Hired Guns in the War On Terror

by Robert Young Pel­ton
2003, Ran­dom House
ISBN13: 9781400097814
ISBN10: 1400097819
358 pages, illustrated

Book Descrip­tion
Robert Young Pel­ton first became aware of the phe­nom­e­non of hired guns in the War on Ter­ror when he met a covert team of con­trac­tors on the Afghanistan/Pakistan bor­der in the fall of 2003. Pel­ton soon embarked on a globe-spanning odyssey to pen­e­trate and under­stand this shad­owy world, ulti­mately deliv­er­ing stun­ning insights into the way pri­vate sol­diers are used.

Enter a blood-soaked world of South African mer­ce­nar­ies and tribal fight­ers backed by ruth­less financiers. Drop into Baghdad’s Green Zone, strap on body armor, and take a daily high-speed ride with a doomed crew of secu­rity con­trac­tors who dodge car bombs and snipers just to get their charges to the air­port. Share a drink in a chic hotel bar with wealthy own­ers of pri­vate armies who debate the best way to stay alive in war zones.

Licensed to Kill spans four con­ti­nents and three years, tak­ing us inside the CIA’s dirty wars; the bru­tal con­trac­tor mur­ders in Fal­lu­jah and the Alamo-like sieges in Najaf and Al Kut; the Deep South con­trac­tor train­ing camps where ex–Special Oper­a­tions sol­diers and even small town cops learn the ropes; the con­trac­tor con­ven­tions where macho atten­dees swap bullet-punctuated tales and dis­cuss upcom­ing gigs; and the grim Cen­tral African prison where con­trac­tors turned failed mer­ce­nar­ies pay a steep price.

The United States has encour­aged the use of the pri­vate sec­tor in all facets of the War on Ter­ror, plac­ing con­trac­tors out­side the bounds of func­tional legal con­straints. With the shock­ing clar­ity that can come only from first­hand obser­va­tion, Licensed to Kill painstak­ingly decon­structs the most con­tro­ver­sial events and intro­duces the piv­otal play­ers. Most dis­turbingly, it shows that there are indeed thou­sands of contractors—with hun­dreds more being pro­duced every month—who’ve been given a license to kill, their ser­vices avail­able to the high­est bidder.

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT. Avail­able com­mer­cially. Learn more about Robert Young Pel­ton.