DBA Workmans Comp
Contractor News
Iraq and Afghanistan
World's most notorious Merc to oversee Blackwater?

AIG moves investigations to Iraq

Blackwater Dodges Taxes

Blackwater security company back on the streets of Baghdad

Judge Halts Blackwater Arbitration

Kiwi Contractors find pay not worth the risk

Blackwater, Hired Guns Above the Law

DOD failed to stop exploitation

Contractor with ties to Huntsville center who died in Iraq was
from South Africa

Judge Halts Blackwater Arbitration

Tension Grows Between US Soldiers and Mercenaries

A New Way to Escape Baghdad

Deaths Highlight Dangers faced by contractors

Deaths in Iraq Shatter Families

Contractors in Iraq keep low profile but pay high price

Kiwi's find pay not worth the risk

Blackwater Teams Sent Wrong Way

Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation

Kiwi Contractor Killed in Iraq

US Contractors Killed in Iraq  (July 9, 2007)

Hope for UF Student captured in Iraq Fades

After Iraq, Contractors Face Mental Health Issues

In Outsourced US Wars Contractor Deaths Top 1,000

US Troops Outnumbered in Iraq - by contractors

War, Red Tape Haunt Civilian Workers

Contractor Killed in Iraq

Blackwater Heavies sue families of Slain Employess for $10
million in Brutal Attempt to Suppress their story

Convoys feed ravenous force

Kidnapped Brit Worked for US Company

Blackwater Implicated in Two Shootings in Iraq this Week

Missile Kills Local Contractor in Iraq

America's Hidden War Dead

List containing names of kidnapped Austrian, Americans
found in Iraq

EOD Accident Kills Don Neil in Iraq

US Contractor Killed, 2 Wounded

Iraq Rebuilding Short on Qualified Civilians

Iraq Contractor Deaths go Little Noticed

Nearly 800 Contractors Killed in Iraq

Pentagon investigates Blackwater's expense tab

The Battle Scars of a Private War

Contract Worker Killed in Iraq

Contractor Deaths Near 800

Fatal Crash Kills Five Civilians (Blackwater)

Services Set for Contractor Killed in Iraq

Death in Iraq brings back pain for N.C.-based contractor's
mom

Blackwater Countersues

AIF Attack Armor Group Convoy

Insurgents Claim Convoy Attack

Blackwater Families Take Case to Congress
Death of a Contractor
Dan Halpern  Rolling Stone

Business has been booming since May, when Paul Bremer, the man sent by
President Bush to run the Coalition Provisional Authority, gave foreign investors
the right to take 100 percent of their profits out of Iraq, tax-free. "Iraq," Bremer
declared, "is open for business." The country became an enormous piggy bank
busted wide open. Small-time contractors like Ultra Services began to flood into
Iraq, but unlike Halliburton and other corporate competitors, they had no security
convoys to protect them -- they were on their own. It was about as open a season
as seasons get; the cash was just there to be carted off, palletfuls of fresh $100
bills airlifted in from the United States. "I've never seen a more corrupt
environment than Iraq was under Bremer and the CPA," says one private
contractor with decades of experience in war zones. "They had no idea what they
were doing. The system was just about as perfectly set up for bribery and
kickbacks as it possibly could be."

In Outsourced US Wars Contractor Deaths Top 1,000

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) - The death toll for private contractors in the U.S.
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped 1,000, a stark reminder of the risks run
by civilians working with the military in roles previously held by soldiers.

A further 13,000 contractors have been wounded in the two separate wars led by
the United States against enemies who share fundamentalist Islamic beliefs and
the hit-and-run tactics that drain conventional armies.

The casualty toll is based on figures the U.S. Department of Labor provided to
Reuters in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act and on
locally gathered data.

The department said it had recorded 990 deaths - 917 in Iraq and 73 in
Afghanistan - by the end of March. Since then, according to incident logs tallied by
Reuters in Baghdad and Kabul, at least 16 contractors have died in Iraq and two in
Afghanistan.

Those killed in Iraq between March 31 and today included four contractors from
the Philippines killed in a rocket strike on Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone
compound, a frequent target of attacks.

