Mercenaries of America
The United States has spent over $160 billion on private military contractors since September 11, 2001. At peak deployment, there were more contractors than troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 8,000 contractors have died — more than the number of US service members killed. Almost no one has been held accountable for anything.
The privatization of American warfare created a shadow army that fights, kills, and dies outside the chain of command, beyond the reach of military justice, and invisible to the American public. This is the story of how the United States outsourced its wars — and lost control of them.
By the Numbers
Estimated spending on private military/security contractors since 9/11
Congressional Research Service
Contractor deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Department of Labor OWCP
Peak number of private contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously
CRS Report R44116
Ratio of contractors to uniformed troops at peak deployment in Iraq
DoD CENTCOM quarterly reports
Contractors convicted in US courts for killing Iraqi or Afghan civilians before 2008
DoJ records
Average daily cost of a private security operator in Iraq — vs. $190/day for a soldier
CBO analysis, 2008
The Rise of Private War: A Timeline
The privatization of American warfare didn't begin with 9/11 — but 9/11 turned it into a trillion-dollar industry. The Pentagon, facing two simultaneous wars with an all-volunteer force that was too small, turned to private companies to fill every gap: security, logistics, intelligence, interrogation, base construction, food services, and even combat operations. What started as a stopgap became a permanent feature of American war-making.
MPRI trains Croatian army before Operation Storm — 200,000 Serbs displaced. Pentagon outsourcing model is born.
Erik Prince founds Blackwater USA in Moyock, North Carolina. A SEAL-turned-heir with family ties to Republican politics and the DeVos fortune.
DynCorp employees in Bosnia caught running a sex trafficking ring using minor girls. Internal whistleblower fired. No criminal charges filed.
Invasion of Iraq. Pentagon deploys unprecedented numbers of contractors. By mid-2003, there are nearly as many contractors as troops.
Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. CACI International and Titan Corp interrogators involved. Military personnel prosecuted; contractors walked free.
Four Blackwater contractors killed and mutilated in Fallujah — triggering the devastating First Battle of Fallujah (600+ Iraqi civilians killed).
Nisour Square massacre: Blackwater guards kill 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians including two children. State Department initially covers it up.
Blackwater rebrands to "Xe Services" after Nisour Square backlash. Contracts continue under new name.
Xe rebrands again to "Academi." Same company, same leadership network, third name in four years.
Four Blackwater guards finally convicted for Nisour Square — 7 years later. One gets life. Trump later pardons all four in 2020.
Trump pardons all four Nisour Square Blackwater contractors on December 22. Iraqi government calls it an insult to the rule of law.
US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Thousands of contractors left scrambling. No organized evacuation for private workers.
The Major Players: Who Got Paid
A handful of companies captured the lion's share of private military spending. Many were founded or led by former military and intelligence officials who used their government connections to secure contracts worth billions. The revolving door between the Pentagon and these companies spun so fast it created its own weather system.
Blackwater / Xe / Academi
$2B+ (2003–2011)Controversy: Nisour Square massacre (17 civilians killed), arms smuggling investigations, CIA assassination program participation
KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root)
$39.5B (2003–2013)Controversy: Electrocuted soldiers in faulty showers (at least 18 deaths), $553M in overcharges, contaminated water supply at Camp Ramadi
DynCorp International
$25B+ (2001–2021)Controversy: Bosnia sex trafficking scandal, $1B Afghan police training failure, overbilling on multiple contracts
CACI International
$6.4B (defense segment, 2001–2021)Controversy: Abu Ghraib interrogators, no employees prosecuted despite involvement in torture
Triple Canopy (now Constellis)
$4B+ (2003–2021)Controversy: Employees filmed shooting at civilian cars for sport in Iraq. Company fined but kept contracts.
L3 Technologies (now L3Harris)
$12B+ (defense, 2001–2021)Controversy: Provided translators who were later implicated in intelligence failures and detainee abuse
Booz Allen Hamilton
$8B+ (defense/intel, 2001–2021)Controversy: Edward Snowden was a Booz Allen employee when he leaked NSA surveillance programs. Company kept all contracts.
The Shadow Army: Contractors vs. Troops
In every major US military operation since 2003, private contractors have equaled or outnumbered uniformed troops. By the end of the Afghanistan war, the ratio was nearly 4 contractors for every 1 soldier. This isn't an army with contractor support — it's a contractor force with military support.
Iraq (2008)
Contractor-to-military ratio: 1.07:1
Afghanistan (2012)
Contractor-to-military ratio: 1.72:1
Afghanistan (2016)
Contractor-to-military ratio: 2.75:1
Afghanistan (2019)
Contractor-to-military ratio: 3.79:1
Iraq + Afghan combined (2001–2021)
The Invisible Dead: Contractor Casualties by Year
When a US soldier dies, flags are lowered. The President mentions it. The hometown newspaper runs a story. When a contractor dies, nothing happens. No flag ceremony. No Pentagon press release. No entry in the Congressional Record. Their deaths are tracked — when they're tracked at all — by the Department of Labor's workers' compensation program, the same system that handles workplace injuries at factories and offices.
