The Privitization of Cut and Run

Start with this news item:

Manhattan security company Kroll has withdrawn its bodyguard teams from Iraq and Afghanistan after it lost four workers in Iraq, its parent company said Wednesday.

Michael Cherkasky, president and chief executive of Kroll owner Marsh & McLennan Cos., told The Associated Press that the business in the two countries wasn't worth risking the lives of their employees.

Toss in this tidbit:

Bechtel Corp. went to Iraq three years ago to help rebuild a nation torn by war. Since then, 52 of its people have been killed and much of its work sabotaged as Iraq dissolved into insurgency and sectarian violence.

Now Bechtel is leaving.

The San Francisco engineering company's last government contract to rebuild power, water and sewage plants across Iraq expired on Tuesday. Some employees remain to finish the paperwork, but essentially, the company's job is done.

Bechtel's contracts were part of an enormous U.S. effort to put Iraq back on its feet after decades of wars and sanctions. That rebuilding campaign, once touted as the Marshall Plan of modern times, was supposed to win the hearts of skeptical Iraqis by giving them clean water, dependable power, telephones that worked and modern sanitation. President Bush said he wanted the country's infrastructure to be the very best in the Middle East.

But Bechtel -- which charged into Iraq with American "can-do" fervor -- found it tough to keep its engineers and workers alive, much less make progress in piecing Iraq back together.

"Did Iraq come out the way you hoped it would?" asked Cliff Mumm, Bechtel's president for infrastructure work. "I would say, emphatically, no. And it's heartbreaking."

And I'm seeing a potential threat.

These companies are no shrinking violets. They have worked in some rough places. If they are leaving, it's past merely bad in Iraq.

But that's not what's troubling me. As usual, it's Halliburton. What if they decide to cease operations in Iraq?

The preceding examples highlight the big difference between civilian contractors and our troops. One's duty is to its stockholders; the other's is to our country. If it becomes unprofitable enough, contactors will leave.

Halliburton has 30,000 employees in Iraq, and supplies our soldiers with food, clean water, and housing among other logistics services.

Can military logistics take up the slack if they leave? If not, will we be forced to withdraw our forces to save them?

Are some things too important to outsource?

I believe so, and will vote accordingly.

How about you?