Hilali did not give a precise number of security companies operating in the country. “I don’t think such statistics exist,” she said.
Committee Chair Hakim al-Zamili said in October that some 700 local and foreign security companies were operating in Basra province alone, employing some 75,000 foreign operatives, with 17,000 weapons of various types and some 65,000 vehicles.
On Jan. 28, the committee confirmed that “the company charged with protecting the US Embassy will come under the new law, as will branches of foreign security firms deployed at the embassies of other countries.”
Foreign security companies started working in Iraq after 2003 to protect foreign companies, VIPs, diplomatic missions and sensitive installations, as well as to carry out dangerous tasks such as mine clearance. On Feb. 11, two private security experts were wounded in southern Ramadi when a bomb exploded as they attempted to defuse it.
Private security firms have been accused of violations in Iraq. In April 2016, Israeli TV channel i24 reported that between 2005 and 2015, a British security firm had hired child soldiers from Sierra Leone to guard American military bases in Iraq.
On July 20, 2016, the US Justice Department accused security company DynCorp International of knowingly submitting inflated expense claims over four years in connection with a State Department contract to train Iraqi police.
The new security companies law was issued to regulate the work of private security firms protecting individuals and companies. Previously, these firms were regulated under a memorandum issued by the now-obsolete Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004, but the memorandum lacked clear rules laying out procedures and conditions under which these companies would work. The new bill aims to address these shortcomings as well.
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