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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Aussie SAS - join hired guns |
| 2004-05-17 |
| AUSTRALIAN mercenaries are risking their lives to make a fortune in Iraq on protective security detail. About 100 Australians - including about 40 former SAS troops - are working as hired guns in private security forces. An Australian security worker checks over a bombed out ute in the Iraq desert. The former SAS elite earn up to $9000 a week to guard corporate managers and infrastructure projects. Each day they face attack or ambush, including bombs hidden in dead dogs beside the roads, an ex-SAS officer said from Baghdad. Yet six ex-SAS, who were part of last year's invasion force, quit Australia¡¯s front-line troops to sign up. Other soldiers of fortune include former Australian Federal and State Police from counter-terrorist and specialist units. "It really is a scene out of a Mad Max movie - incredibly lawless with no one fully controlling the highways," said Gordon Conroy, a former regiment major and head of athletes' security at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Mr Conroy, who commanded the SAS's counter-terrorist squadron until 1997, is now co-director of security firm Unity Resources Group. "We have been caught by IED (improvised explosive device) ambushes on roadways, rocketed and mortared in our accommodation, caught in protests that have suddenly turned violent and turned on our men," he said. "We've been involved in small arms and RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attacks, driven through checkpoints minutes before suicide car bombs have gone off. We've had to evacuate clients out of various hot spots with little or no military support, had to deal with false police checkpoints." An unknown number of international privateers among the estimated 10,000 security contractors have been killed. Some, like the four US security contractors slain in Fallujah last month, have suffered a gruesome and very public death. "I can't say how many have been killed since the end of the war but the majority of PSD (protective security details) working out here all know of people who have been injured or killed," Mr Conroy said. "It's an intense environment and most security operators in Iraq will witness and be involved in incidents that would take their counterparts working elsewhere in the world a lifetime to experience. Two days ago we drove a client from the Green Zone to Baghdad International Airport and came across a soft-skinned Land Cruiser with a single expatriate inside who had been attacked in a drive-by shooting." Mr Conroy said Iraq was still in a state of war, a year after Saddam Hussein was toppled. "We have been living and operating in many of the hot spots that have been in the news recently," he said. "There have and continue to be a number of tricky situations faced by our men on a daily basis." This Australian guard protects a bullet-riddled utility after it was ambushed. "Travel along the roads and highways throughout Iraq is risky business - every day coalition convoys are hit. Contractors are seen as soft targets and are more frequently hit by IEDs which are secreted along the roadways in Amco rail barriers, cemented into guttering or hidden in roadside debris such as dead dogs, soft-drink cans, rubbish bags." Attacks had become more sophisticated over the 11 months Mr Conroy has been in Iraq as experienced terrorists enter the conflict. "The foreign terrorists have had a lot of practice, been able to refine their modus operandi and time is definitely on their side - not ours," he said. "Attacks are now combining IEDs with small-arms fire follow-up. You cannot take this environment for granted for a second and people who first arrive here see it as truly surreal. Over time, people tend to become more accustomed to things - this is when you must be very careful and never become complacent. The environment is absolutely ruthless to those who don't respect it." Mr Conroy said the coalition military was overstretched and often unable to support private security officers. "When you get into trouble you have to get yourself out and this may not be just the one time during a journey, it could be a few," he said. Better for us than against us. |
| Posted by:Townsville Post |
| #2 They are doing a great job and most are well trained, working in difficult situation to keep aid workers and contractors safe in the rebuilding of Iraq. To call them mercenaries, hired guns or soldiers of fortune is a crock. They are employed by a company who is contracted by USAID. It is a legitimate job, and to say they are being paid $9000 a week is an even bigger load of rubbish. The journalist(who shall remain nameless), like most journalists obviously enjoyed overstating the situation. Gordon Conroy (if they are in fact his own words) has done nothing more than make the guys he employs sound like a bunch of cowboys, when nothing could be further from the truth. Other than that the report does give some indication of the dangers they face on a daily basis. |
| Posted by: Aussie Wife 2004-06-02 10:29:11 AM |
| #1 I have no problem with our Aussie trained friends helping out - G'd Luck Mates! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-17 11:16:24 PM |