Firms tap Latin Americans for Iraq

Joe Mayo, a spokesman for Triple Canopy, a security company based in Lincolnshire, Ill., confirmed that the firm is recruiting in El Salvador but declined to give any detailed information. "Everything we do is legal," he stressed in a phone interview, "but we are a private company. The minute you divulge your numbers of employees and your methods of recruiting, you become less competitive."

But a police sergeant here, speaking on condition of anonymity, says there have been more than 800 requests in the past three months by policemen nationwide asking to leave in order to accept jobs with two different contracting firms, mostly with Triple Canopy. He says 32 people have been given permission by the department and maybe 10 more, he says, have gone without permission.

Pay depends on the recruit's experience and the job to be performed, but can also be determined by his country of origin. While some firms offer US and European recruits up to $700 a day, companies like Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., reportedly pay Latin Americans and others from less developed countries $1,200 to $5,000 a month. Uniforms, housing, transportation, food, and life insurance are all provided. Typical police salaries in El Salvador range from $320 a month for rank-and-file police to $1,500 for a handful of elite officers.

The practice has its critics. "This is all very deeply wrong," says Geoff Thale, a senior associate for Central America at the left-leaning WOLA. He argues that the developing world should not serve as a cheap labor source for life threatening work that the US government has chosen to undertake. "It may be tempting to hire low-wage workers to take risks for us, so that we don't experience the human cost of casualties or deaths ourselves. But it's not morally acceptable," he says.

Others, like Paul Forage, a lecturer on military and security issues at Florida Atlantic University, wonder whose law the contracted recruits operate under, what sort of accountability mechanisms are in place, and who would help them if they were kidnapped? "There are a lot of vague areas here," says Forage.

While Pentagon and State Department guidelines governing the operation of contractors in Iraq are loose, Doug Brooks of the International Peace Operations Association, a group of private-sector service companies engaged in overseas operations, says the industry is becoming more regulated, both by itself and the US government.

Firms, for example, are required to obtain standard insurance for all their recruits, and more companies are committed to assisting their workers in cases in injury or kidnapping.

"There used to be more irregularities," he admits, "but the bad [contracting firms] have been weeded out."

Lopez's best friend at the academy, Max Vaquerano, is already in Iraq, in Basra. The two men communicate weekly by e-mail, and Lopez says he now has good sense of what to expect in Iraq - it's hot and, despite most news accounts, is often boring.

Lopez has already had an interview with a contracting company, which he refuses to name, and has asked for leave from his current duties. Even if he doesn't get it, he says, he will be leaving next month.

"It's time to go to war," he says, smiling, "It's a good opportunity."

• Ms. Harman is Latin America bureau chief for the Monitor and USA Today.

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