This story has a picture mercenaries in Iraq, and it is not pretty.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 48,000.

They operate in a decidedly gray legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

What follows is a litany of misdeeds that would get a soldier locked away in Leavenworth for decades, and in Bush’s Texas, get them executed.

Their behavior alienates the local population, endangering our troops, and they are a massive brain drain on the military.

Violence in the context of a military operation must be the monopoly of the military, not mercs.