Blackwater mercenaries are supposedly protecting Americans. Then why are they pulling guns on American soldiers and holding our soldiers hostage?

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company.

There’s a bunch of damn serious problems here. Do Blackwater mercenaries have a reputation with American soldiers of being too crazy to deal with? Are American soldiers told to defer to Blackwater mercenaries? If you watch this video from the battle of Najaf, you see American soldiers in a firefight taking orders from civilian-clad Blackwater mercenaries. And why the hell would Blackwater mercenaries even feel the need to pull their weapons on American soldiers wearing US military garb driving a US Army Humvee?

Those are important questions about what’s happening now in Iraq (and quite possibly Afghanistan as well). But there are deeper, systemic issues I’ll discuss this weekend in my next installment of this. For instance, why are Blackwater mercenaries have a reputation for being better trained than our own soldiers?

Blackwater's staunchest defenders tend to be found among those whom they guard. U.S. officials prefer Blackwater and other private security bodyguards because they regard them as more highly trained than military guards, who are often reservists from MP units. A U.S. Embassy staffer, who did not have permission to speak on the record, said, "It's a few bad eggs that seem to be spoiling the bunch." Late last week the State Department announced that it would increase oversight of Blackwater in particular, installing cameras in its vehicles and having a Diplomatic Security Service officer ride along on every convoy. But another State Department official, also speaking anonymously, says that DSS agents in Baghdad have not been eager to rein in the contractors in the past: "These guys tend to close ranks. It's like the blue wall."

Here’s why they’re more highly trained, and it’s the fault of the US government.

A lot of the Blackwater mercenaries are former special forces, or at least people who went through training for elite units. They were given much better training than military police soldiers. But then they left the military, and instead of investing more in recruiting, training and retaining elite military police, we train special forces, lose them to the private sector, then pay exorbitant amounts of money to train their replacements in special forces, then pay private contractors exorbitant amounts of money to have the elite soldiers trained by the military used as MP’s because we don’t put as high a premium on training and retaining elite MP’s. It’s an ultimate penny wise/pound foolish approach, and it’s costing taxpayers a bundle.

The other problem here is the "solution" of having Blackwater mercenaries be chaperoned by officers with the Diplomatic Security Service. Why would the DSS guys speak badly of Blackwater mercenaries if they could probably get jobs with Blackwater and make more money...as long as they never speak ill of Blackwater while they’re still in the DSS?

The Blackwater situation specifically, and the mercenary and private war contracting in general are huge problems that need to be fixed. But here’s one potential fix that should be considered, and Congress should jump on it immediately: just as members of Congress, top staffers and many executive branch employees are prohibited from working in certain jobs for a year or longer after they end their government services, private mercenaries like Blackwater should be prohibited from employing former US soldiers in war zones or volatile missions like protecting dignitaries for a year or two after they finish their military duty. That way it may slow the flow of highly-trained soldiers to the private sector, thus depleting our military of excellent soldiers and also making private contractors more reliant on themselves instead of the taxpayers to locate and train their mercenaries.

There’s also the problem that the DSS folks probably aren’t too keen about getting blown up driving around Baghdad. And who can blame them?