Two Security Firms Win Big Iraq Contracts

The report cites a State Department audit in March 2010 which said Triple Canopy's 1,800 guards, most of them from Uganda and Peru, have poor standards of English, and criticised the accomodation in which the guards are housed.

The other security contractor is the British firm Global Strategies Group, which won a task order to provide both protective and static security for diplomats at the Consulate General in the southern city of Basra. That contract is worth up to $401 million over five years.

It’s not clear how many guards each company will have to provide. A statement the State Department prepared for Danger Room merely says that the total 5,500 guards projected to work for State in Iraq “will be subject to further refinement” as the department “continues to plan and coordinate” the departure of U.S. troops from the country by year’s end.

There are still three major State Department facilities in Iraq awaiting task orders for security contractors: the placid Erbil outpost in Kurdistan and the volatile consulates in multiethnic Mosul and Kirkuk. One contractor is expected to win a task order for both of those two cities, according to State.

As the December 2011 date for leaving Iraq draws nearer, some in the U.S. military are getting skittish about leaving. House Speaker John Boehner endorsed keeping a “small” residual force in Iraq past the deadline, which would require renegotiating a 2008 bilateral accord that the Iraqi leadership hasn’t requested to revisit. But whatever happens with the troop withdrawal, the State Department is moving forward with its plan to field a private security force of thousands — something it’s never, ever done before and lacks a roadmap for commanding.

(Source: Wired)