Mercenaries in the news

I just love them "code words" like outsourcing and the way what you really want to know is not told to you .. it's all so very patriotic.  These guys are making HUGE bucks, while US troops are being decimated financially and going homeless and without medical treatment at the come home.

V

Iraq Contractors Face Growing Parallel War



As Security Work Increases, so DO Casualties

By Steve Fainaru

Washington Post Foreign Service


Saturday, June 16, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq,
enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of
casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed,
according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad,
the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a
parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping
up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company
representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private
forces has come under attack this year, according to previously
unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300
"hostile actions" in the first four months.

*snip*

The military plans to outsource at least $1.5 billion in security
operations this year, including the three largest security contracts in
Iraq: a "theaterwide" contract to protect U.S. bases that is worth up
to $480 million, according to Scott; a contract for up to $475 million
to provide intelligence for the Army and personal security for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers;
and a contract for up to $450 million to protect reconstruction
convoys. The Army has also tested a plan to use private security on
military convoys for the first time, a shift that would significantly
increase the presence of armed contractors on Iraq's dangerous roads.



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