Oh! Wait! There she goes: “Our civilian employees need to be protected. As we withdraw our troops, we have to get assurances of their protection by Iraqi troops, or we have to use contractors.” Well, so much for the campaign promise. Doug Brooks, you called it.

But like the jihadists, security contractors are also setting their sights on the new frontier in Afghanistan, where the resurgent Taliban and the prospect of a new American “surge” seem sure to mean big business – especially as the new regulations in the SOFA raise the risk of prosecution in Iraq.

“It does worry a few of the guys,” he told me. “We operate within the restraints of the rules for the use of force, and as long as we can prove that we acted in what we thought was self-defence we should be OK. But we may have to answer to Iraqi law,” he said, and nobody knows what that will mean. “To find out where we stand, and whether the Iraqis will give any contractor a fair hearing,” he said, “some poor bastard is going to have to go through the process.”