Executive Outcomes, the mercenary firm based in Pretoria, South Africa, and manned mostly by former members of the South African Defense Force, had proven to be a decisive factor in the outcome of some civil wars in Africa. Involved in forcing rebels to the negotiating table in Sierra Leone and more well-known for contributing to the Angolan government's success in forcing UNITA to accept the Lusaka Protocol in 1994, Executive Outcomes reportedly had a web of influence in Uganda, Botswana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Namibia, Lesotho, and South Africa.

Even though the firm's expertise lay in fighting bush wars, it had diversified and reportedly operated 32 companies, whose interests range from computer software to adult education. The firm's tactic of quickly regaining control of a client country's mineral-rich regions was well-documented. Within a month of Sierra Leone's hiring of Executive Outcomes in May 1995, government forces had regained control of the diamond-rich Kono district, which produced two-thirds of Sierra Leone's diamonds. In Angola, oil- and diamond-producing regions were the first areas secured by government forces trained by Executive Outcomes. The firm also reportedly mined gold in Uganda, drilled boreholes in Ethiopia, and had a variety of interests in other countries.

Executive Outcomes claimed that its sole purpose was to bring stability to the region by supporting legitimate governments in their defense against armed rebels. Nevertheless, rumors persisted that the firm was connected to either the South African DeBeers Diamond Corporation or the white South African government. These claims were denied by all parties, and the post-Apartheid South African government tried to restrict Executive Outcomes' business ventures.

The intermixing of paramilitary and commercial ventures made it difficult to determine the number of mercenaries involved in various countries. Most reports indicated there were between 150 and 200 in Sierra Leone, while reports from Angola varied, indicating between 500 and 4,000 members in that country. At any rate, Executive Outcomes had proven to be a sound investment for the governments of Angola and Sierra Leone.

Eeben Barlow, its founder, was associated with the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) which had expertise in setting up front companies to circumvent sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa. With the demise of apartheid, individuals such as Barlow redirected these and other skills for private enterprise purposes. As a result, EO is connected to a weblike structure of multinational holding entities, mining, and oil companies, and security and air transportation groups that have purposefully been created to mask its operations, those of its allied firms, and the various individuals involved. Critics charged that this network engaged in "predatory capitalism" by specializing in the extraction of mineral and oil resources from troubled and failed states.

Executive Outcomes (EO) was established in 1989 as a wholly-owned and registered South African company. Since its establishment, EO's mission has remained largely unchanged - the provision of sound military advice, training, and logistical support - but, as a dynamic company, EO's mission statement is continually reviewed to ensure flexibility and survivability in a growing worldwide competitive market.

EO earned an indisputable reputation as a highly competent military advisory company - a fact which even EO's fiercest critics acknowledge, and has built a solid history of success, an achievement which is attributed to its highly effective workforce. During its brief history, EO operated in support of Armed Forces, Law Enforcement Agencies, and Private Corporations in Southern Africa, West Africa, South America, and the Far East.

The men of EO were primarily ex-South African Defence Force (SADF), as well as ex-South African National Defence Force (after 1994), ex-South African Police (SAP), and ex-African National Congress (ANC) members. Due to the mass "down-sizing" of the Armed Forces of South Africa, EO is able to draw on a large, professional workforce and can call on over 2 000 men at very short notice. Race or religion played no role in the appointment of a prospective employee - the only consideration being "Can he or she do the job ?"

The criteria for prospective employees were that they must :

• have had military or police training;
• be South African citizens or have served in the SADF, SAP, or ANC's Military Wing;
• have been honorably discharged;
• have no criminal record or criminal investigation pending;
• be prepared to work outside of South Africa;
• carry "no political baggage";
• be prepared to work in high-risk environments;
• remain loyal to the company and its clients;

A private military advisory and training company needs professional (well-trained, skilled, and experienced) personnel to provide a service of the highest quality. The people of the greatest use to EO are those officers and non-commissioned officers who have reached middle rank and are vastly experienced but are not suited for further promotion within the armed forces. However, generally, these people are happy performing the duties of their ranks - planning, training, organizational development, and support duties; with the practical experience and skills to help the client through a rough spot.

