The twice-annual Rebuilding Iraq Conference and Expo in Washington was once the talk of the military and security contractor communities. In those glory days, spooks, contractors, and top Iraqi and U.S. officials were among the thousands in attendance. Huge deals were done. Lots of smiling faces. No more. The Sixth Rebuilding Iraq Conference and Expo last week in Washington was an unmitigated bust. Not only was it sparsely attended, it had the misfortune of coinciding with the release of the bleak report of Iraq Study Group, which surely would take issue with the confab's slogan: "Building on a Successful Beginning." While Kurdistan is open for business and doing well, the Iraq gold rush is over.

With the focus on troop levels, shouldn't we be thinking about what to do with the second largest force in Iraq?

More than three years after the invasion of Iraq, the Department of Defense was finally pressured into counting the number of civilian contractors working in support of the U.S. mission. The resulting census, scheduled for release in a few weeks, will not even include subcontractors in its total. Even so, the Pentagon's deliberately underestimated figure of 100,000 raises troubling questions about how this manpower may be utilized in Iraq as U.S. policy moves forward.

In 1992 then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney hired Brown and Root to create a feasibility study of using contractors in a number of military scenarios. It is not surprising as Vice President, that Halliburton a company he CEO of was an integral of the war effort in Iraq and that contractors would play a major role in the War on Terror.

Civilian contractors in Iraq first emerged as an item of public concern following the slaying of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in March 2004. A few days later, Rep. Ike Skelton, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, wrote a letter to Sec. Rumsfeld requesting detailed information on private security contractors working in Iraq. Rumsfeld's response one month later cited the number of 20,000 hired guns working for sixty firms. It did not cover the other contractors required to support the war effort in Iraq.

The only thing certain about the Pentagon's first publicly-acknowledged estimate of security contractors was that it was incorrect. Its list of sixty firms does not even cite a number who were publicly known to be operating in Iraq at that time--including Vinnell, MPRI, CACI, SAIC, and Titan. In 2005 the Pentagon confirmed the GAO official estimate of 25,000 security contractors, once the contractors and subcontractors.

It seems suspicious that the statistics-obsessed military appears unable to count its own Contractor badge registrations (required for entry to most U.S. installations in Iraq). The implication seems to be that the U.S. government does not want to publicly acknowledge the strength of its secret army of civilian and security contractors.

Last year at this time the Dept of Labor came with its own estimate of 75,000 contractors in Iraq using the number of applicatons for Defense Base Insurance. It also estimated that 650 contractors had been killed in Iraq. Grim proof that contractors may not be fighting our war, but they are being killed by it.

Now Renae Merle of The Washington Post has sneak previewed another Pentagon's forthcoming report that a suspiciously round estimate of 100,000 Americans, Iraqis and third-country nationals working under contracts with U.S. agencies. The report deliberately does not cover subcontractors. If subcontractors had been included in the evaluation, the count would have almost certainly surpassed 160,000--the number of U.S. troops presently operating in Iraq.

Public debate about the use and number of troops in Iraq has been fierce, but little has been mentioned about the civilian presence. It is now time to ask what impact this secret army will have on future plans.

The British Foreign Office is banning British officials from using the phrase "war on terror" because it angers some British Muslims, reports the London Observer newspaper. A Foreign Office official told the Observer that Muslims view the American-coined phrase as being a "war against Islam." While some argue the edict is unwarranted, others point out the UK has far more experience fighting violence and terrorist groups in Northern Ireland and seeks to find consensus -- while fighting a low-key covert war. Hence, their plan to drop the controversial phrase.

"Field Manual 3-24 is the new bible for eager young officers and non commissioned officers in learning to fight insurgencies in Iraq and other countries. Putting the manual on the web is like giving a wiring diagram of a bank to a bank robber, a burglar alarm schematic to a thief and more importantly a detailed plan of pacification to a terrorist group."

Manuals on how to fight insurgencies and counterinsurgencies are about as secret as cookbooks or self-help books -- except the military manuals are more readily available, and they're free via the Internet.

