Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq

A Pulitzer Prize–winning international reporter elucidates the day-to-day lives of modern American mercenaries in Iraq.

Tens of thousands of them are in Iraq. They work for companies with ominous-sounding names, like Crescent Security Group, Triple Canopy, and Blackwater Worldwide. They travel in convoys of multicolored pickups fortified with makeshift armor, belt-fed machine guns, frag grenades, and even shoulder-fired missiles. They protect everything from the U.S. ambassador and Americ...