Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States, reluctant to send troops, has been urged to use private military contractors to battle Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

A leading private military contractor during the U.S. occupation of Iraq asserted that industry could supply thousands of trained mercenaries for a ground war against ISIL.

Eric Prince, former director of Blackwater, now known as Academi, said the use of PMCs would mark a cheaper alternative to a conventional military campaign.

“If the old Blackwater team were still together, I have high confidence that a multi-brigade-size unit of veteran American contractors or a multinational force could be rapidly assembled and deployed to be that necessary ground combat team,” Prince said in an analysis titled “Thoughts on Countering ISIS.”

Prince, who headed one of the largest private forces in Iraq from 2003 through 2010, envisioned the formation of units that contained specialists in armor, artillery and special operations. He said these units would bolster the Iraq Army, which collapsed during ISIL’s offensive in June 2014.

“A competent professional force of volunteers would serve as the pointy end of the spear and would serve to strengthen friendly but skittish indigenous forces,” Prince said on Oct. 6.

Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and now chairman of Frontier Services Group assigned to enhance security forces in the United Arab Emirates, said President Barack Obama’s campaign against ISIL was “half-hearted at best.” He said the daily air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition was incapable of expelling ISIL from towns and villages in Iraq and Syria.

“If the administration cannot rally the political nerve or funding to send adequate active duty ground forces to answer the call, let the private sector finish the job,” Prince said.

Prince’s call has been echoed by others close to the U.S. military. In September 2014, a leading television host, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, predicted that Washington would allow the use of mercenaries in the war against ISIL.

“This anti-terror army is going to happen,” O’Reilly said.

  ‘Let the private sector’ defeat ISIL: Former Blackwater head hits ‘half-hearted Obama effort, Academi, Eric Prince, Frontier Services Group