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34in mid-2008 when the order was rescinded and Iraq gained the sovereign right toprosecute PMC under its own laws. The negotiation of the Status of Forces Agreementfor Coalition forces in Iraq was further complicated by the vexed question of PMCimmunity. 120 As a result, PMC personnel facing charges in Iraq now depart the countryquickly to avoid prosecution and generally move on to the other major GWOT conflictzone, Afghanistan, which has virtually no legal system.Command, control and interoperabilityPMC provide a wide range of important services to national armed forces onoperations. The 2006 US Quadrennial Defense Review included ‘contractors’ as partof the US Department of Defense ‘Total Force’. 121 The 2009 Australian Defence WhitePaper follows a similar approach. 122 Many functions are now so reliant on contractorsfor their performance that modern military forces would find it very difficult to deployfor prolonged periods without them. Peter Singer argues that:The US government is in a terrible predicament today … It has overoutsourcedto the point that it is unable to imagine carrying out its most basicoperations without them. 123As modern military forces wrestle with the need to operate with greater efficiencyand economy, this situation is unlikely to be reversed and PMC will most likely becomean enduring element of modern conflict. The major challenges for national armedforces seeking to deal with the PMC that support them relate to the issues of command,control and interoperability.120 Coalition Provisional Authority, Order Number 17, ‘Status of the Coalition Provisional Authority,MNF-Iraq, Certain Missions and Personnel in Iraq’, 27 June 2004; J Hider, ‘Private guards to lose Iraqimmunity’, The Australian, 4 July 2008, p. 9.121 Armstrong, War PLC, p. 90.122 Department of Defence, Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2030, accessed 5January 2010, pp. 91–92.123 P Singer, Can’t Win With ‘Em. Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors andCounterinsurgency, Foreign Policy at Brookings, Policy Paper No. 4, September 2007, p. 17.