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Mercenary Boom in Iraq Creates Tension at Home and Abroad By Aaron Glantz Special to CorpWatch Kirkuk, Iraq -- Mamand Kesnazani reclines in his high-backed leather chair and puts his feet on top of his desk inside the main security gate of Iraq's northern oil field. The former fighter for Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Kesnazani came to Kirkuk the same day as the American Army last April. He's been guarding the oil field ever since. "I've had a lot of bosses this year," Kesnazani says as he orders a round of dark Iraqi tea. "First it was the PUK, then the US Army came with Kellogg, Brown and Root. That's Dick Cheney's company," he says smiling. "Now the company has changed again to a British company called Erinys." Kesnazani is a peshmerga -- which means "ready to die" -- a name that has become the accepted name for the Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq who battled Saddam Hussein's army for decades. Security jobs like those at Northern Oil are technically open to all Iraqis, but those staffing this checkpoint estimate 95% are peshmerga. Kesnazani has not even bothered to change his uniform. He still wears the checkered black and white headscarf and sharwal (baggy pants) typical of peshmerga fighters, but most of his cohorts are clad in the smart blue and gold uniform of Erinys Iraq. They look every bit the part of private security guards. These men are on the frontline of the burgeoning security business in Iraq, easily the fastest growing business sector in the country because of the growing sophistication and effectiveness of the insurgency. The majority of the jobs go to Kurds because of their unswerving hatred of Saddam over the years, or to mercenaries from other countries like Britain to South Africa, who are neutral players in what some see as a growing civil war. This boom may be heightening ethnic tensions in Iraq while causing a recruitment strain on security forces in other countries. Favoritism Towards Kurds? Four o'clock in the evening in Kirkuk and two dozen American soldiers are doing their part to secure the city. The US military is performing a regular search of the local offices of the Kurdistan Community Party. A dozen American soldiers with machine guns and body armor are searching the building, while another dozen station themselves outside -- some allowing Iraqi children to play with their automatic weapons. The commanding officer Lt. John Frazee says his troops found five Kalashnikovs -- the self-defense limit set by American authorities. http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=10288 ===== Sasha Lilley Producer, Against the Grain Pacifica Radio's KPFA 510 848-6767 ext 209 www.againstthegrain.org __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/
