By John Markman

Companies supplying military contractors are the third largest contributor of forces to Iraq, proof that private armies are big business. If you have the stomach for profiting from conflict, here are the companies on the front lines.

Considering all the flak that President Bush has endured for ordering 20,000 more troops to Baghdad, it's a wonder that he didn't just pick up the phone and dial 1-800-MERCENARY.

That's what the Pentagon is likely to do anyway, as it has throughout the Iraq conflict. Thanks to loopholes in the law and budgeting process, upward of 20,000 private military contractors -- sadly, the term mercenary is passé -- are believed to be at work for the United States in the region, and their ranks are growing all the time.

We've outsourced airliner and parka manufacturing to foreigners, after all. Why not the messy job of fighting, not to mention translating and spying? Independent companies are now the third largest contributor of forces to Iraq, after regular American and British troops.

This has meant big bucks for a handful of little-known companies with Defense Department contracts. The most well-known of the bunch is privately held Blackwater USA, a secretive outfit run by a former Navy SEAL that hires commandos from as far away as Chile, Bosnia and the Philippines to fight our wars and protect our diplomats. When four of its men lost their lives in an unusually savage attack in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah three years ago, a spotlight was cast on the nasty business of private security forces. But since then, the attention has receded and these companies' influence has grown.

A new type of war profiteer

As the number of U.S. military personnel has fallen to around 1.5 million lately from around 3 million in 1970, the amount of money spent by the Pentagon on military operations has risen at a 6% annual rate from less than $50 billion to a bit more than $150 billion, adjusted for inflation. Much of the differential is being spent on outsourced services, and that is why independent personnel contractors -- a handful of which are public -- have become more important than ever.

If this gives you a chill, look at the bright side. It gives you the opportunity to be an entirely new type of war profiteer. No longer must you make money merely in the bloodless tailwind of mega-cap equipment vendors like Lockheed Martin (LMT, news, msgs) and General Dynamics (GD, news, msgs). You've now got a chance to make a few bucks off the men and women who actually shoot to kill. It's a capitalist version of "24," without the commercial breaks.

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

I'm surprised. I thought I was the only person that thought the US has resorted to a mercenary army. That is how the elite ruling class can have its wars and the middle class doesn't have to worry about how it will affect them. Everybody's happay and the mercenaries make money - how much better can it get?

Yes, the ruling elite will do almost anything to fill their pockets with obscene profitts at the expense of hummanity.

Hey you ain't seen nothing yet......wait until these mercenaries come home to the Streets of America to enforce law and order to protect the wealth and domestic political agendas for the Corporatist at the expense to the American public.

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AMERICA LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE--BECAUSE OF OUR CONSTITUTION.

They were here in New orleans after Katrina. I wish they would come back.