There is scene in the film "Patton" where actor George C. Scott portrays the glee with which Patton trounces Rommel's tank battalions. As he carefully counters Rommel's famous tactics, he shouts, "Damn it, Rommel, I read your book!" One could almost imagine bin Laden or the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq recreating the same scene as he overcomes attempt after attempt to suppress the growing insurgency. It's a cinematic reminder that much of what we know has been immortalized in books, essays, military strategy papers and of course the Internet. Now the U.S. military has released its new Field Manual on Counterinsurgency. Owning or reading sensitive military training manuals on warfighting is neither new or surprising. Back in the fall of 2001 bin Laden and Mullah Omar could have read the entire Special Forces Operational Techniques Manual FM 31-20 online at Amazon...and for free... using Amazon's "Search Inside" feature.

Or they could have downloaded it from numerous sources, ranging from links on Wikipedia or even from the U.S. Army. Now the DoD releases the latest guide to Counterinsurgency (FM3-24) and its available by download from the army and other sources such as Federation of American Scientists. Some of us don't find the public release of what should essentially be called "How To Win The War on Terror for Dummies" that disturbing. Much of the material that went into it and other similar manuals are what the intelligence community calls "Open Source" or documents freely available to the public. (See links below) Understanding insurgencies requires reading dozens, if not hundreds of books, and crafting a careful plan. Fighting counter insurgencies in a foreign land requires almost PhD level studies at warfighting colleges and seminars. Having been in at least three dozen insurgencies, war and conflicts I can say that there is always much to learn. And there is much available free of charge on the Internet.

The CIA has honed its craft through years of espionage and covert missions, the military has massive volumes of "Lessons Learned" -- even resorting to interactive video games to reenact famous battles to train new soldiers.

Yes, FM3-24 is the new bible for eager young officers and non commissioned officers in learning to fight insurgencies in Iraq and other countries. Putting the manual on the web is like giving a wiring diagram of a bank to a bank robber, a burglar alarm schematic to a thief and more importantly a detailed plan of pacification to a terrorist group.

Now insurgents know exactly how to defeat our counterinsurgency campaigns because they now know what exactly defines success. Like knowing exactly whether you cut the red wire or the black wire to defuse the bomb. But the problem is that unlike wiring diagrams or floor plans, military manuals and papers on insurgencies are actually distributed free on the Internet. Much of what al Qaeda taught in the camps of Afghanistan was actually from US military manuals, available for free on the Internet and crudely translated into Arabic (and the U.S. government has itself posted on the Web for all at least one al Qaeda's training manual). Yes, its one thing to read a book, and another to execute, but because we have released our manual for success against insurgents we now may have also taught our enemies exactly how to defeat us. LINKS

Army Training Manuals

http://www.militarymanuals.com/

http://www.army.mil/usapa/doctrine/Active_FM.html

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/army/fm/index.html

CIA training documents

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/index.html

Relearning Counterinsurgency

www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/PARAMETERS/04spring/tomes.pdf

Small-Unit Leaders' Guide to Counterinsurgency June 2006 (4.7 MB PDF file) http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usmc/coin.pdf

Countering Irregular Threats: A Comprehensive Approach 14 June 2006 (3.2 MB PDF file) http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usmc/irreg.pdf

Tentative Manual for Countering Irregular Threats: An Updated Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations June 7, 2006 http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usmc/manual.pdf Patterns of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/lynn.pdf

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (RAND) www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2005/RAND_OP127.pdf

Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into a Fourth Generation (Col Thomas X. Hammes) www.ndu.edu/inss/strforum/SF214/SF214.pdf

Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from soldiering in Iraq - Lt Gen David Petreaus www.usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/JanFeb06/Petraeus1.pdf

Mao's Red Book www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/download/red-book.pdf

Moamar Gaddafi's Green Book http://www.qadhafi.org/the_green_book.html

The Green Book IRA Training Manual http://uk.geocities.com/oglaigh_na_heireann32/THE_GREEN_BOOK.html

The Art of War www.clevelenterprises.com/pdf/The%20Art%20of%20War%20By%20Sun%20Tsu.pdf

Psy-ops in Guerilla Warfare www.infoguerre.com/fichiers/CIA-Psyops-In-Guerrilla-Warefare.pdf Al Qaeda Manual Ideology www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf Al Qaeda, Statements and Evolving Ideology www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21973.pdf

Newsweek plugs Richard Houghton III's guide to the Green Zone (officially known as the International Zone)

Not yet in book-form, it's an e-mailed Lonely Planet of facts and tips on the rare tourist destination where flak jackets are standard wear. Boughton and contributor Patrick McDonald, a Civil Affairs Army major, felt that so many people rotated in and out of the military controlled zone it needed a guide book.

The full Newsweek story.

To get a sneak preview download herehere.