Contractors Outnumber U.S. Troops in Iraq
According to data from the State and Defense departments, there are more than 180,000 civilian contractors on America's payroll in Iraq That's about a surge's worth more than the current troop count, and it doesn't fully include private security contractors The L Times takes an exhaustive look at the "coalition of the billing".According to data from the State and Defense departments, there are more than 180,000 civilian contractors on America’s payroll in Iraq. That’s about a surge’s worth more than the current troop count, and it doesn’t fully include private security contractors. The L.A. Times takes an exhaustive look at the “coalition of the billing.”
Rock Solid JournalismLos Angeles Times:
The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government’s capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.
More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.
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At an Israeli air force base not far from Tel Aviv, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will supervise construction of a $100 million five-floor underground facility for the Israel Defense Forces termed “Site 911,” and no one in the press, including The Washington Post's national security reporter, seems to know its precise purpose.
Moqtada al-Sadr is back, issuing an ultimatum to American troops and contractors: Leave Iraq by the end of the year or he will revive his Mehdi Army and relaunch attacks on the United States' post-withdrawal presence in the country.
In your face, foreign community! Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun dissolving foreign private security companies, including the firm formerly known as Blackwater, as he moves to make good on a promise to ban the private contractors by year's end.
With the last American combat brigade pulling out of Iraq this week, the U.S. is turning much of the security effort there over to a small army of civilian contractors under the State Department.
The U.S. military, despite reports to the contrary, has continued to rely on a secret private spy network, akin to a Blackwater with brains, that has provided a stream of intelligence to military forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than a year.
There are now more civilian contractors in Afghanistan than U.S. soldiers. Using civilian contractors to haul food, prepare meals and act as bodyguards has kept the Pentagon's official casualty figures lower than they would have been in past conflicts, where contractors were not as heavily used.
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