Monday, September 17, 2007

Blackwater Inc., Mercenaries and Iraq



Read more about Blackwater and the 48,000 civilian mercenaries in Iraq here.
Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest "force" in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What's more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll.
Blackwater, Inc. license to operate in Iraq has been suspended by the Iraqi government.

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