WP: Contract Workers Are War's Forgotten (At least 110 dead)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28813-2004Jul30?language=printer

When he was deployed in Iraq, 31-year-old Vincent Foster assured his mother that despite the long hours and what he called "skirmishes" with insurgents, he was where he belonged. Foster was working for Cochise Consultancy Inc., securing stockpiles of old munitions, when he was killed by a roadside bomb outside Bayji, in the northern part of the country. He died on the way to the hospital.

Foster, a former Marine sniper, is one of at least 110 contractors working for U.S. firms have died in Iraq, according to industry estimates. Experts say the number of casualties could be far higher, given the tens of thousands of private contractors who have taken over duties for the military. The Pentagon does not keep an official count, and many companies do not announce when their employees in Iraq are killed. By comparison, there were seven contractor deaths in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, according to a report by the General Accounting Office, now the Government Accountability Office.

The deaths have created an overlooked subculture of war-related grief, one in which contractors' families confront a bureaucracy that is largely inventing procedures on the fly. Inconsistent corporate responses and murky government procedures exacerbate families' already raw emotions. Unlike when soldiers and officers die in the line of duty, few fixed rules apply to contractor casualties.

"If he had still been with the Marines, he would have gotten a Purple Heart, I think he would have, for bravery," said Foster's mother, Susan Foster. "It kind of irks me a little bit, that he was working with the military" and not being recognized for it, she said. "He believed so much in what he was doing, the whole patriotism thing down the line."

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. While my heart aches for his mother...this kid worked for a company

that MADE SURE THERE WAS A WAR to profit...outsourcing the military needs to STOP.

[daleo]

2. He didn't have to be there

I just can't work up too much sympathy for people who voluntarily join illegal invasions, just to make the big bucks. I know it sounds harsh, but bank robbers have mothers too.

[Skittles]

3. war profiteers

that's what they are

[madrchsod]

4. i feel sorry for his family

nothing for him other than he wasted his life and hurt the ones he loved..the perfect war for the republicans under bush-no accountability..

[Spinzonner]

5. The administration's "OutDying" program

[jpgray]

6. Hell, in our media even US soldiers are forgotten

The Iraqi deaths and the deaths of contractors and other coalition soldiers hardly even exist the way the media tell it.

[koopie57]

7. I know that I should feel compassion

but I wonder how many moms suffered because of him being there and pulling in the big bucks. I know she doesn't understand anything more than her son is gone and that she needs to believe it was for a worthwhile cause, but it was a dirty trick he played on her. I know it is cynical of me, but I think he was there for the money and patriotism had nothing to do with it.

[saigon68]

8. HAVE GUN---WILL TRAVEL Wire Paladin San Francisco

The root word of Paladin (also spelled Palladin, Palatine, or Palladium) may be derived from the Greek goddess Pallas, who was known as the goddess of wisdom.

In one of its Latin forms, the word also means, "of the palace", or representing the king.

Paladin is commonly associated with the knights of Charlemagne, who were often called upon to resolve issues between the king’s subjects, and who traveled the country seeing that the kingdom was in order.




THIS IS THE ROMANTIC LEGEND


HERE IS THE REALITY FOR MERCENARIES


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/04/01/2003116190

NOTE: DO NOT OPEN ON A QUEASY STOMACH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seemslikeadream]

9. Families Find Iraq Earnings Carry a Price -- Halliburton

April 15. 2004 2:29PM Forums

Georganne Hetrick, holds a portrait of her and her husband while sitting with their children John, 9, left, Jack, 10, and Jessica, 9, at their residence in Hilliard, Ohio, Tuesday, April 13, 2004. Hetrick's husband, Bill, is a contractor with Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subdivision of Halliburton, currently working in Iraq, (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)
By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer

Laid off after 34 years, Al Cayton found himself at retirement age without the means to support himself in his golden years. So at 60, the Pensacola, Fla., man went off to drive trucks in Iraq for the Halliburton Co., lured by the promise of up to $120,000 in cash, tax-free.
"He planned to work until he could draw his Social Security," said his wife of 40 years, Karen.
A roadside bomb put an end to that plan.
Cayton is one of about 30 contract workers who have been killed in Iraq, including an Italian security guard executed on videotape Wednesday. More than 20 workers have been taken captive by militants in recent weeks, and 200 or so have been wounded in the year since war supposedly ended and the rebuilding began.
For many of the contract workers and their families, the job has not been the easy money they had hoped for.
more
http://www.gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID...


For Cheney, Tarnish From Halliburton
Firm's Fall Raises Questions About Vice President's Leadership There
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 16, 2002; Page A01
An executive sells shares in his energy company two months before the company announces unexpected bad news, and the stock price eventually tumbles to a quarter of the price at which the insider sold his.
George W. Bush at Harken Energy Corp. in 1990? Yes, but also Richard B. Cheney at Halliburton Co. in 2000.

When Cheney left Halliburton in August 2000 to be Bush's running mate, the oil services firm was swelling with profits and approaching a two-year high in its stock price. Investors and the public (and possibly Cheney himself) did not know how sick the company really was, as became evident in the months after Cheney left.

Whether through serendipity or shrewdness, Cheney made an $18.5 million profit selling his shares for more than $52 each in August 2000; 60 days later, the company surprised investors with a warning that its engineering and construction business was doing much worse than expected, driving shares down 11 percent in a day. About the same time, it announced it was under a grand jury investigation for overbilling the government.

In the months that followed, it became clear that Halliburton's liability for asbestos claims, stemming from a company Cheney acquired in 1998, were far greater than Halliburton realized. Then, in May of this year, the company announced it was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for controversial accounting under Cheney's leadership that inflated profits. Halliburton shares closed at $13.10 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.
more
http://www.hereinreality.com/news/halliburton.html

April 13 2004 at 01:21PM
Deaths of scores of mercenaries not reported
By Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn

Baghdad - At least 80 foreign mercenaries - security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies - have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq.

Lieutenant-General Mark Kimmitt admitted on Tuesday that "about 70" American and other Western troops had died during the Iraqi insurgency since April 1 but he made no mention of the mercenaries, apparently fearful that the full total of Western dead would have serious political fallout.

He did not give a figure for Iraqi dead, which, across the country may be as high as 900.

Full total of Western dead would have serious political fallout
At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public knowledge.

The presence of such large numbers of mercenaries, first publicised in The Independent two weeks ago, was bound to lead to further casualties.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=vn20040413132117588C325435&click_id=2813&set_id=1


The presence of such large numbers of mercenaries, first publicised in The Independent two weeks ago, was bound to lead to further casualties.

But although many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence - and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can therefore be hidden from public view.

The US authorities in Iraq, however, are aware that more Western mercenaries lost their lives in the past week than occupation soldiers over the past 14 days.

The coalition has sought to rely on foreign contract workers to reduce the number of soldiers it uses as drivers, guards and in other jobs normally carried out by uniformed soldiers.

Often the foreign contract workers are highly paid former soldiers who are armed with automatic weapons, leading to Iraqis viewing all foreign workers as possible mercenaries or spies.
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=401463