The Labor Department's statistics put the number of wounded in Iraq between
March 1, 2003 and March 31, 2007 as 10,569. The corresponding figure for
Afghanistan, from September 2001 to March 2007, is 2,428.

Deaths and injuries among the growing ranks of civilians working in war zones
are tracked on the basis of claims under an insurance policy, the Defense Base
Act, which all U.S. contracting companies and subcontractors must take out for the
civilians they employ outside the United States.

In Iraq, their number is estimated to be close to 130,000 -- not much less than the
157,000 U.S. troops presently deployed to the country. Their work ranges from
driving fuel trucks, cooking meals and cleaning toilets to servicing advanced
weapons systems and guarding senior U.S. officials.

The contractor death toll compares with 3,577 U.S. military deaths in Iraq and 342
in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. That means that on
average, since the two conflicts began in 2001 and 2003 respectively, one civilian
contractor is killed for every four members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

STILL MORE APPLICANTS THAN JOBS

Despite the risks, there is no shortage of those wanting to work in the war zones,
lured by high pay and, in some cases, a sense of adventure.

"There are more applicants than there are jobs," said Doug Brooks, president of
the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for more than 30
private security companies.

"That's been the case from the beginning and it is still true, even though pay has
gone down because there is a lot of competition."

Neither the Pentagon nor any other U.S. government agency keeps a precise tally
on the number of private security companies active in war zones - a fact that is
drawing increasing complaints from Congressional critics who say there is not
enough oversight and little accountability.

By some estimates, the number of private security companies in Iraq and
Afghanistan has swollen to almost 300, both U.S. and foreign corporations. One of
the richest contracts awarded since the U.S. invaded Iraq went to Aegis, a British
firm involved in intelligence-gathering.

Contrary to common perceptions, the majority of civilian contractors in the war
zones are not Americans - and foreigners have done most of the dying as the U.S.
accelerated outsourcing functions previously performed by soldiers.

The Labor Department declined to give details of the nationalities of the
contractors it listed as killed or wounded, saying that doing so would "constitute
an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" under the U.S. Privacy Act.

But at a Congressional hearing in May, Joseph McDermott, the Assistant Inspector
General for Iraq, quoted Labor Department statistics as saying that of 900-plus
contractors killed by the end of April, 224 were U.S. citizens.

Officials say the majority of contractors are Iraqis and people from developing
countries as far apart as Chile and Nepal, Colombia and India, Fiji and El
Salvador. Filipinos make up one of the largest single groups.

U.S. troops outnumbered in Iraq — by contractors
By T Christian Miller  La Times

New U.S. data show how heavily the Bush administration has relied on
corporations to carry out the occupation of the war-torn nation.

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American
combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the
privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and
rebuilding campaigns.

More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are
working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department
figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian
government employees are stationed in Iraq.

The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows
how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the
occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.

"These numbers are big," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who
has written on military contracting. "They illustrate better than anything that we
went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It's the
coalition of the billing."

The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and
about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the
most recent government data.

The array of private workers promises to be a factor in debates on a range of
policy issues, including the privatization of military jobs and the number of Iraqi
refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S.

But there are also signs that even those mounting numbers may not capture the
full picture. Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government
officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry
and government officials.

Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special
criticism from military experts.

"We don't have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That's dangerous for our
country," said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The
Pentagon "is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's obscene."

Although private companies have played a role in conflicts since the American
Revolution, the U.S. has relied more on contractors in Iraq than in any other war,
according to military experts.

Contractors perform functions including construction, security and weapons
system maintenance.

Military officials say contractors cut costs while allowing troops to focus on fighting
rather than on other tasks.

"The only reason we have contractors is to support the war fighter," said Gary
Motsek, the assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense who oversees
contractors. "Fundamentally, they're supporting the mission as required."

But critics worry that troops and their missions could be jeopardized if contractors,
functioning outside the military's command and control, refuse to make deliveries
of vital supplies under fire.

At one point in 2004, for example, U.S. forces were put on food rations when
drivers balked at taking supplies into a combat zone.

Adding an element of potential confusion, no single agency keeps track of the
number or location of contractors.

In response to demands from Congress, the U.S. Central Command began a
census last year of the number of contractors working on U.S. and Iraqi bases to
determine how much food, water and shelter was needed.

