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FROM THE EDITOR

Accountability is a Two-Way Street

J. Michael Waller

When Congress creates, mandates, and funds a program for years without updating the law to make the program accountable, it fails to serve the public. When hundreds of lawmakers are aware of this and have benefited personally from it, their failure to update the law becomes a scandal.

So it is with this fall’s Capitol Hill drama on private security contractors. More than a decade ago, Congress slashed the size of the U.S. military, explicitly envisioning that private contractors would provide the surge capacity in time of emergency or war. Almost four years ago, a bipartisan majority of Congress voted to fund the State Department to hire private security contractors (PSCs) to protect American diplomats and others—including visiting congressmen and senators—in Iraq. Congress has done so ever since, but it never bothered to update the law to mandate and define accountability channels.

Even though the industry repeatedly called for such accountability, Congress failed to act. Nearly every federal lawmaker who has visited Iraq since 2004 has personally benefited from the protection of companies like Blackwater Worldwide, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy that were contracted to provide diplomatic security. Not a single elected official ever complained about the guards being too aggressive in guarding their lives.

PSCs and the issue of accountability came to the forefront and into the headlines in the wake of the incident of September 16, in which Iraqi civilians died in circumstances that were still unclear at press time.

When the going got tough in September, some lawmakers and much of the media heaped blame on the security company involved, demanding “accountability.” Accountability and its cousin, press coverage, are the main themes of this issue of Serviam. The entire global stability industry, not just PSCs, will serve humanity best when it is as transparent and as accountable as possible. Transparent self-policing will reduce the need for onerous government regulations.

We look at the matter from a contractor perspective: Accountability is a two-way street. If Congress creates mandates but fails to modernize the law accordingly, it must be held accountable. If congressional “investigations” are partisan or motivated by arguably corrupt practices, the lawmakers involved must be held accountable (see sidebar, “Clueless Congressmen”) mainstream news organizations generate controversy without regard to professional standards of objectivity, accuracy, and fairness, they, their writers, and their editors must be held accountable.

The global stability industry can draw some valuable lessons from this controversial experience:

1. Too much secrecy undermines public confidence. The average person understands operational security issues and the need to protect information from an enemy. However, too much secrecy helps fuel public fears that an organization is out of control and dangerous.
2. A well-organized public affairs operation might not show up as a profit-maker on an annual spreadsheet, but its intangible rewards are high. Constant education of the public pays off by lowering suspicions, increasing confidence, addressing and even negating critics, and generating the support needed for doing future business.
3. Demands for accountability within one’s peer group are necessary. The industry has to be out in front on the issue, ahead of its critics, addressing concerns before something goes wrong. That way, when things go badly, as they inevitably will from time to time, journalists, policymakers, and the public will be more understanding and less reactionary.
4. Like the old expression “Who will guard the guards?”, those who will hold the industry accountable must be held to the same high standards. Accountability mechanisms must themselves be accountable.
5. Finally, the industry must stop its circular firing squad mentality. It’s one thing to push demonstrably unprofessional, inept, or corrupt companies and nongovernmental organizations out of the global stability sector, and to ensure quality within. However, it’s another thing entirely to take advantage of a peer competitor’s occasional mistake, misfortune, or bad press. Those types of attacks, magnified when the targeted company is legally bound not to defend itself in public, only cast suspicion and disrepute on the entire sector.

Competitors in the global stability industry will increasingly find that they must work together, or at least coexist. As long as one quality company is unduly undermined by its peers, no quality company is safe. And that’s bad for everyone—especially for the innocent people all of us are trying to serve.
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From the November/December 2007 issue of Serviam.