Soldiers May Be Leaving Iraq, But Contractors Will Remain

[Donnachaidh]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/soldiers_may_be_leaving_iraq_but_contractors_are_just_scaling_back.php

American troops may be leaving Iraq before the end of the year, but U.S. contractors aren’t going anywhere soon.

ABC News reports that the State Department “is expected to have about 5,000 security contractors in Iraq as of January 2012 (they already have about 3,000 in country).” There will also be 4,500 “general life support” contractors to provide food and medical services.

Still, there’ll be a pretty big reduction in the contracting fleet. The Defense Department currently has 9,500 security contractors in Iraq in addition to several thousand general life contractors, said ABC News. At one point, in June 2009, the DOD had 15,200 security contractors in the country.

The State Department’s track record on controlling its contractors isn’t so great, as Spencer Ackerman reports:

More at the link --

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. How's the oil wells doing?

[Swede]

2. The perpetually outraged are having a bad week.

:shrug:

[occupyeverywhere]

4. So those oil wells are doing

well? *rimshot* I mean to say, that they are doing good as far as oil wells go.

[EFerrari]

12. FTAs, drones killing teenagers, mob execution of Gaddafi, what's not to like?

It's just another week.

[Autumn]

3. Are we paying the Contractors?

Not sure how that works.

[occupyeverywhere]

5. Yes, absolutely

through the U.S. State Department.

[msongs]

9. paying parasite contractors needs to stop the second the last "troop" leaves nt

[PETRUS]

14. Yes, and they have also ordered up Black Hawks & armored vehicles. nt

[DJ13]

6. So what happens to that mini city of a base the military spend billions and billions on?

[Donnachaidh]

7. wait a week, that info will be quietly released

And the terminology used to categorize soldiers will be changed. That's SOP for this administration.

[DJ13]

8. +1

Sadly, there is a pattern there.

[Booster]

10. My nephew is in Afghanistan as a contractor making $185,000

a year and he's on the bottom rung of his company. If his company can pay him that much can you imagine how much the company gets per employee. This outrages me because we could be putting all that money into our own infrastructure and pay people decent wages to do it. We really are a stupid country when it comes to making the oil companies happy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I got the feeling that mercs or no mercs this is the future

And it has all to do with internal conditions.



And you cannot bribe all to leave you alone.

[snot]

13. And does "contractor" mean contracting company? in which case,

we're probably talking about a much higher number of individuals.

On another thread, just saw this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5033795 : "In December, 2006, in Iraq there are thought to be at least 100,000 contractors working directly for the United States Department of Defense which is a tenfold increase in the use of private contractors for military operations since the Persian Gulf War, just over a decade earlier.<18> The prevalence of PMCs has led to the foundation of trade group the Private Security Company Association of Iraq."