Those are the very people who, if not selected for promotion, often block the promotion ladders of regular forces and actually present a personnel management problem. The private company can thus provide a new challenge to the "old hands" and also retain military knowledge, experience, and skills that would have been lost. In particular, situations selected SANDF personnel could be deployed with private companies to gain experience in a specific field to return to the SANDF as a better trained and experienced soldier.

EO competed in an international market and therefore pay competitive salaries applicable in the market that it operated in. The salaries paid by companies such as MPRI, Vinnell, Sandline, and Beta should be compared with that of EO to make a realistic appreciation. Any person with insight into the execution of military support operations and training knows of the extremely high cost involved.

In 1989, EO was approached by the SADF Special Forces and asked to develop special warfare training packages for Special Forces operatives. These packages covered special warfare subjects related to Covert Intelligence Gathering Operations; Counter Espionage Operations; and Covert Operations.

Operatives trained in these areas of warfare were soon deployed within and outside of South Africa with great operational success by the Special Forces. Word of their professionalism and success-rate spread, and soon EO was approached by a major South African mining house and asked to provide assistance and training to executives within the mining industry in order to counter both white-collar crime and the trafficking of high-value commodities.

The role EO played in establishing this special task force to counter crime in the mining industry in South Africa, did not go unnoticed, and soon EO was approached to assist a mining house in a neighboring African state.

One of EO's first projects outside of South Africa was in 1991. This first non-South African contract entailed the training of mine security officials in a neighboring African state in infiltration and penetration techniques targeted at organized crime syndicates. These officials, many of whom are still active to date, have played an invaluable role in countering crime aimed at damaging their company. During the early 90s, EO was also approached by a South American Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to provide them with advice on countering the growing drug trafficking problem in South America.

EO's advice was "take the problem to the producers" - a strategy that led to the formation and training of a highly specialized team of soldiers who would operate outside the normal military brief, working closely with the host DEA and police intelligence. These troops deployed clandestinely into drug-growing areas and conducted raids and strikes against the drug lords with great success. This term of counter-drug operations later became known as Discretionary Warfare.

In 1993, EO was approached by SONANGOL, the Angolan Oil Parastatal, to provide a security team to protect the on-shore oil facilities in the coastal town of Soyo, whilst millions of dollars worth of oil-drilling and related equipment were being recovered.

During this period, EO had to ensure the logistics of its team from South Africa to Angola with two King Air Aircraft, each flight taking approximately 8 hours and often landing under intense direct and indirect rebel fire in Soyo.

EO's role in Soyo soon came to the attention of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). By this time (mid-1993) UNITA had effectively beaten the government forces on the battlefield and had mustered rebel control over more than 70 % of Angola. EO was awarded the contract to train the FAA's newly established 16th Brigade, a brigade that had been virtually destroyed by the SADF in the 1980s. This irony was not lost on EO.

Elements of the newly trained brigade were soon rushed into action against the rebel forces and excelled themselves in battle. The brigade later captured strategic diamond mining areas held by UNITA, thus denying the rebels their major source of income. These actions by the 16th Brigade marked the beginning of the end for UNITA.

Additional units, trained by EO, utilized new tactics and training, launching raids and strikes at UNITA troop concentrations. Growing FAA morale and heavy UNITA casualties soon led to the signing of the LUSAKA protocols, effectively ending the long civil war in Angola. From 1992 to 1994 the conflict in Sierra Leone was characterized by increased rebel activity in diamond mining areas and a growing number of civilian casualties due to attacks on villages. The Sierra Leonean Army (SLA) launched a recruiting drive during this time that included children as young as 12 years old. In May 1994, Executive Outcomes (EO), a South African private security firm, was hired to provide security assistance. EO quickly restructured and retrained units of the Sierra Leone Defense Force (SLDF) and advised the SLDF to take the battle to the rebels. This caught the RUF off-guard and the SLDF rapidly gained the initiative, forcing the rebels to withdraw. With the additional help of EO the Army was able to push the RUF back from Freetown as well as retake Moyamba and mining areas. EO also began a training and support program with the Kamajor militia, a local defense force.

Using different tactics, the SLDF launched a series of strikes, raids, ambushes, and offensives, inflicting heavy casualties on the RUF. As the rebel threat lessened, Sierra Leone was at last able to conduct a relatively peaceful election. This culminated in the ruling military council handing over the government to a civilian, democratically elected president in 1996.

