- The Ministry of Defence has begged private security firms
working in Iraq to stop 'poaching' its best soldiers amid fears that hundreds
of officers are leaving the army to cash in on the spoils of war.
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- Scotland on Sunday can reveal that the number of officers
requesting Premature Voluntary Release has soared since Saddam Hussein
was ousted. Some 350 senior soldiers have applied to leave in the past
six months alone, compared with the previous year's total of 499.
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- The army - which is already struggling to maintain numbers
- can ill afford to lose so many officers in such a short period. MoD bosses
recently approached ex-servicemen running many of the private security
firms in Iraq and asked them not to recruit from among serving soldiers.
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- But it is unclear what impact, if any, the request will
have. As attacks by insurgents claim the lives of increasing numbers of
coalition soldiers, civilian workers, politicians and policemen, the need
for private ëmuscle' in the country grows.
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- Serving soldiers realise they can massively increase
their army salaries, earning as much as £1,000 a day providing protection.
-
- Special forces have been particularly badly affected
by the exodus, with around 40 SAS operatives quitting the service since
the fall of Saddam.
-
- Details of the ëbrawn drain' afflicting Britain's
military planners emerged as UK security firms working in Iraq raised new
concerns about the calibre of staff providing vital protection services
for thousands of people in an increasingly perilous atmosphere.
-
- A number of the companies have demanded that the British
government crack down on ëcowboy' companies, claiming that bouncers
and security guards are among those passing themselves off as former elite
soldiers, and that they are putting lives at risk.
-
- This will add to the woes of Defence Secretary Geoff
Hoon as he tries to rebuild confidence amongst the armed forces following
controversy over equipment shortages in Iraq.
-
- The continuing concerns over the safety of civilians
and officials in Iraq emerged as a series of explosions and attacks across
the country yesterday claimed the lives of dozens of Iraqi civilians and
at least seven US soldiers.
-
- The demands for higher standards among guards reveal
the extent of the government's problems in Iraq. Ministers are already
desperately trying to stop the lucrative private security industry poaching
the military's own highly-trained staff as a fast-track route to improving
the service they provide in an increasingly competitive sector.
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- A memo circulated among the six British firms providing
security in Iraq informally requests that they look elsewhere for recruits.
"We have had an informal communication from a senior officer in the
regiment who has asked us not to poach anybody," confirmed one former
SAS soldier who now runs a security company.
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- "We do not have to go out of our way to persuade
people to leave. The fact is that guys who are coming to the end of their
careers know they can decide to stay on for another year or get out and
name their price. They can earn in a day what they would earn in a week
and most do a lot better than that."
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- Paul Brown, a director of Hereford-based AKE, said serving
soldiers were inevitably a valuable resource for the biggest companies.
"Most of them take ex-military personnel, but they also recruit from
right across the forces," he said.
-
- An MoD spokeswoman said the forces could not stand in
the way of people who wanted to leave, but she said they had to undergo
a period of "quarantine" before going to other jobs.
-
- Up to 15,000 personnel are working for private firms
in Iraq, and their costs are expected to swallow up almost a quarter of
the £12bn the United States is ploughing into the effort to rebuild
Iraq.
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- ©2004 Scotsman.com http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=465802004
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