what's becoming of what we used to call the basis of state sovereignty -- the monopoly on the legitimate use of force....Now why is this so? The reasons aren't so different from those behind privatization in more domestic parts of government service. Cost-savings and -- at least this is the argument -- streamlining the functions that are core to the missions of various agencies and government institutions. Another, less frequently stated, reason is that working through contractors allows you to evade a lot of laws and accountability.
But let's focus on the alleged budgetary savings. If private contractors are able to lure soldiers/marines away with far higher salaries and if you figure in the sizable profit margins of the contractors themselves, it's not hard to see that the US government is paying a lot more to have the 'contractors' do whatever job it is than it would to simply have the Army or Department of State do the jobs themselves. And this is one of the keys to understanding what's happening. A lot of what the contracting mega-issue is about is the US government paying contractors big bucks to do jobs the military (or other agencies of government) could do better and cheaper themselves.
Let's be absolutely clear about this. This is NOT an accident. This is by design. As Josh points out, the entire process began when Cheney was the Secretary of Defense. Cheney then left public service for Halliburton, a position that he only gave up when he returned to public life as the VP. Cheney doesn't care about cost savings, and he never has. The decision is based entirely on a very simple ideology: government bad, business good. Alleged cost savings are often used to justify the policies this ideology demands, but they are justifications and nothing more.
I've said this before and I will no doubt say it again. The use of military force is a sovereign task. The protection of diplomatic assets is a sovereign task. It doesn't matter if it is feasible to outsource these functions; it is something we just should not do.
But let's just set that aside for a moment, and instead, let's focus on the reality that their ideology creates. The US government now relies so heavily on mercenaries that it is considering requiring soldiers to sign non-compete agreements. Not only do the mercenaries cost more, as the Blackwater incident shows they are far more difficult to control. And worse, given their higher pay scales, they are now competing for the services of our soldiers in a way that is hollowing out our own military.
If this doesn't clarify why an unthinking allegiance to the private sector is dangerous, nothing will. This system we have created - that Dick Cheney personally helped create - is a direct threat to our national security. Endless war is problem enough, but with mercenary competition thrown in to the mix, this whole thing is verging on disaster.
Sorry to get shrill two days in a row, but this really is this bad. We are outsourcing war, and we are doing it in a way that simultaneously increases costs, decreases national military readiness, and decreases the likelihood of successful policy outcomes. And best of all, all of this comes to you courtesy of supposed "strong on national security" conservatives.
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