The involvement of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone in defeating rebel insurgents in 1996 and effecting a Peace Treaty led to democratic elections and a modicum of stability. In 1991, in March, a small band of men who called themselves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under the leadership of a former corporal, Foday Sankoh, began to attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone on the Liberian border. On April 29, 1992, a group of young military officers, led by Capt. Valentine Strasser launched a military coup, which sent Momoh into exile in Guinea and established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) as the ruling authority in Sierra Leone.

The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters so that by 1995 they held much of the countryside and were on the doorstep of Freetown. To retrieve the situation, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.

Executive Outcomes was highly effective on the side of the government in the war-torn country of Angola, and its success there led to interest from a number of other African countries at civil war. EO left Angola in January 1996 and Sierra Leone in January 1997, having played a crucial role in ending two long-standing civil wars on the African continent. Executive Outcomes (EO) objected in the strongest possible terms to the report that the former military president of Sierra Leone, Valentine Strasser, allegedly awarded diamond licenses to EO. This is once again a repeat of rumors that have been proved to be false on numerous occasions. Executive Outcomes was paid in cash for the contract in Sierra Leone and was still owed a substantial amount of money as of 1998.

In 1997, the South African Government introduced the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act (Appendix C) that was specifically designed to regulate the operations of PMCs that were based inside South African territory. Organizations, such as Executive Outcomes, would require government authorization for each contract with a foreign government.

The Executive Outcomes Board of Directors decided to terminate all operations and wind down the company rather than risk prosecution by not conforming to the legislation. Executive Outcomes structure merely transferred its operations to a series of aligned companies, that included Sandline International, that was unfettered by such national legislation. The exact nature of the relationship seems clouded behind a web of interlocking companies whose ownership is difficult to trace.

International Contracts

1990 South Africa Specialized training for Special Forces and Para-military. 1991 Botswana Covert reconnaissance for De Beers (Diamond Company) 1991 Namibia Covert reconnaissance for De Beers (Diamond Company) 1992 Angola Recovery of oil equipment in Soyo held by UNITA rebels 1993 Angola

• Protection of diamond mine in Canfunfo, Lunda Norte
• Conduct of military training of the 16th Brigade of Forcas Armadas Angolanas (FAA)
• Conduct of general military training (terminated January 1997)
• Conduct of combative operations against UNITA

1994 Angola Conduct of air and logistical support for FAA 1995 Sierra Leone

• Military assistance to President Valentine Strasser against RUF insurgency (training and combative operations)
• Protection of Kono diamond mines

1995 Kenya Joint Venture: Security Consulting Company 1995-97

• Malawi
• Mozambique
• Uganda
• Zambia

Military training projects (undisclosed) 1996 Sierra Leone

• Expansion of 1995 contract
• Destruction of RUF insurgency facilitating peace negotiations and elections.
• Protection/security of mining facilities

1997 Zaire

Experts said the two had come to this agreement in order to ease pressure on al-Kadhimi's government. It was being targeted by Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, who are opposed to any US presence in the country at all. The same groups are suspected of being behind ongoing drone and rocket attacks on US logistics convoys and bases as well as an assassination attempt on al-Kadhimi himself.

The plan to change the status of US troops was completed ahead of schedule. On December 9, Iraq's national security adviser Qasim al-Araji announced that the transition to a mission to "advise, assist and enable" was now complete.

Most of the US troops in Iraq are there as part of the International Coalition for Operation Inherent Resolve, whose aim is to fight the extremist group known as the "Islamic State" (IS).

Not like Afghanistan

Despite the fanfare with which they were announced, the changes are not huge in a physical sense and are certainly far from the wholesale withdrawal seen in Afghanistan recently.

The US invaded Iraq in 2003 looking for weapons of mass destruction, and the number of American soldiers in the country has steadily decreased since then, from a peak of around 160,000 in 2008. The situation has evolved from having the American military as an invading force — welcomed by some Iraqis, despised by others — to the establishment of a series of agreements between the US and Iraqi governments that allowed troops to remain under certain conditions.

In 2011, under President Barack Obama, these agreements saw US troop numbers decrease. In 2014, US troops returned to Iraq again, at the country's request, to lead an international coalition against the "Islamic State" group, which had taken control of large parts of northern Iraq. Since the Iraqi government officially declared victory over IS in 2017, troop numbers have fallen again.

