Shadow Soldiers In The Iraq War

When Jon Cote' returned from the Iraq War a decorated army paratrooper he joined a University of Florida fraternity and let the good times roll. A few months later, feeling depressed and empty, Cote' signed on with a private security company as a mercenary and returned to Iraq. Cote' entered a war where shootings and casualties aren't reported, where mercenaries disappear and their companies hire someone else. In his book Big Boy Rules Pulitzer Prize winning war journalist Steve Fainaru gives us a firsthand look into the lives of mercenaries and their employers fighting for the US military in Iraq.

Without enough troops to fight its wars, the United States now relies on unprecedented numbers of soldiers for hire. No one is sure how many mercenaries are employed by the US government in Iraq, but estimates range from 25,000 to over 75,000. Their deaths are not included in the US government's casualty totals; no statistics are kept about how many die or just disappear. It's also unclear what laws govern mercenaries in Iraq; they are immune to Iraqi law, US law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Islamic law, and the Geneva Conventions. In the fall of 2007 three teams of Blackwater guards opened fire on civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square killing 17 people in 15 minutes, an action described by US military investigators as a "criminal event." Blackwater still operates in Iraq, and while a handful of their guards have recently been charged in US federal court, lawyers aren't sure they're legally accountable to anyone.

Some people see mercenaries as heroes paid to fight for the United States. They allow the US military to avoid a draft. Jon Cote's friend and fellow soldier Patrick McCormack sees it differently: "You can get away with taking life if your country sends you; you can eventually forgive yourself. But when you do it because you want to buy a house, that's when you really begin to have existential questions." Fainaru never resolves his own moral ambiguity toward mercenary work. He does write a book I couldn't put down, a book that illuminates part of the Iraq War that's been kept in the shadows.