‘Contractors’ Archives
Contractor Deaths Raise Casualty Count
Feb. 23, 2007 -- It's no easy task tallying the total casualties supporting the US war effort in Iraq because "while the Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies," getting the official figures on civilian contractor deaths and injuries before 2006 requires a time-consuming Freedom of Information Act request, [...]
A Big Mistake: Mistrusting the Iraqi Worker
Putting people out of work might be the biggest mistake a liberator could make, says Marshall Adame, who worked on Iraq reconstruction projects with The Sandi Group and as a senior US advisor to the Iraqi government from 2003 until late 2006: Iraq is not now, or in 2003, a country without professional organizations, associations, business [...]
Pictures Worth a Thousand Lives
Feel the love while on a private security run somewhere in Iraq. 'American PSD Detail Stares Down Tank Barrel': It's a tough job.
Major Shift in Iraq Private Security?
It may signal the twilight of gun-slinging expat companies barreling through Iraq with armored convoys while ringing up the multi-million-dollar receivables. Iraqslogger reports that a new round of contracts could be in the offing for major security and training contracts in Iraq with a drop-dead clause: "Complete handover to Iraqis at end of [...]
PTSD Haunting Returning Soldiers and Contractors
Once known as soldier's heart in the World Wars, it took years for returning Vietnam vets to receive the public support they earned and deserved for what is now known as post traumatic stress disorder. Many fell apart and landed homeless on the streets across America. Some never recovered or regained their footing. Now, major media shines a light [...]
Rearview Mirror: The War for Insurance Coverage
Hundreds of injured civilians who worked in Iraq and Afghanistan take the war home with them as they battle for insurance coverage they are owed. (more…)
More on John Mancini
I knew he was in troubled waters, but I had no idea how troubled.... FROM THE EAST BAY EXPRESS: Not long ago, this paper published a profile of John Mancini, a civilian defense worker stationed in Iraq and Kuwait who was one of the first two congressional whistleblowers to expose Halliburton's alleged practice of overbilling the government, to [...]
‘This Hearing Saved the Government 20 Million Dollars’
by David Phinney Feb. 7, 2007 -- From the time four U.S. security contractors were killed in streets of Fallujah on March 31, 2004 until yesterday, the U.S. Army couldn't determine if, in fact, Halliburton/KBR had broken its multibillion-dollar contract agreement by commissioning the private security company, Blackwater, to guard a [...]
Squandering Iraqi Money
Feb. 6, 2007 -- Almost $12 billion in Iraqi assets disappeared while under control of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority -- much of it arrived in $100 bills on pallets straight from the Federal Reserve in New York. In the past, government auditors said the Coalition Provisional Authority lost track of $8.8 billion in seized and frozen [...]
Blackwater’s Christmas Mystery
When Rep. Henry Waxman bangs the gavel and opens hearings on Blackwater's security operations in Iraq Wednesday, let's hope the California Democratic chairman of the House Government Reform Committee asks about the rumor of a murder in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve: The rumor began this way via email: "On eve (2006) here in the Green Zone a [...]