Note: From 2008 onward, contractor deaths frequently exceeded military deaths. The total contractor death toll (8,000+) exceeds total US military deaths (7,057) across both wars combined.
September 16, 2007: The Nisour Square Massacre
The single event that came to define everything wrong with private military contracting happened on a sunny Sunday morning in Baghdad. It lasted twelve minutes. It killed seventeen people. It took seven years to produce a conviction — and three years after that, a presidential pardon erased even that small measure of justice.
Blackwater convoy (callsign Raven 23) enters Nisour Square traffic circle in armored vehicles. They are not under fire.
Without provocation, Blackwater guards open fire on a white Kia sedan. Dr. Ibrahim Abid (medical student) and his mother are killed instantly.
Guards continue firing into crowded traffic circle with M4 rifles, M240 machine guns, and an MK19 grenade launcher. Civilians cannot flee.
Ali Kinani, age 9, is shot in the head while sitting in his father's car. He dies later that day.
An Iraqi traffic police officer waves his arms and screams at Blackwater guards to stop. They continue firing.
Firing stops after approximately 12 minutes. 17 Iraqi civilians are dead. 20+ are wounded. No evidence of hostile fire is ever found.
State Department Diplomatic Security initially reports "a justified escalation of force." Internal Blackwater communications show guards knew they had fired on unarmed civilians.
It takes until 2014 for a US court to convict four guards. Nicholas Slatten receives a life sentence. Three others get 30 years.
President Trump pardons all four Blackwater guards on December 22, 2020. Iraqi Prime Minister calls it "a blow to justice and humanity."
The Price Tag: Contractors vs. Soldiers
The Pentagon's rationale for contractors was that they would be cheaper and more flexible than maintaining a larger standing army. The opposite turned out to be true. The Congressional Budget Office found that private security contractors cost 6.4 times more per person than uniformed military personnel. The “cost savings” of privatization were a myth from the beginning.
Annual salary of US Army E-5 Sergeant
$36,000Base pay. With benefits: ~$72,000 total compensation.
Annual cost of Blackwater security operator
$445,000Billed rate to State Department. Operator received ~$150K; rest went to Blackwater.
Daily cost of Army soldier in Iraq
$190All-in cost including equipment, food, housing, benefits.
Daily cost of private security contractor
$1,222CBO estimate. 6.4x the cost of a soldier for equivalent work.
Annual KBR logistics contract (LOGCAP)
$5.8BLargest single contract in Iraq. Cost-plus structure incentivized waste.
Cost of feeding one soldier per day (KBR)
$28–45KBR charged $28 per meal. Pentagon found $100M in overbilling in food services alone.
Blackwater armored vehicle
$320,000Billed to US government. Comparable military MRAP: $500K but reusable and maintained.
The Accountability Void
Private military contractors operate in a legal no-man's-land. They are not subject to military law. They are largely immune from host-country law. US civilian courts have jurisdiction in theory but almost never prosecute. The result is a fighting force of hundreds of thousands that operates with less oversight than a local police department.
Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA)
Passed in 2000 to allow prosecution of contractors overseas. In 20+ years, fewer than a dozen cases have been brought. The DOJ has shown virtually no interest in enforcing it.
Contractors operate in a legal gray zone where US law rarely reaches and host country law is unenforceable.
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
Does not apply to civilian contractors. A 2006 amendment theoretically extended UCMJ to contractors "in contingency operations," but it has never been tested in court.
Soldiers face courts-martial for misconduct. Contractors face nothing.
Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs)
The US negotiated immunity from local prosecution for all US personnel, including contractors. CPA Order 17 in Iraq granted blanket immunity from Iraqi law.
Iraqi courts could not prosecute Blackwater guards who killed Iraqi civilians. Sovereignty was meaningless.
Lack of Congressional Oversight
Contractor numbers, casualties, and costs are not regularly reported to Congress. The DoD has repeatedly failed to maintain accurate counts of deployed contractors.
Congress literally does not know how many contractors are deployed, how many have died, or how much they cost.
Whistleblower Retaliation
Contractor employees who report fraud or abuse are routinely fired. DynCorp employee Ben Johnston was terminated after reporting sex trafficking in Bosnia. Others have faced worse.
The few accountability mechanisms that exist are undermined by retaliation against those who use them.
Corporate Name Changes
Blackwater became Xe became Academi became part of Constellis Group. Each rebrand distances the company from its past while maintaining the same contracts and networks.
Corporate rebranding is used as a substitute for accountability. Same people, same practices, new letterhead.
KBR: The Company That Electrocuted American Soldiers
Kellogg, Brown & Root — a former Halliburton subsidiary that Dick Cheney helped build into a defense behemoth during his time as CEO — received the single largest contract in Iraq: LOGCAP III, worth $39.5 billion. KBR built bases, ran dining facilities, managed water treatment, and handled logistics for the entire theater.
