Today‘s NY Times has a good piece about Defense Secretary Gates pushing the envelope in the infighting between the realists and the fantasists of the Bu$h malAdministration. This internecine battle is spread out over at least half a dozen different subjects, although most of them concern the Middle East.

For some time the uniformed “leaders” of the Pentagon have chafed under the realization that one group of contractors – the armed mercenaries - were beyond their control. There have been reports of Blackwater personnel refusing to escort logistics convoys out of Kuwait because of unrest in the South and it’s easy to see why the four-star flag officers would get pissed at the distraction of having to find uniformed armed guards for these vitals convoys. Then there is that incident involving BW and an Army vehicle in which the mercenaries drew down on the GIs and disarmed them. Let’s also not forget BW went poaching in the special operations community, luring away some skilled and specialized people from the Navy and Army.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is pressing for the nearly 10,000 armed security contractors now working for the United States government in Iraq to fall under a single authority, most likely the American military, in an effort to bring Blackwater USA under tighter control, senior administration officials and Pentagon advisers say. … In practical terms, placing the private security guards who now work for the military, the State Department and other government agencies under a single authority would mean that those armed civilians would no longer have different bosses and different rules. Pentagon advisers say it would also allow better coordination between the security contractors and American military commanders, who have long complained that the contractors often operate independently.

I have no problem admitting to complete contempt for mercenaries (exception: Meo and Hmung) and would hate to have my life depend on their steadfastness and dedication to duty. I’d be glad to see them come under direct military control, and wonder how they’d perform in a nut-crunch like a rearguard action. Hopefully they’d die in a manner appropriate to their inflated salaries and inspire a slew of chickenhawks to immediately rush to the colors in order to avenge them.

Or not.

The State Department, unsurprisingly, doesn’t want BW under military control. They like having their own private little army to escort them around Iraq, even if the escorts are killing innocent women and children who come too close to the august personage known as the “principal.”

That idea is facing resistance from the State Department, which relies heavily for protection in Iraq on some 2,500 private guards, including more than 800 Blackwater contractors, to provide security for American diplomats in Baghdad. The State Department has said it should retain control over those guards, despite Blackwater’s role in a September shooting in Baghdad that exposed problems in the current oversight arrangements.

Once upon a time Embassy personnel relied on US Marines for security. I couldn’t even speculate why they now prefer such expensive escorts, but it is an area that Secretaries Gates and Rice will have to iron out. Here’s hoping there isn’t a lot of friction, since their partnership is about the only thing keeping Mr Cheney from getting his way in blowing the crap out of Iran.

People who think Mr Cheney wants to attack Iran just to see world oil prices go through the roof are of course mistaken. I don’t think even he is that crazy.

Does anyone agree with me? Anyone?

There are a lot of complex decisions to be made about aligning the mercenaries under military control. It appears that currently they operate under all sorts of different work rules, and that’s just messy. There’s all sorts of different pay scales and jurisdictional lines because when the Bu$hies were handing out all those no-bid contracts a lot of oddities crept into them, it seems, and there are lots of rumors about qualifying payments and so forth, if you get my drift. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink) Just rumors, I hasten to emphasize, and anyone who keeps saying otherwise is probably just jealous because he didn’t get a chance to sign any of the contracts.

So having one over-arching line of authority will bring a degree of regularity and uniformity to the mess.

Mr. Gates has not publicly stated his final position on any reorganization, but his thinking on how to manage security contractors was described by administration officials, military officers and outside advisers to the Defense Department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officials said it was not clear whether Mr. Gates would also recommend changes that would make Blackwater contractors in Iraq subject to military law.

Of course they will be made subject to military law. That’s the whole idea of this project.

American commanders have a more specific military complaint, as well: They say the security contractors complicate American combat operations, in part because local commanders sometimes do not even know of armed official convoys moving through their areas. Mr. Gates said this month that 30 percent of the calls for help from security contractors had come from convoys that the military did not know were on the road.

Nice point there. Since they’re civilians, and some of them not even US nationals, is the military obligated to help them out? Since it’s all about money (them being mercenaries, and all,) maybe the DoD should charge every time they have to go rescue them.

All of this pending regulation might well explain why Erik Prince has suddenly developed a great interest in getting out of the gunsel business in Iraq and starting up a "peace force" spin-off for places like Darfur.