Halliburton help

Defense Contractor.

It would also be considered part of the military-industrial complex.

KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, has a division that would be considered a PMC (Private Military Contractor), which would be the "mercenaries" you speak of. I put it in quotes because thats not quite how the PMC I know likes to think of himself. They've got somewhere around 18 billion in contracts in Iraq, but not neccessarily just for the Private Military.

Although truthfully the majority of Halliburton's profits come from their energy and logging businesses, not the defense contracts. The DCs don't have a big profit margin, somewhere around 2% or something like that. And I'm not sure that Halliburton makes anything, much less weapons.

ARC (Swindwinder missiles) Hughes/Raytheon (patriot missile) Lockheed (F-35 Strike Force Fighter) and General Dynamics (Abrams tank) come readily to mind.

The F-35 is a joint project, as are many of today's more sophisticated weapons sytems projects. (DoD contractors have GOA scale that allows for the profit margins anywhere from 2.2 upwards of 13% depending on such project factors as the expertise involved, schedule, and product.

Weapons systems contractors are spread out all over the known universe. A few are still giants, while most are relatively small, but highly specialized. The business of weapons systems and components production has become too competitive and specialized for the Walmarts of Warfare approach.