Senate Committee on Homeland Security holds hearing on use of private security firms overseas.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing today to discuss issues concerning private security contractors (PSCs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Committee Chairman Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) said that PSCs have played a pivotal role in the security of Americans overseas but recognized that “there have been problems” with reference to the incident last year in Iraq when Blackwater security agents opened fire on a crowd of Iraqi civilians killing 17. He said that after an extensive investigation into the use of PSCs, the committee found a number of problems related to the hiring, vetting, and training of PSCs. He recommended setting training standards for all PSCs with regard to weapon use and adherence to international human rights laws. He also said that their needs to be better coordination among agencies in the oversight of PSC operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ranking member of the Committee Senator Susan Collins spoke briefly mimicking Lieberman’s address. She said that their needs to be legal statutes enforced to improve regulation, oversight, and accountability of PSCs. She added that the U.S. “cannot expect trust and respect from other peoples if we can not impose clear constraints and enforce serious legal consequences for illegal conduct by private security contractors.”

The witness list consisted of four participants: Under Secretary of State for Management of the U.S. Department of State Patrick F. Kennedy; Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics and Material Readiness of the U.S. Department of Defense Jackson Bell; Senior Vice President of ArmorGroup North America James Schmitt; and Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law Laura Dickinson.

Kennedy spoke about the history of PSCs saying that the 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut underlined the need to hire private security firms for overseas operations. Bell listed the number of PSCs working in Iraq and Afghanistan at 163,590 and 36,520, respectively. Schmitt told the committee that he believes in the need to establish government wide standards, licensing requirements and contract provisions for PSCs. And Dickinson spoke last telling the committee that Congress should hold a duty to “punish” contractors who act illegally.