DynCorp in Colombia: Outsourcing the Drug War

A U.S.-made Huey II military helicopter, manned by foreigners wearing U.S. Army fatigues, crash lands after being pockmarked by sustained guerrilla fire from the jungle below. Its crew members, one of them wounded, are surrounded by enemy guerrillas.

Another three helicopters, this time carrying American crews, cut through the hot muggy sky. While two of them circle, firing machine-guns at the hidden enemy, one swoops down alongside the downed Huey, and the Americans jump through the wash of the blades into the firefight on the ground, successfully rescuing the downed crew members.

It could be a scene from a soon-to-be-released Hollywood blockbuster based on the war in Vietnam or El Salvador. But, it happened in Colombia last February, as part of the U.S. $1.3 billion intervention called "Plan Colombia."

The Americans who braved the bullets were members of an armed "airmobile" Search and Rescue Team. However, they were not part of the U.S. Armed Forces, but civilian employees of a private company called DynCorp, the new "privateer mercenaries" of a U.S. policy that now "outsources" its wars.

Like the old English "privateer" pirates of the Caribbean five hundred years ago -- sailing under no national flag, robbing and plundering Latin America's riches for the English Crown -- Washington now employs hundreds of contract employees through U.S. corporations to carry out its policies in Colombia and other countries.

In the old days, the British maintained that because the pirate ships did not fly the English flag, the Crown was not responsible for their actions. While the new privateers are underwritten through U.S. taxes, they are technically "contract employees." Like the sixteenth century pirates, if they get caught in an embarrassing crime, or are killed, the U.S. government can deny responsibility for their actions.

What's more, only a select few in Congress know of their activities and their operations are not subject to public scrutiny, despite the fact that they are on the government payroll.

"It's very handy to have an outfit not part of the U.S. armed forces, obviously. If somebody gets killed or whatever, you can say it's not a member of the armed forces," former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, Myles Frechette told reporters.

Meanwhile, Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey recently described himself as an "unabashed admirer of outsourcing."

There is an economic motive to outsourcing, too. Deploying high-ranking active duty military officers to staff Colombian operations is far more costly than hiring retired officers working privately. A U.S. government official, who asked not to be named, said that there were several reasons that the U.S. government outsources projects: "[Outsourcing] can be a flexible, cost-effective means of providing specific labor-intensive services on a short-term basis. Once we hire government workers, they are here forever. Some of these jobs are only short-term."

Outsourcing belligerent activities on the part of the U.S. government is not new. It goes back to the Revolutionary War. Many such companies were involved in the Vietnam war, but they were only a minuscule presence compared to the major military effort by the U.S. there.

Now, however, contract employees are in the forefront of operations. In the Colombian war, private outsourced military men are out on the frontlines, while the real U.S. troops are hidden on bases as trainers.

The exact number of contract employees in Colombia is not known. A recent State Department report states that there are only 200 U.S. military soldiers and about 170 American contractors working in Colombia. But historically, official counts of U.S. personnel and contractors tend to be underestimated in counter-insurgency operations.

DynCorp and Plan Colombia