Emphasis added:
America's unsung war dead
By David Isenberg
When America marked the death last month of the 2,000th US service member in Iraq, many commented that this was a meaningless milestone made up by the media and no more important than any other death figures.
They were in fact right, but not for the reason they thought. America actually reached the milestone of 2,000 long before. The reason, however, nobody commented about it was that these fatalities came from America's other army; that of the private sector. As of November 14, at least 280 coalition contractors have been killed.
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For most of the time since the US invasion in 2003 nobody knew for certain how many PMCs (private military contractors) operated in Iraq. Last year in response to a request from Congress, a CPA-compiled report listed 60 PMCs with an aggregate total of 20,000 personnel (including US citizens, third-country nationals and Iraqis). But that list was incomplete. Missing, for example, are companies implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal such as Titan CAC and SOS Interpreting Ltd. News reports peg the number of interrogators from private contractors there between 30 and 40. Most of the armed personnel were the more than 14,000 Iraqi guards who worked the oil field security contract for the British firm Erinys. The Iraqi government has since resumed that task.
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The government's listing shows the contractors' casualty rate is increasing. In the first 21 months of the war, 11 contractors were killed and 74 injured each month on average. This year, the monthly average death toll is nearly 20 and the average monthly number of injured is 243.
While casualties are widespread, profits are concentrated. Last year 12 contractors had contracts totaling an estimated $951,614,615 (including the $293 million contract awarded to Aegis Defense Services for coordinating security operations). As not all of them are big contracts, it seems clear that a majority of the overall PMC contracts are concentrated in a small number of firms.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK30Ak03.html
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