not hessians exactly

they are paid well, but do they have the armor and tools for the job? contractors' relatives don't think so:

• A day before four of the company's security guards died in Iraq, a Blackwater USA employee wrote company officials that it was time to stop the "smoke and mirror show" and provide crucial equipment for the private army in the field.
• "I need Comms (communications equipment). ... I need ammo. ... I need Glocks and M4s. ... Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way," said the e-mail, released at a House hearing Wednesday.
• Blackwater employee Tom Powell wrote the memo to other company officials on March 30, 2004.
• The next day, a mob in Fallujah ambushed a supply convoy guarded by Blackwater, killing the four employees who all were former members of the military. ("Slain Iraq contractors short on armor, families say," By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press, 8 Feb. 2007

certainly the iraqi army and police don't have the armor and military equipment needed (see comments of their own generals, or picture, BBC, 14 May 2006). do contractors? the real problem continues to be the lack of oversight on contractors' activities, and the massive profits of the owners of contractors far away from the war itself.

• Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastructure, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings--often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops....
• By the end of 2006, the Labor Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job. (“Iraq War Exacts Toll on Contractors,” by Michelle Roberts , AP, February 23, 2007 10:42 PM EST)