Say you're in the US military, on patrol, and you come under attack. You can radio in air support, support from other nearby units, etc. There's always a way out, usually within a few hours. That's not to say you won't suffer casualties, but for every ambush, there will almost always be survivors. So you can take the time to do your job right. Now say you're a contractor, and you're ambushed. There are no direct lines of communication with the US or allied military. The company you work for won't have any sort of air support capability, and there are no nearby friendly units you can call on. You're basically dead. And it's usually not just some of you, it's all of you. To prevent this, contractors will drive extremely quickly through traffic, disobeying traffic laws; and if attacked, they'll fire every weapon they have at their perceived threat before quickly running away.
The way I see it, this means a few things:
1) Contractors aren't reckless for no reason, as is often portrayed in the media. They have an incentive to be reckless. (This isn't to say that there aren't forms of recklessness that are unnecessary, e.g. instances of being intoxicated while on the job).
2) The idea of using contractors is fundamentally flawed. No additional laws, regulations, or added oversight will curb this reckless behavior.
3) If you're going to take the time to integrate the operations of contractors with that of the military, you might as well field the additional cost of simply deploying a few extra units.
It still boggles my mind that there are private companies selling security services in war zones. But then again, the military was designed to win wars, not escort important persons, etc.
