State wants to form a mini-army for Iraq security

WASHINGTON — The State Department is quietly forming a small army to protect diplomatic personnel in Iraq after U.S. military forces leave the country at the end of 2011, taking their firepower with them.

Department officials are asking the Pentagon to provide heavy military gear, including Black Hawk helicopters, and say they will also need substantial support from private contractors.

The shopping list demonstrates the department's reluctance to count on Iraq's army and police forces for security despite the billions of dollars the U.S. invested to equip and train them. And it shows that President Barack Obama is having a hard time keeping his pledge to reduce U.S. reliance on contractors, a practice that flourished under the Bush administration.

In an early April request to the Pentagon, Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's under secretary for management, is seeking 24 Black Hawks, 50 bomb-resistant vehicles, heavy cargo trucks, fuel trailers, and high-tech surveillance systems. Kennedy asks that the equipment, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, be transferred at "no cost" from military stocks.

Contractors will be needed to maintain the gear and provide other support to diplomatic staff, according to the State Department, a potential financial boon for companies such as the Houston-based KBR Inc. that still have a sizable presence in Iraq.

"After the departure of U.S. forces, we will continue to have a critical need for logistical and life support of a magnitude and scale of complexity that is unprecedented in the history of the Department of State," says Kennedy's April 7 request to Ashton Carter, the Defense Department's under secretary for acquisition and technology.

Without the equipment, there will be "increased casualties," according to attachments to Kennedy's memo detailing the department's needs.

The military equipment would be controlled by the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to the information Kennedy sent to the Pentagon. During the Bush administration, the bureau was heavily criticized by members of Congress for its management of Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms working in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military has about 7,500 of the bomb-resistant vehicles — known as MRAPs — in Iraq. So shifting 50 to the State Department could be easily handled as the troops depart.