That census, provided to The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, shows
about 130,000 contractors and subcontractors of different nationalities working at
U.S. and Iraqi military bases.

However, U.S. military officials acknowledged that the census did not include other
government agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development
and the State Department.

Last month, USAID reported about 53,000 Iraqis employed under U.S.
reconstruction contracts, doing jobs such as garbage pickup and helping to teach
democracy. In interviews, agency officials said an additional 300 Americans and
foreigners worked as contractors for the agency.

State Department officials said they could not provide the department's number of
contractors. Of about 5,000 people affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, about
300 are State Department employees. The rest are a mix of other government
agency workers and contractors, many of whom are building the new embassy.

"There are very few of us, and we're way undermanned," said one State
Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We have significant
shortages of people. It's been that way since before [the war], and it's still that way."

The companies with the largest number of employees are foreign firms in the
Middle East that subcontract to KBR, the Houston-based oil services company,
according to the Central Command database. KBR, once a subsidiary of
Halliburton Co., provides logistics support to troops, the single largest contract in
Iraq.

Middle Eastern companies, including Kulak Construction Co. of Turkey and
Projects International of Dubai, supply labor from Third World countries to KBR
and other U.S. companies for menial work on U.S. bases and rebuilding projects.
Foreigners are used instead of Iraqis because of fears that insurgents could
infiltrate projects.

KBR is by far the largest employer of Americans, with nearly 14,000 U.S. workers.
Other large employers of Americans in Iraq include New York-based L-3
Communications, which holds a contract to provide translators to troops, and ITT
Corp., a New York engineering and technology firm.

The most controversial contractors are those working for private security
companies, including Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Erinys. They guard sensitive
sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials and
businessmen.

Security contractors draw some of the sharpest criticism, much of it from military
policy experts who say their jobs should be done by the military. On several
occasions, heavily armed private contractors have engaged in firefights when
attacked by Iraqi insurgents.

Others worry that the private security contractors lack accountability. Although
scores of troops have been prosecuted for serious crimes, only a handful of
private security contractors have faced legal charges.

The number of private security contractors in Iraq remains unclear, despite Central
Command's latest census. The Times identified 21 security companies in the
Central Command database, deploying 10,800 men.

However, the Defense Department's Motsek, who monitors contractors, said the
Pentagon estimated the total was 6,000.

Both figures are far below the private security industry's own estimate of about
30,000 private security contractors working for government agencies, nonprofit
organizations, media outlets and businesses.

Industry officials said that private security companies helped reduce the number of
troops needed in Iraq and provided jobs to Iraqis — a benefit in a country with high
unemployment.

"A guy who is working for a [private security company] is not out on the street doing
something inimical to our interests," said Lawrence Peter, director of the Private
Security Company Assn. of Iraq.

Not surprisingly, Iraqis make up the largest number of civilian employees under U.
S. contracts. Typically, the government contracts with an American firm, which then
subcontracts with an Iraqi firm to do the job.

Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, a contractors' trade
group, said the number of Iraqis reflected the importance of the reconstruction and
economic development efforts to the overall U.S. mission in Iraq.

"That's not work that the government does or has ever done…. That's work that is
going to be done by companies and to some extent by" nongovernmental
organizations, Soloway said. "People tend to think that these are contractors on
the battlefield, and they're not."

The Iraqis have been the most difficult to track. As recently as May, the Pentagon
told Congress that 22,000 Iraqis were employed by its contractors. But the
Pentagon number recently jumped to 65,000 — a result of closer inspection of
contracts, an official said.

The total number of Iraqis employed under U.S. contracts is important, in part
because it may influence debate in Congress regarding how many Iraqis will be
allowed to come to the U.S. to escape violence in their homeland.

This year, the U.S. planned to cap that number at 7,000 a year. To date, however,
only a few dozen Iraqis have been admitted, according to State Department figures.


Kirk Johnson, head of the List Project, which seeks to increase the admission of
Iraqis, said that the U.S. needed to provide a haven to those who worked most
closely with American officials.

"We all say we are grateful to these Iraqis," Johnson said. "How can we be the
only superpower in the world that can't implement what we recognize as a moral
imperative?"