Mercenary Boom in Iraq Creates Tension at Home and Abroad (2nd try)

[Sasha Lilley <sashalilley@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry for the formatting problems with the previous
email version of this article, which inserted text
from the side bar into the middle of the story.


Mercenary Boom in Iraq Creates Tension at Home and
Abroad

By Aaron Glantz
Special to CorpWatch

Kirkuk, Iraq -- Mamand Kesnazani reclines in his
high-backed leather chair and puts his feet on top of
his desk inside the main security gate of Iraq's
northern oil field. The former fighter for Jalal
Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
Kesnazani came to Kirkuk the same day as the American
Army last April. He's been guarding the oil field ever
since.

"I've had a lot of bosses this year," Kesnazani says
as he orders a round of dark Iraqi tea. "First it was
the PUK, then the US Army came with Kellogg, Brown and
Root. That's Dick Cheney's company," he says smiling.
"Now the company has changed again to a British
company called Erinys."

Kesnazani is a peshmerga -- which means "ready to die"
-- a name that has become the accepted name for the
Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq who battled Saddam
Hussein's army for decades. Security jobs like those
at Northern Oil are technically open to all Iraqis,
but those staffing this checkpoint estimate 95% are
peshmerga.

Kesnazani has not even bothered to change his uniform.
He still wears the checkered black and white headscarf
and sharwal (baggy pants) typical of peshmerga
fighters, but most of his cohorts are clad in the
smart blue and gold uniform of Erinys Iraq. They look
every bit the part of private security guards.

These men are on the frontline of the burgeoning
security business in Iraq, easily the fastest growing
business sector in the country because of the growing
sophistication and effectiveness of the insurgency.
The majority of the jobs go to Kurds because of their
unswerving hatred of Saddam over the years, or to
mercenaries from other countries like Britain to South
Africa, who are neutral players in what some see as a
growing civil war. This boom may be heightening ethnic
tensions in Iraq while causing a recruitment strain on
security forces in other countries.

Favoritism Towards Kurds?
Four o'clock in the evening in Kirkuk and two dozen
American soldiers are doing their part to secure the
city. The US military is performing a regular search
of the local offices of the Kurdistan Community Party.
A dozen American soldiers with machine guns and body
armor are searching the building, while another dozen
station themselves outside -- some allowing Iraqi
children to play with their automatic weapons. The
commanding officer Lt. John Frazee says his troops
found five Kalashnikovs -- the self-defense limit set
by American authorities.

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=10288

=====
Sasha Lilley
Producer, Against the Grain
Pacifica Radio's KPFA
510 848-6767 ext 209
www.againstthegrain.org

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