http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...502474,00.html

Contractors say they were treated like insurgents

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Thursday June 9, 2005
The Guardian

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were
beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when
they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja
last month.

"I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane," one of the
contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in
an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "They treated us like
insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us
names."

A Marine Corps spokesman denied that abuse had taken place and said an
investigation was continuing. According to the marines, 19 employees
of Zapata Engineering, including 16 Americans, were detained after a
marine patrol in Falluja reportedbeing fired on by a convoy of trucks
and sports utility vehicles. The marines also claim to have seen
gunmen in the convoy fire at civilians.

This is believed to be the first time that private military
contractors have been detained in Iraq by the US military, and it has
reignited debate about their status and accountability.

The security guards claim the shooting incident was a case of mistaken
identity. A spokeswoman for the company told the LA Times that the
guards had fired warning shots into the air when an unidentified
vehicle approached their vehicle as it passed through Falluja, but had
not fired at any marines.

Mark Schopper, a lawyer for two of the contractors, told the newspaper
that his clients, both former marines, were subjected to "physical and
psychological abuse". He said they had told him that marines had
"slammed around" several con tractors, stripped them to their
underwear and placed a loaded weapon near their heads.

"How does it feel to be a big, rich contractor now?" one of the
marines is alleged to have shouted at the men, in an apparent
reference to the large sums of money private contractors can make in
Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan, a Marine Corps spokesman, who did not
respond to emails from the Guardian, said in an email to the LA Times:
"The Americans were segregated from the rest of the detainee
population and, like all security detainees, were treated humanely and
respectfully."

The American contractors, who were working in explosives disposal,
were arrested on May 18 and imprisoned for three days. All have since
left Zapata Engineering, which is based in North Carolina, and have
returned to the US. They also complained they were made to wear orange
prison uniforms and fed the same "bad food" as Iraqi prisoners.

According to Peter Singer, a Brookings Institute scholar and author of
the book Corporate Warriors, private military contractors in Iraq are
operating in a black hole as they do not fall within the military
chain of command. "What appears to have happened here is tension
between forces bubbling to the surface," he told the Guardian.

But he said the incident also raised the question of what happens to
contractors if they are caught doing something wrong, such as firing
on civilians, as their legal status is not defined. "If the marines
think [the contractors] did do something illegal there is no process
they can go through. Who are they going to hand them over to?" Mr
Singer said. "There have been more than 20,000 [contractors] on the
ground in Iraq for more than two years and not one has been prosecuted
for anything."