Mercenaries Outnumber U.S. Troops in Iraq
July 5th, 2007“The coalition of the billing.”
Via: Los 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.
The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.
“These numbers are big,” said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting. “They illustrate better than anything that we went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It’s the coalition of the billing.”
The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data.
“The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data.”
The rape of Iraq doesn’t come cheap, even if it is paid in for in paper dollars/monopoly money.But it does render the dollar cheap and soiled/dirty money and vulnerable to catastrophic sale/pariah treatment/China Syndrome meltdown.
And that must be a failing, which those who sit right at the top of the heap are responsible, and therefore also, naturally accountable for. Or would they care to blame someone/anyone else?
Private wars for private profits.
Privateering.
Piracy by another name.
Probably a fair price for controlling the oil resource and securring US bases right next to the next target: Iran.
Correct me if my premise is incorrect, but under traditional “Rules of War,” are non-military and non-uniformed civilian personnel carrying weapons in war zones considered under the same definition as terrorists and spies? If my premise is correct, our Blackwater and other armed “security” personnel in Iraq would traditionally be subject to summary execution as spies or terrorists. Not that I want to see any more Americans die needlessly in a senseless misadventure, but we can’t simply make up our own rules to fit the circumstances. During World War II, American GI’s “lawfully” executed young men as young as 16 in war zones for precisely such behavior.
And then there is the gradual crescendo of the haunting symphony playing in the minds of their loved ones. The symphony that conveys the greater horror of it all. The horror of the realization that their husbands and wives and sons and daughters and fathers and mothers died not for some noble cause, but rather for One Man’s Ego and a Game of Misadventure played and lost with the lives of others
If there are more contractors in Iraq than servicemen, and a percentage of those are in a combat/security role, are their casualties reported anywhere? Is a fringe benefit of the outsourcing of war a smaller PR problem with regard to death counts?
Contractor deaths and injuries are not reported or included in the ‘official’ casualty count (of course, neither are those that are badly wounded and then evacuated outside Iraq, only to die later), so yes, the numbers are being horrendously massaged to hide the truth.
The Department of Labor, on the other hand, keeps records on injuries and deaths of US contractors working for US companies in Iraq. As of November 2006, 7,987 US civilians employees of U.S. companies have been injured on the job in Iraq, and 679 have been killed, according to Labor Department statistics.
No records are kept for those of other nationalities (i.e. Iraqi employees, etc.) or other nation’s companies (i.e. BAE systems, etc). So you can probably multiply the numbers above by eight to ten, given the ratio of Americans to others and the casualties since November.
According to the VA there are roughly 15 wounded for every one US soldier killed.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/25/coming.home.wounded/index.html
Total Coalition ‘battlefield casualties’ (an actual military term that until recently included killed, wounded, and missing/captured combined) to date is over 100000, or more than the number of Allied casualties suffered during the Battle of the Bulge in WW2.
The supplemental funding bills for Iraq, the latest of which totals US$60G, probably go mostly or completely for paying these mercenaries.