PMC costs up to $1.2 billion dollars

A USA Today report has reported that the State department is projected to spend $1 billion dollars this year on privately contracted security. This number is up 13% from last years figure. The majority of those contractors involved are from the (in)famous Blackwater Worldwide. After the September 16th 2007 incident at Nisoor square in Iraq where 14 civilians were killed and 18 injured during a questionable gun battle by Blackwater security teams, Blackwater was seen as endemic of the slippery slope that private military contracting has become. As the United States removes soldiers from the surge and diplomatic efforts increase, the need for solutions above and beyond the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service and static security provided by the army soldiers have made the PMCs more and more appealing. However as several incidents such as Nisoor Square, Abu Ghraib, and Fallujah have illustrated the price of handing core competency issues such as personal security to organizations that do not operate with a uniform code of conduct as government institutions such as the DSS or the Armed Services do.