By GottaLaff
Jeremy Scahill is the go-to guy when it comes to Blackwater aka Xe aka Bad News. Now he has news about private contractors in general:
The Department of Defense has released an updated census of Pentagon contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and CENTCOM’s area of operations. The overall number of contractors in the third quarter of 2009 increased slightly from 243,000 to 244,000, which means that private forces continue to constitute about half of the total US force deployed in these two wars. [...]
The DoD says the “increase can be attributed to an increased need for PSCs to provide security as the military begins to drawdown forces and to our continued improved ability to account for subcontractors who are providing security services.” In other words, less soldiers means more mercenaries in Iraq. [...]
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, there continue to be more private contractors than US soldiers. [...] That increase is, predictably, linked to the overall “build up of forces” in Afghanistan. [...]
In Iraq, there has been an overall 10% decrease in the total number of private contractors— there are now 119,706. According to DoD this is “due to ongoing efforts to reduce the contractor footprint in Iraq.” Interestingly, there has been an increase in the overall number of contractors in Afghanistan [...]” Kuwait has also seen a “significant” increase in US contractor personnel. The report was prepared by the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Program Support.More here. Your turn.
.jpg)