Abstract: | The war in Iraq began on March 20, 2003 and officially ended on December 18, 2011. The United States, Poland, Australia and Great Britain along with forty-five other countries launched a military invasion of Iraq without the prior approval of the United Nations Security Council. Russia, France, Germany and a majority of Arab states opposed the military invasion of Iraq. The Iraq War was a prolonged armed conflict between the international coalition of allied forces, led by the U.S., and the Iraqi Army, and later the rebel factions in Iraq. In addition to its own Armed Forces, the U.S. hired members of private military companies to fight in the Iraq War on the side of the international coalition of allied forces. Private military companies are, by their very nature, legal entities providing military and security services. The change in the composition of the post-Cold War armies in the Western world has increasingly involved the private sector in modern armed conflicts. This was very evident in the Iraq War, where private military companies were used to an extent we had never witnessed before. The United States, as the world's largest power, relied heavily on the use of private military companies. In some years of the Iraq War, the number of members of these companies exceeded that of the U.S. Armed Forces. The reason for the U.S. dependence on military companies during the Iraq War was the inability of the U.S. Armed Forces to carry out all the necessary military tasks and to reduce the negative political impact of the war. The use of private military companies has become widely known to the U.S. and international public because of some high-profile media incidents involving members of these companies. Nor did the US have the political will or an effective legal mechanism in place to prosecute members of private military companies if they committed a crime while performing their duty, or even if they committed a crime off duty. The prosecution of crimes committed by members of private military companies during the Iraq War was difficult and, in some cases, impossible due to a lack of legal basis. |
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