HIGHWAY TO HELL

"Anyone entering Iraq arrives via the Amman–Baghdad highway, which runs along the Fallujah ring road and the Ramadi bypass. This highway, the most dangerous in the world, is a veritable shooting gallery for every Islamist insurgent armed with a Kalashnikov or a rocket launcher. And yet, the true Iraqi hell only begins at the end of this terrifying journey." Today's Iraq, a genuine crucible of Islamist terrorism, presents a daily face scarred by bombings, kidnappings, torture and displays of hatred, under the often helpless gaze of the American army. Yet there exists another army whose role grows more important with each passing day — an army that holds second place in numbers after the United States forces, and alongside which the British contingent looks like a dwarf. It is a multinational, disparate and anarchic army, over 50,000 strong — and a handful of women — representing some twenty different nationalities. It is an army of mercenaries, of "contractors", who hire out their services for up to $1,000 a day to provide protection, in particular, for businessmen, engineers, politicians and, of course, the journalists still daring enough to report on the situation in Iraq. Most were members of special forces or soldiers in regular army units. One of them, John Geddes, a veteran of many wars, was himself a non-commissioned officer in the British Special Air Service (SAS). He was among the first to join Iraq as a mercenary, when George Bush announced the official end of hostilities in May 2003. Today, and for the first time, he bears witness to the terrifying — and sometimes farcical — daily reality of this extraordinary private army and its merciless fight against the Iraqi insurgents.