Security contractors in Iraq face growing violence

BAGHDAD -- Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in US military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire, and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to US and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military builds up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, are engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor, and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said.

One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 "hostile actions" in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to US officials.

Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker , and several other companies have not applied, US and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

The security industry's enormous growth has been facilitated by the US military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction materiel, including vehicles, weapons, and ammunition for the Iraqi Army and police.

They guard key US military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Major General Darryl A. Scott , who oversees US military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military plans to outsource at least $1.5 billion in security operations this year, including the three largest security contracts in Iraq: a "theaterwide" contract to protect US bases that is worth up to $480 million, according to Scott; a contract for up to $475 million to provide intelligence for the Army and personal security for the Army Corps of Engineers; and a contract for up to $450 million to protect reconstruction convoys.

The Army has also tested a plan to use private security on military convoys for the first time, a shift that would significantly increase the presence of armed contractors on Iraq's dangerous roads.

"The whole face of private security changed with Iraq, and it will never go back to how it was," said Leon Sharon, a retired Special Operations officer who commands 500 private Kurdish guards at an immense warehouse transit point for weapons, ammunition, and other material on the outskirts of Baghdad.

US officials and security company representatives emphasized that contractors are strictly limited to defensive operations. But company representatives in the field said insurgents rarely distinguish between the military and private forces, drawing the contractors into a bloody and escalating campaign.

The US military has never released complete statistics on contractor casualties or the number of attacks on privately guarded convoys. The military deleted casualty figures from reports issued by the Reconstruction Logistics Directorate of the Corps of Engineers, according to Victoria Wayne, who served as deputy director for logistics until 2006 and spent 2 1/2 years in Iraq.

Wayne described security contractors as "the unsung heroes of the war." She said she believed the military wanted to hide information showing that private guards were fighting and dying in large numbers because it would be perceived as bad news.

After a year of protests by Wayne and logistics director Jack Holly, a retired Marine colonel, the casualty figures were included.