Les mercenaires de l’Empire et une sacrée bonne question

Puisque la question des mercenaires US de firmes privées comme Blackwater est devenue d’actualité pressante après la tuerie du 16 septembre (de 8 à 28 Irakiens civils tués à Bagdad par des mercenaires de Blackwater sans provocation), on se penche avec intérêt sur le phénomène. Le site WSWS.org donnait hier des indications précises sur leur situation. Les chiffres sont impressionnants, — comme par exemple d’apprendre

• que 40% des dépenses US pour la guerre en Irak ($2 milliards par semaine) va au secteur “privé” ; et

• qu’il y a 180.000 contractants US venus du secteur privé (sécurité et le reste) pour 160.000 soldats US alors que le rapport était de 60 (soldats US) contre 1 (contractant privé) durant la première guerre du Golfe…

«These mercenaries are part of the privatization of US military operations. When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, they bought the largest force of private contractors ever deployed in modern warfare. While during the first Gulf War the ratio of troops to private contractors was about 60 to 1, in the current war in Iraq privately employed operatives outnumber US troops, with 180,000 contract personnel involved in both security and other tasks from more than 100 countries, compared to the official US military presence of 160,000 troops.

»In the prosecution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, vast sums of money have been funneled into the pockets of Bush administration cronies and US multinational corporations. While US spending on mercenary and private contracting services is not readily available, some congressional estimates indicate that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the war goes to private contractors. An estimated $2 billion a week is spent on US operations in Iraq.

»Multimillion- and billion-dollar profits are channeled to companies like Haliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney formerly served as CEO. In the early days of the war, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) was awarded a no-bid contract to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq estimated at tens of millions of dollars. KBR also has thousands of military contractors on the ground in Kuwait and Turkey as part of a government contract worth close to a billion dollars.

»Blackwater USA has government contracts totaling at least $800 million, providing security to US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and other diplomats. Only recently, it was awarded a large State Department contract to provide helicopter services in Iraq.

»Cofer Black, former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism and former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, is Blackwater vice-chairman. Former CIA divisional head Robert Richer joined the company as vice president of intelligence in 2005.

»The North Carolina-based company has trained more than 20,000 mercenaries ready to be deployed in wars around the world. Blackwater has also hired at least 60 Chilean commandos trained under the Pinochet dictatorship.»

Cette privatisation intensive de la guerre recèle certains cas embarrassants. L’un des plus spectaculaires est celui soulevé par une question d’un lecteur du Washington Post, le 27 septembre, à la journaliste Dana Priest, et devant laquelle Priest reste sans voix, — question qui revient à ceci: que se passerait-il si les talibans engageait des mercenaires de Blackwater pour se battre contre les soldats US en Afghanistan?

«Montreal: Dana, what's the U.S. position on contractors like Blackwater if they're used by an enemy country and, say, shoot Americans? If they were on the other side of a conflict, what's their status? They're not soldiers.

»Dana Priest: I cannot fathom this scenario.»

Mis en ligne le 2 octobre 2007 à 14H25