Civilian Contractors Pay Price in Iraq

[seemslikeadream]

Wed Apr 14, 4:49 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Sue Pleming

Neither the Pentagon (news - web sites) nor the State Department keeps a tally of contractors killed and firms are reluctant to release figures for fear of becoming targets, but a conservative estimate is about 50 civilian contractors have died so far.


"We do not track civilian contractor deaths. We leave that up to companies," said military spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa.


A State Department office tracks U.S. civilian deaths but for security reasons no details or figures were released, said Stuart Patt, the spokesman for consular affairs.


Known deaths so far include 30 employees and subcontractors working for Texas-based Kellogg Brown and Root, the U.S. military's main logistics contractor in Iraq, and 13 civilians working for San Diego company Titan Corp, which does translation work for the Army in Iraq.


Private security contractors, who have been thrust into greater combat roles as attacks have increased, have also paid a price. Four employees from security firm Blackwater were killed last month.

more
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040414/us_nm/iraq_contractors_toll_dc&cid=1896&ncid=1473

[yardwork]

1. Maybe the private contractors will decide this wasn't such a good idea.

Although the mercenary firms will always be in business.

[RealityDose]

2. They are the best off

The contractors are the best off. They are paid $100,000+ a year for $30,000 a year jobs. They have kidnapping & ransom insurance, life insurance, and a better chance of being released as a hostage than a US soldier. Don't our soldiers get like $5 a day extra for hazard pay, and have no choice in going or where they would be deployed or when they return or when they might be redeployed. I have no idea how much one would make in the infantry, but I bet for being on the front lines it is not even close to $40,000 a year.

[Savage Corndog]

3. Securtiy

Most of the Blackwater/Titan etc. people work in non-military capacites; stuff like administration, meal service, and guard duty. The idea is that if you hire civilians, you can have more regular troops out on combat assignments and fewer "in the rear with the gear".

Of course, if we actually had enough troops in Iraq to run a proper occupation, this wouldn't be necessary. But then again, since when has Bush ever given a shit about actual soldiers? Much less some ex-Marine contract security?

[Voltaire99]

4. "Civilian contractors"

In terms of euphemism corrupting our language, this is the biggest pile of military vomit since "collateral damage."

[MrPrax]

5. Which Contractors are Hostage now?

Pinoys confined to Iraq air base

By Jowie F. Corpuz , Correspondent

ABOUT 500 Filipino workers are reportedly trapped inside an American air base in Iraq and are not allowed to communicate even with Philippine Embassy officials in Baghdad, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Jose Brillantes said unconfirmed reports reaching the embassy indicated that the Filipinos are stranded in the Balad Air Base, which had come under terrorist attack recently.

“Our chargé d’affaires, Eric Endaya, visited the air base yesterday but was denied access to our nationals. He was told that the air base is a high-security installation and is still off-limits. I guess this is part of their ongoing rules on accessibility on entry and egress,” Brillantes said in an interview. The Filipinos and workers from Kuwait and Jordan were brought to Iraq through American subcontractors.
<snip>
In the light of the escalation of the fighting in Iraq between coalition forces and Iraqi militants, and the abduction of civilian foreigners, the government’s Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security is “reassessing the situation and calibrating our options” whether or not to pull the Filipino peacekeepers out of that country.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/apr/15/yehey/top_stories/20040415top4.html

Well some contractors carry guns and make a grand a day and some wash and cook for them...

[dArKeR]

6. Who the heck is in command of Iraq? What kind of leader doesn't even

keep track of who is being murdered? Don't you have your Iraq police department take reports of murders? Don't you have your Military Police units take reports on those who are murdered?

Where the heck is the American Media asking honest, moral, and pertinet question to our leaders? Why didn't a reporter ask aWol this question last night?

There is obvious right and wrong, moral and immoral. It is obvious our media and our republican political leaders wrong, immoral and/or deep cover Fascist agents in a secret government.

Our American leaders in Iraq don't even care or are totally incompetent or totally overwelmed by chaos they have no idea?

Next, if our CIA, FBI, United States Attorney General's Office, State Department and Dept. of Defense are completely in disarray; unable to communicate; share intelligence... it's going to 'take years to fix' so bad... has anyone questioned our military and their military system in Iraq? Or do our republican leaders, Oliver 'Pusher' North, and Rush 'Addict' Limbaugh just wave their patriotic flags and send more of our children to be butchered in an immoral and incompetent military system? I thought patriotism meant telling the truth?Just look back at all the reports for the last 10 years. Everything is fine and perfect in the CIA and FBI. Who are the reporters who published these reports? Why aren't they held accountable?

What kind of confidence do you think this gives the Iraqis who are supporting the USA? If the USA doesn't even care enough to count their own dead they're sure not going to care about us Iraqis!

------------------

AirAmerica is the MOST IMPORTANT thing that has ever happened for honesty and morality in the USA. Keeping AirAmerica on the air should be the number one objective for all of us. We can't reach as many people via the internet. The people we need to reach are out there not seeking information. They're going to stumbled onto it. We must keep AirAmerica alive!

[seemslikeadream]

7. Reported civilian deaths resulting from the US-led military intervention i

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. Given that these are the very companies that elected Bush and

lobbied for war, I am not sorry that their return on investment is getting paid back with death claims paid out to their families. These people are not fucking boy scouts and they aren't our troops...some may do humanitarian work, but humanitarian work can be done without lobbying for war..just ask the Red Cross...fuck em.

If anything, their bellicose lobbyng for war in order to profiteer has placed our troops at risk...the more that die the merrier..we need to take the reward out of war if we are to survive.

