A/HRC/7/7 page 11 Blackwater works to make a difference in the world and provides hope to those who still live in desperate times”. The increasing importance of these PMSCs poses a number of essential questions regarding the way they operate in these various situations as well as to the need for regulatory mechanisms. B. The PMSC industry 29. The Working Group notes that the PMSC industry currently provides in the international market a broad spectrum of services such as building and site security, convoy and transport security, close individual security, advisory and training of local forces, air support, logistical support, prison security, propaganda tactics, intelligence, covert operations and surveillance. These tasks were traditionally fulfilled by the national armed forces and the police. PMSCs also provide armed protection for transnational corporations in unstable regions. Their services are used by Governments and NGOs, transnational corporations, humanitarian organizations, the media and international organizations. 30. The PMSC industry is transnational in nature and is growing very rapidly, particularly since the recent conflict situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, with an aggregated estimate of contracts between US$ 20 billion and US$ 100 billion annually. Although the industry has developed worldwide, highly professional companies from the United States of America and the United Kingdom would be responsible for more than 70 per cent of the services in the world market.22 Some PMSCs are listed on stock markets and generate profits for their investors. Most of these corporations engage in their executive board structures former military personnel of high rank, or senior officers of the civil or the intelligence services, a phenomenon many scholars describe as the “revolving door syndrome”.23 31. In Iraq, the number of “private contractors” fulfilling a number of military and quasi-military tasks varies according to different sources and the manner they are counted, ranging between 20,000 and 100,000 persons working for PMSCs. Most estimates agree to a figure between 20,00024 and nearly 50,000 foreign armed “private contractors”.25 According to the Private Security Company Association of Iraq there would be some 70,000 persons providing armed protection, out of which 14,000 would be unregistered Iraqis and 20,000 unregistered foreigners.26 Other semi-official estimates give the following figures: 3,000 to 5,000 22 See www.sourcewatch.org. 23 Center for Media and Democracy, sourcewatch.org; E. Krahmann, supra; R.Y. Pelton, supra. 24 Figures given by the Pentagon, see: S. Fairnau “Cutting Cost, Bending Rules and a Trail of Broken Lives”, Washington Post, 29 July 2007. 25 United States Government Accountability Office 2006 report; J. Scahill, “A very private army”, The Guardian, 1 August 2007. 26 M. Caparini, “Regulation of PSCs: Legal and Policy Challenges”, United Nations Council of Human Rights, Parallel event co-hosted by Business and Human Rights Resource Center, 21 March 2007.