Charlie Cray	- Download MP3-

Over the past few days, Chattanooga Police Department Officer Ricky Ballard has been waking up early morning and going to bed late, hoping to soak up as much of the city as he can — because after he leaves next week for Iraq, he’ll treasure the atmosphere here more than ever.

“I know that once I get to Iraq, it will be all desert and broken buildings,” said the 34-year-old police academy training instructor.

But Officer Ballard is not being deployed to the war zone with the U.S. military. The 12-year department veteran is choosing to halt a promising career in local law enforcement to join the ranks of a private security firm contracted to work for the federal government.

It is a popular job even during the fifth year of the Iraq war, and the government has become more reliant than ever on the support these contracted firms provide, said Charlie Cray, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Corporate Policy and co-founder of Halliburton Watch.

Though no one knows exactly how many private contractors are working in Iraq, the total is estimated to be well over 100,000, said Mr. Cray, who believes the number of contractors now outnumbers the total number of troops overseas.

As of this week, there were about 159,000 troops in Iraq and another 34,000 in Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense.

Though reliance on contractors is touted as a cost-saving measure, the strategy has been debated recently within the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Mr. Cray said.

“We’ve had private contractors before,” he said, noting that their use has been documented at least as far back as World War II. “However, the ... use of contractors has ballooned to an extent that’s unprecedented.”

Changing military

Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, also in Washington, D.C., said the expansion historically is unique because it has led to the government handing jobs to civilians that traditionally have been under the military’s purview, such as interrogation and translation.

“There has been a movement that we need more war fighters than we need behind-the-scenes-type people (in the military),” Mr. Amey said.

But he said several analysts and policy-makers in Washington have been questioning this new concept, especially in light of the fact that employees of private companies have very little oversight or accountability compared to military personnel.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice introduced new measures for increased oversight of contractors in October 2007, addressing questions raised after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad involving employees of Blackwater USA. The new rules dictated that employees in the war zone would follow military directives.

But there still are issues of accountability, Mr. Amey said, because it still is unclear whether private employees fall under military law, Iraqi law or U.S. law when they must be disciplined for misconduct in combat zones.

“There are things somebody in the Army can be accountable for, but the person sitting next to them won’t because they work for contractor X,” he said.

Mr. Cray said he hopes to see a special congressional committee formed that would hash out the issue and have broad authority to investigate activity overseas.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., said the issue has been discussed in Washington for some time and that there is support for the formation of that type of committee.

“If taxpayers are accountable to pay them, then they should be accountable for their activity,” Rep. Davis said, adding, “Quite frankly, we’re probably putting too many private jobs at a pay scale two, three, maybe four times what the military is paying our young men and women.”

self-report rule

As a first step in addressing the issue, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would require contractors to self-report any illegal or improper activity, Rep. Davis said. H.R. 5712, the “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act,” was referred to the Senate on April 30, records show.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is not opposed to looking at the issue more closely, according to his spokesman, Lee Pitts.

“When used properly, private contractors allow our servicemen and women to focus on military matters,” Mr. Pitts said. “For example, we don’t need someone with military training serving meals in mess halls — our troops need to be available to fight the war. But we should have continued oversight to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted.”

Douglas Ebner, director of media relations for DynCorp — one of the major service contractors in Iraq — said accountability measures already are in place at the individual company level. However, he said, DynCorp, for one, is willing to enact and enforce any additional measures the government might deem necessary.

“We are committed to accountability and transparency in everything we do,” Mr. Ebner said. “We will follow the clear rules set forward by the government, in conjunction with whatever agreements or treaties they have with other countries. That’s all part and parcel of doing your work responsibly.”

Mitchel Smith, a Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy who was privately contacted to do police work in Kosovo from 2004 to 2006, agreed. Deputy Smith said he believes nonmilitary contractors provide important support in war zones and do so in a professional manner.

During reconstruction, law enforcement officials play the crucial role of mitigating the shoot-first, think-later atmosphere the military must cultivate in the war zone, he said.

“The military does things differently than a private citizen,” Deputy Smith said. “They’re made to kill things and break things.”

Officer Ballard said he primarily will be providing security and protection for visiting dignitaries, and his tactical training as a Chattanooga SWAT officer likely will come into play on a daily basis in that job. But he’ll be getting paid a lot more for it — more than tripling his current salary — and will get invaluable experience surviving a dangerous climate to boot, he said.

“I get the chance to take all my experience overseas and help people,” Officer Ballard said. “How many people can say they’ve done that?”