Today, there are around 2,500 US soldiers in Iraq, along with about 4,500 Department of Defense contractors. There are also around 1,000 soldiers from the other coalition countries stationed in Iraq. About 130 are from Germany.

No end in sight

Even after the recently announced transition, US troop numbers are unlikely to change much, US Department of Defense spokesperson John Kirby confirmed at a press conference earlier this month. "This is a change in mission, not necessarily a change in physical posture," Kirby told journalists. It was a "natural evolution" based on agreements made with the Iraqi government and work that had already been going on for months, he explained.

There wasn't going to be any sort of ceremony to celebrate the transition, Kirby added, and there wasn't currently any end date for the new training mission.

"The US has been in a non-combat capacity in Iraq for some time now, if not a number of years," Ranj Alaaldin, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based think tank, Brookings Institute's foreign policy program, said recently. Alaaldin pointed out that announcements like this have been made several times already.

Ongoing changes

But there have been some changes, and these have been ongoing. US troops pulled out of eight bases that they thought might be vulnerable to attack by the PMF, Caroline Rose, a senior analyst at the Washinton-based think tank, Newlines Institute, told DW: "We saw a series of base transfers, but they were kept quite quiet."

According to a November report to the US Congress on the mission in Iraq, one command post was moved from Iraq to Kuwait in November and another was recently downgraded in terms of seniority in military leadership.

Some US contractors, such as those involved in maintaining Iraq's fleet of F-16 fighter jets, have been relocated and are now working remotely. Most Americans are now based in either Baghdad or the northern city of Erbil. Two thousand military vehicles were recently handed to local staff, and US funding for some aspects of the military cooperation has been gradually decreased; the Iraqi government is expected to take these costs over eventually.

The report prepared by the US military also noted that of 426 anti-IS group operations carried out by Iraqi counterterrorism forces between July and September, only 13 involved a partnership with coalition forces. The international coalition also conducted fewer airstrikes against IS group targets in those months than it previously had.

The report also suggested that the US' rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan had an impact on how quickly Iraqi officers were moving to become more independent.

Aviation assistance

"In practical terms, we still need US forces here, particularly when it comes to air cover and combat aircraft," a senior source inside the Iraqi government recently told DW; they had to remain anonymous as they did not have permission to speak to media.

"The Iraqi air force is comparatively weak, and if it wasn't for the US Air Force, the country would be far more vulnerable to external drone attacks, and it would also have difficulty mounting aerial attacks on the IS group," the source said. "The Iraqi military also needs the US' intelligence on the IS terrorists."

The report to US Congress confirmed this several times. For example, it said, "[US] aircrafts' better sensors … allow them to fly at higher altitudes. Iraqi [planes] fly at around 10,000 feet during their missions, potentially alerting surveilled targets."

US planes are likely to continue to fly sorties against IS, as well as undertake surveillance.

Economic crisis

In other ways, the change in status of US troops is indicative of the ongoing change in US policy toward Iraq, especially when compared with the Trump administration, Brookings Institute analyst Alaaldin said. "With this current [Biden] administration, the Iraqis are hoping for a more delicate, more moderate approach to the country, and understanding that the security climate in Iraq is tied heavily to the domestic political dynamics in Iraq," Alaaldin argued.

While it is an important partner in Iraq, helping to balance internal and external political forces, the US cannot solve all of Iraq's complex and pressing problems, Sarhang Hamasaeed, director of Middle East Programs at the Institute of Peace in Washington, wrote in a July analysis. Some of the country's biggest concerns right now are economic, Hamasaeed explained.

"Even if it may be more limited than what the Iraqis want, an Iraq-centric policy may evolve under the Biden administration that's not seeing Iraq purely through the lens of Iran and IS issues," he argued.

"I think that the [IS group] will always play a role in US policy in Iraq, as will the quiet understanding that US troops provide a counterweight to Iran," Rose, the Newlines Institute analyst, concluded. She added that there had been a recent and worrying uptick in extremist activity.

"But the other aim is capacity building in areas like law and order to ensure that Iraq doesn't devolve into a power vacuum, a situation that the IS group could exploit."