THE SECRET ARMY OF BUSHCO

I knew about this before, but I didn’t know how extensive it was until I read an article about it in the local paper this morning.

We now have more U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq than we have American combat troops. Bush’s secret army is larger than our regular army.

Newly released figures show that 180,000 civilians are now in Iraq working under U.S. contracts and even with the recent troop surge there are only 160,000 soldiers. These numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis -- all employed in Iraq and paid for with U.S. tax dollars (this is part of those billions of dollars going to Iraq that are unaccountable for by the U.S. government).

And there are signs that even those numbers may not give the full picture. Many private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, are not counted in that 180,000.

Bush is relying heavily on private corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq and the contractors who are receiving the lion’s share of these lucrative contracts are the usual suspects with KBR, the once subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., providing logistics support to the troops with gas price-gouging, contaminated food and water and hiring Third World laborers to do the grunt work for $5 a day while charging the U.S. more than $50 a day. KBR is by far the largest employer of Americans, with nearly 14,000 U.S. workers in Iraq.

In a February analysis of $10,000,000,000 in waste found Halliburton (KBR) responsible for $2.700,000,000.

The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Titan, Custer Battles, Wackenhut and Erinys. They guard sensitive sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials. Other large employers of Americans in Iraq include L3 Communications, for translators to the troops, and ITT Corp., an engineering and technology firm.

The jobs for contractors have morphed into where they are now interrogating prisoners, training the Iraqi army, guarding the Green Zone, the Baghdad airport, protecting military convoys, analyzing intelligence and providing paramilitary security forces. These corporations are reaping billions of our tax dollars doing military work that the Bush administration has outsourced. And these people are not soldiers, they’re hired hands.

Military officials say that contractors cut costs while allowing troops to focus on fighting wars rather than on other tasks. Have you ever heard of the government doing something cheaper than a private company. The government pays out huge amounts of money to these contractors while the soldier’s minimal pay fights for its life.

Although private companies have played a role in conflicts since the American revolution, the United States has relied more on contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the nation's history, according to 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."

I’m sure BushCo thinks the soldiers are being unpatriotic because they seem resentful about the salaries contractors in Iraq are being paid.

The California Curmudgeon