[seemslikeadream]

9. nothingshocksmeanymore This may shock you, it did me

Join Our Team of Professionals at Camp Doha, Kuwait
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http://csakuwait.com/


Before the war, private firms helped out with an array of tasks -- operating supply lines, running training exercises, and even assisting with the war gaming and battle planning in the Kuwaiti desert that later proved so successful. The huge U.S. Army complex at Camp Doha, where the invasion was launched, was built, operated and guarded by a vast private operation led by a consortium called Combat Support Associates. (While CSA was operating in Kuwait, firms in the consortium were registered as "100 percent Native American-owned" and thus could use Minority Business Enterprise certifications as a way to gain preference in the government acquisition process.) These roles were not without their risks. Even before the battle started, several private military personnel were killed or wounded in live-fire exercises and, in a taste of what was to come, two civilian technicians were murdered by terrorists in a drive-by shooting in Kuwait.

lots more
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/15/warriors/index1.html

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. It doesn't surprise me

I really mean it..nothing does

[seemslikeadream]

14. So you've been warned about this?

[Eye and Monkey]

10. "some may do humanitarian work" - this is very very dangerous

It is dangerous for REAL humanitarian organizations to have military and mercs involved in doing humanitarian assistance.

In many instances, the ONLY thing that protects REAL humanitarians - those like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, etc. - the only thing that protects is that all sides of the conflict know that these organizations are NEUTRAL.

REAL humanitarian organizations are so sensitive to the issue that many will not hire people with previous service in the military.

When the US military started doing humanitarian assistance work in Afghanistan, NGOs knew there was a very dangerous precedent being set. Now, BushCo has completely poisoned the well - in effect making security many times more tenuous for REAL humanitarian organizations in Iraq and around the world.

In this sense, it is actually much much WORSE for mercs, military, and quasi-security corpoRATions to be involved in humanitarian assistance - not only do they not know the work, they make the work much more difficult for those who do.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. I agree. Thanks for making that point as they have made legit

humanitarian orgs targets...and not only do they not know the work, they do it poorly for ten times more money...the sham going on with the schools there now is proof of it.

[Eye and Monkey]

13. I am confident that this is actually at least somewhat intentional.

In '00, there was a set of discussions between the US military and US-based NGOs on the idea of the military working more closely with NGOs. The motivation came from the proximity of the two in the Balkans and to a lesser degree, other conflicts.

NGOs uniformly warned their military counterparts of the difficulties in implementing interventions, particularly in "complex emergencies". NGOs tried to explain that their expertise was hard-gained and did not translate well to the inexperienced. Uniformly, NGOs expressed the DANGERS of blurring the sharp lines between the military and NGOs.

At the time, I didn't think that the military counterparts even came close to grasping the concepts. As we see now, they clearly did not.

Given the rePub inclination to "starve government to a point where they can drown it in the tub", I am confident there is some of the same intent aimed at NGOs here. I am equally sure that there is an equal portion of BushCo and career-military hubris.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. I heard something similar in a recent report from a local

human rights org rep. He was discussing the manner in which their schools have deteriorated from what they were (and they are having to rebuild) and the rebuilds are cosmetic compared to what they did have in place..just blows the credibility in general for all humanitarian groups.

[Eye and Monkey]

20. Badly-done projects are always hard to follow.

As you could imagine, it is that much more difficult to get community participation after a boondoggle.

Good article about some of the particular complexities in Iraq:
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/108144450549.htm

[cornfedyank]

15. wage peace--it's cheaper

pay them people $ 2/hr employ them all -----employ them all.
do not bomb them.
what did Wes Clark say? i can't remember

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

16. Boy isn't that the truth!

[huellewig]

21. Ditto.

If people have good jobs that help promote the local economy they will not want to die. They will want to spend time with their family, eat a good meal, and sit in the warm sun. When the unemployment rate is 50% the people will do crazy things. I think step #1 in getting Iraq under control is to get the economy back on track.

How to do this is tough:

1. Award incentives for big U.S companies to move into Iraq, and hire locals. i.e. Intel (that's hard, with a lousy infrastructure and no security. who would go?)

2. Massive welfare program.

The sad thing is the reason we did this is to pump Iraqi money (also known as oil) into American corporations. And to pump middle class Americans money into American corporations. The massive sucking sound of dinars flowing out of Iraq to our corporations could only make the economy worse in Iraq leading to more violence.

I have only taken one year of economics so I could be totally wrong, and I'm drunk.. Have a nice night..

[TheWizardOfMudd]

18. I'm sure the Iraqis appreciate it

If the dumbasses want to go to Iraq and work security, then they are stupid fucking dumbasses and want to die.

[genius]

19. Mercenaries: These are well-paid killers

It's important to keep this in perspective.

[AZCat]

22. Q. Regarding Mercs and Conservative Philosophies

If the governing (heh!) philosophy of conservatives is 'smaller government' then why are we using mercenaries in lieu of actual military personnel?

As I see it, here is the breakdown (please comment)

Pros:
1) Risk taken is more accurately financially compensated for the individual

Cons:
1) Less oversight for U.S. citizens of actions by mercenaries than military
2) Less oversight for U.S. citizens of budgeting by merc. companies than Armed Forces branches
3) More expensive
4) Lessened status as world leader because of resorting to shady tactics
5) Posse Comitatus Act might not apply (not sure about this one)

Anyone have any suggestions as to why this would be supported by conservatives (or by anyone with a brain)?

Edit: Changed title for clarity