The administration has a lot to answer for on this issue. Why is our government engaging private companies (mercenaries) to do the jobs that our military should be doing?
To what extent has this occurred in Iraq? How many mercenaries does the U.S, have in the field there, and elsewhere?
In May 2003 (not a typo) Mother Jones examined this issue, centered around Blackwater USA. It is a must read:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/05/ma_365_01.html"Soldiers of Good Fortune"
The four Americans horrifically killed on Wednesday by a mob in Fallujah, Iraq, worked for Blackwater USA, one of a growing number of for-profit companies hired by the U.S. military to to do work traditionally performed by soldiers. In this article in the May 2003 issue of Mother Jones, Barry Yeoman detailed the Pentagon's increasing -- and increasingly perilous -- reliance on private military companies.
<snip>
Last fall {2002}, Blackwater signed a $35.7 million contract with the Pentagon to train more than 10,000 sailors from Virginia, Texas, and California each year in "force protection." Other contracts are so secret, says Blackwater president Gary Jackson, that he can't tell one federal agency about the business he's doing with another...
<snip>
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