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The Zaytun Unit, Korea¡¯s largest overseas military contingent since the Vietnam War, is conducting an experiment in military logistics in Iraq. The combat unit has outsourced its catering business to a private contractor. In this, it is only following in the footsteps of the United Staes. U.S. forces in Iraq already make wide use of private contractors for equipment maintenance, kitchen work and even patrolling and guarding of camps, with 40 percent of their military spending estimated to be paid to private contractors.
¡ß Helping the unit settle down
In October 2004, an advance team of the Zaytun Unit arrived in Irbil in northern Iraq, at the end of a 1,115 km trip under U.S. aerial protection. The location was a barren field, where soldiers faced huge difficulties. At one point, they had difficulty securing even tent cloth. They could not afford to roam about the downtown area to buy more: if any of them should be attacked by insurgents, public opinion back in the country would turn immediately against their presence in Iraq.
So it was Kim Suk-tae (53), the president of Arco, a regional construction firm, who solved the problem. Kim, a builder based in Kuwait, arrived in Iraq to do business there as soon as the war was declared over in May 2003. "I had no choice. I knew Iraq well, so I went to the market to buy tent cloth,¡± he recalls. He interviewed former Iraqi special forces troops and hired them as bodyguards. Escorted by them, he traveled all over Iraq to buy tent cloth and building materials. In the early morning, he drove a truck to the flashpoint of Mosul, where bombing attacks occurred every day, to buy the cloth. In the evening, he drove to Kirkuk to buy building materials. At one point on the road, armed bandits attacked, firing at his truck. But they fled when his bodyguards fired back.
After buying the tent cloth, Kim had it sewn in Irbil and supplied it to the Zaytun Unit. Mobilizing local workers, he also helped the unit surround its 3.3 million sq. m outer area with barbed wire. A Zaytun officer says it would have been virtually impossible for the unit to settle down if it hadn¡¯t been for Kim's assistance.
¡ß U.S. outsourcing
The Los Angeles Times on Saturday reported that the number of U.S.-paid civilian private contractors and security contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops there. It said the number of private contractors in Iraq totals 182,000, as against 160,000 troops. Famous firms like Blackwater and KBR are taking care of almost all kinds of support work for the U.S. soldiers, including laundry, mail dispatch and delivery and cooking. It is a private security contractor, not U.S. soldiers, who protects the commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq. The four Americans killed and dismembered by insurgents in Fallujah in 2005 were first reported to be "civilian contractors." In fact, they were combat mercenaries employed by Blackwater. Some have described the Iraq War as being waged jointly by the U.S. forces and private contractors.
A Korean military officer said through programs such as Defense Reform 2020 project, Korea also plans to make use of private contractors in equipment maintenance, logistics and catering. ¡°I don't think we will use them also as combatants the way the U.S. does,¡± he said. ¡°But from a long-term point of view, we will have to use private contractors in the wake of the reduction of the armed forces."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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