They also killed American soldiers through negligence. Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, a decorated Green Beret, was electrocuted in his shower at a KBR-maintained base in Baghdad in January 2008. The DoD Inspector General found that KBR had been warned repeatedly about faulty electrical wiring and done nothing. At least 18 service members died from electrocution in KBR-maintained facilities.
KBR was also caught serving contaminated water to troops at Camp Ramadi, overbilling by hundreds of millions of dollars, and maintaining a corporate culture where cost overruns were features, not bugs — the cost-plus contract structure meant that the more KBR spent, the more profit it made.
The Cost-Plus Problem
Under cost-plus contracts, the government reimburses all expenses plus a guaranteed profit margin (typically 1–7%). This means there is zero incentive to reduce costs and every incentive to inflate them. If KBR spent $1 billion on base construction, it got $1 billion back plus $50–70 million in profit. If it spent $2 billion on the same work, it got $2 billion back plus $100–140 million in profit.
The Pentagon's own auditors found $553 million in questioned costs on KBR contracts in Iraq. The company was never debarred, never lost a contract, and continued receiving billions in new awards.
DynCorp: Sex Trafficking and Billion-Dollar Failures
In 2001, DynCorp employees working in Bosnia under a State Department contract were discovered to be participating in a sex trafficking ring involving minors. Employees purchased women and girls, some as young as 12, from local traffickers. Company supervisors were aware and participated.
Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic, reported the trafficking to his supervisors and then to Army Criminal Investigation Command. He was fired. DynCorp did not report the crimes to authorities. No DynCorp employee was ever criminally charged. The company settled Johnston's wrongful termination lawsuit and continued receiving government contracts worth billions.
DynCorp later received over $1 billion to train the Afghan National Police — a program that the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) called a “total failure.” Many of the police trainees were illiterate, drug-addicted, or never existed at all (ghost soldiers whose pay was collected by corrupt Afghan officials). The program continued for years after it was known to be worthless.
Erik Prince: The Mercenary Mogul
Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, is the son of Edgar Prince, a Michigan auto parts billionaire, and the brother of Betsy DeVos, who served as Donald Trump's Secretary of Education. A former Navy SEAL, Prince founded Blackwater in 1997 with family money and turned it into the most notorious private military company in American history.
After the Nisour Square massacre forced Blackwater to rebrand (twice), Prince moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he built a private army for the crown prince of Abu Dhabi — a force composed of Colombian and South African mercenaries trained to suppress internal dissent. He later attempted to build a private air force for hire and proposed replacing US troops in Afghanistan with a private force under his command.
In 2017, Prince met with a Russian intermediary at a Seychelles resort in what was later investigated as a potential back channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow. Prince told Congress he was there for a “chance meeting.” Multiple witnesses contradicted him. He was never charged with lying to Congress.
Prince has also been investigated for potential violations of arms export laws, money laundering, and his involvement in a plan to infiltrate progressive organizations on behalf of Project Veritas. In every case, no charges were filed. Erik Prince is perhaps the perfect symbol of the private military industry: wealthy, connected, and untouchable.
The Case Against Mercenary Warfare
The free market works when consumers can choose, when prices are transparent, and when bad actors face consequences. Private military contracting fails every one of these tests. The “consumer” is the government, spending other people's money. Prices are classified, cost-plus, or both. And bad actors face no consequences — not prosecution, not debarment, not even loss of future contracts.
This is not the free market. This is crony capitalism in body armor. The same companies that electrocuted soldiers, trafficked children, and massacred civilians continue to receive billions in government contracts because they employ the right lobbyists and donate to the right campaigns. The revolving door between the Pentagon and the contracting industry ensures that the people awarding contracts will one day work for the companies receiving them.
The Founders were deeply suspicious of standing armies. They would have been horrified by a private one — an armed force that answers not to the Constitution, not to Congress, not to the people, but to a corporate board of directors and quarterly earnings reports. The framers understood that the power to wage war must be subject to democratic accountability. Private military companies exist precisely to evade that accountability.
Over 8,000 American contractors have died in wars that most Americans cannot find on a map, fighting for companies that most Americans have never heard of, under rules of engagement that no one can explain. Their names do not appear on any memorial. Their deaths do not count toward the official toll. They are the invisible dead of America's invisible wars — and that invisibility is not an accident. It is the entire point.
Sources
- Congressional Research Service, “Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Afghanistan and Iraq” (R44116)
- Congressional Budget Office, “Contractors' Support of U.S. Operations in Iraq” (2008)
- Department of Labor, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs — Defense Base Act data
- Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Final Report (2013)
- Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Quarterly Reports
- Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2007)
- Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Final Report (2011)
- DoD Inspector General, Reports on Contractor Oversight
- US District Court for the District of Columbia, United States v. Slatten et al. (Nisour Square case)
- Senate Armed Services Committee, “Inquiry into the Role and Oversight of Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan” (2010)
- Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton's Army (Nation Books, 2009)
- DoD CENTCOM, Quarterly Contractor Census Reports (2008–2021)