Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq examines the controversial role of military contractors in the reconstruction of Iraq. When 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was launched in March 2003, few, if any, of the Coalition's political leaders could have envisaged that within a few months the number of private contractors engaged to keep the troops supplied would exceed their actual combat strength. This alternative 'army' was not only to become the largest assemblage of contractors in living memory to accompany a military force into a war zone, but was also responsible for a fundamental transformation of how military logistics were delivered. This book explains how and why the US and UK governments became so dependent upon military contractors during the war in Iraq. It also examines the ramifications this new dependency will have on future military operations, as the conflict in Iraq has shown that private contractors are now indispensable to the attainment of both the military and political objectives of war. Finally, the book discusses what advantages and disadvantages these companies have brought to the reconstruction of Iraq, and what lessons need to be learned from this experience. This book will be of great interest to students of military and strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and international security, and as well as policymakers and military professionals. Christopher Kinsey is a lecturer in international security at King's College London, Defence Studies Department, at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham. His previous publications include Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies (Routledge: 2006)

The book concludes with an assessment of the complexities surrounding responses to security privatization - and an exploration of when, and whether, it should be promoted rather than prevented."--BOOK JACKET.

From Pulitzer Prize - winning Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru comes an unforgettable journey into Iraq's parallel war - a world filled with tens of thousands of armed men roaming Iraq with impunity, doing jobs the military can't or won't do. Fainaru reveals in gritty and shocking detail what drives these men to do the world's most dangerous work.

Presents the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which was formed in 2006 to examine the situation in Iraq and offer suggestions for the American military's future involvement in the region.

More than one year after the "fall of Baghdad," the reconstruction of Iraq was failing terribly. Ordinary Iraqis waited in line for basic necessities like clean water and fuel, while the number of civilians and soldiers killed escalated in tandem with the billions of U.S. tax dollars spent. In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation, Pratap Chatterjee delivers an on-the-ground account of the occupation business, exposing private contractors as the only winners in this war. Chatterjee examines the big failings and even bigger swindles of Iraq's corporate managers, from the dangerous follies of an out-of-touch government-in-exile to the unchecked price gouging by Cheney's successors at Halliburton. In Iraq, Inc. Chatterjee contrasts the employment boom of mercenaries--more than 20,000 soldiers of fortune from apartheid-era South Africa, Pinochet's Chile, and elsewhere in Iraq--with the crowds of unemployed locals ripe for recruitment to the resistance. Drawing on years of research and first-hand experience in the region including his live reporting from post-invasion Iraq as he traveled around the country first in December 2003 when Saddam Hussein was captured and in April 2004 during the height of the siege of Fallujah, Chatterjee brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's free Iraq.

Faced with a decreasing supply of national troops, dwindling defense budgets, and the ever-rising demand for boots on the ground in global conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, decision makers are left with little choice but to legalize and legitimize the use of private military contractors (PMCs). Outsourcing Security examines the impact that bureaucratic controls and the increasing permissiveness of security environments have had on the U.S. military’s growing use of PMCs during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bruce E. Stanley examines the relationship between the rise of the private security industry and five potential explanatory variables tied to supply-and-demand theory in six historical cases, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia in 1995, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Outsourcing Security is the only work that moves beyond a descriptive account of the rise of PMCs to lay out a precise theory explaining the phenomenon and providing a framework for those considering PMCs in future global interaction.

This monograph examines prewar planning efforts for the reconstruction of postwar Iraq. It then examines the role of U.S. military forces after major combat officially ended on May 1, 2003, through June 2004. Finally, it examines civilian efforts at reconstruction, focusing on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority and its efforts to rebuild structures of governance, security forces, economic policy, and essential services.