Paul Laverty on Route Irish

In The Guardian, Guild member Paul Laverty writes from Cannes about his new film Route Irish (above), directed by Ken Loach. It's about private security contractors in Iraq.

The business of war is being privatised slowly and deliberately before our eyes. Award-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn, a well respected commentator on Iraq, estimated that there were around 160,000 foreign contractors in Iraq at the height of the occupation, many of whom, perhaps as many as 50,000, were heavily armed security personnel. The conduct of the war, and occupation afterwards, would have been impossible without their muscle. And thanks to Paul Bremer, the US-appointed head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, each and every one of those contractors was given immunity from Iraqi law. Order 17 was imposed on the new Iraqi parliament in 2003 and lasted until the beginning of 2009.