*Ø* The private army in Iraq

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Dwight D Eisenhower, 1961

We've all read it before, but it never hurts to be reminded of the warning with which US President Eisenhower cautioned the American people in his parting speech. We've seen his prophecy come true in our times.

And a relatively new industry has joined the military-industrial complex: private soldiers and militray consultants, of whom there are now 20,000 in Iraq.

The privatization of war

Listen to Prof. Peter W Singer (not the Australian ethicist of the same name, minus the middle initial), the author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. (A transcript will be here by week's end.)

"This is a trend that is growing and Iraq is the high point of the trend," said Singer, a security analyst at Washington's Brookings Institution, in another article. "This is a sea change in the way we prosecute warfare. There are historical parallels, but we haven't seen them for 250 years."