Homeland Security

DATE=1/23/03

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=PETER SINGER

NUMBER=3-506

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

/// EDITORS: THIS INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE IN DALET UNDER SOD/ENGLISH NEWS NOW INTERVIEWS IN THE FOLDER FOR TODAY OR YESTERDAY ///

HOST: Authorities in Kuwait are holding a 25-year-old Kuwaiti citizen who...they say...has confessed to the attack on two American civilians Tuesday. One died in the attack. The other was seriously wounded. Both were working for the American military at the U-S military base known as Camp Doha. The man in custody...according to the Kuwaiti officials...has also admitted being a supporter of the al-Qaida terrorists.

There are a large number of American civilians working for the U-S military both here in the United States and around the world. Peter Singer writes about armed forces' contract workers in his soon-to-be published book "Corporate Warriors." He spoke with VOA's Tom Crosby:

MR. SINGER: The overall private military industry has really expanded within the last decade, to the extent that, around the world, the entire industry measures several hundred companies and has a global annual revenue of around 100 billion U.S. dollars.

MR. CROSBY: In fact, you've been quoted as saying that there is one contractor for every 10 soldiers.

MR. SINGER: Yes, that's the rough ratio that you have now in support of U.S. military forces.

MR. CROSBY: Why do we have so many?

MR. SINGER: It has been a combination of factors. The main reason is that there was a fairly deep downsizing in the U.S. military after the end of the Cold War. And where these deepest cuts were made was in the support service sectors, things like logistics and engineering and support of technical systems. Private companies, in a sense, filled the void there. And it also came at a time where there was an increasing belief in the power of the private market. The privatization revolution is what it was called in Britain, and it really carried over to the States as well.

MR. CROSBY: Is that, in a sense, saying that there is a belief that the private sector can do some jobs better than the military?

MR. SINGER: That's the underlying belief. It can either provide a better quality service -- and that's in terms of everything from upkeeping complex systems like computers and communication systems to serving better-cooked food -- or that it can provide a service that's cheaper.

MR. CROSBY: Is it a justified belief, though?

MR. SINGER: There is really mixed data on that. On the quality side, in some cases they have been able to do things better than the military. In other cases they have provided pretty much the same thing simply because they've hired away military troops to perform the same services.

On the cost side, the data really doesn't show that there has been great savings in any one case. And often, while there has been short-term savings on the budget line, these contracts have gotten so big that, in the end, they end up paying more because they have to keep these guys on site.

MR. CROSBY: As we look at what happened in Kuwait, the killing of an American there, does it suggest to you that the military, in using contract employees, may take on an additional mission of trying to provide security for those employees?

MR. SINGER: Yes. That is one of the very interesting ironies of this, that the military originally outsourced a lot of these activities because it thought it would save in terms of cost and responsibility, that it could have civilians take on jobs that the military didn't want to do and they could focus on the job of winning the war or fighting. However, because these guys are deploying into conflict zones and they're under some of the same threats, the military is now going to have to delegate personnel to protect them. And so you end up not getting any kind of savings in terms of either cost or having your forces dedicated on the things that you want to do.

MR. CROSBY: And should we find ourselves engaged in a war with Iraq, are we going to see many, many more civilians in the Gulf area, do you think?

MR. SINGER: I think as you have a gradual buildup of U.S. forces, the civilian support structures are going to come along with them. Inside Iraq, the question will be how the invasion and then likely occupation plays out. If you have a large occupation force, it will probably be structured along the lines of how U.S. forces were deployed into, say, the Balkans. And in those cases it was civilian companies that built the military base camps and things like barracks and also helped to run these base camps. So, not just during the invasion but in the long term you could have a lot of companies on the ground operating inside the region.

HOST: Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution. His book "Corporate Warriors" is due out in the next three months.

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