U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq (p. A01)

[rodeodance]

Source: wash post




U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq

By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraq has mushroomed.

The two companies, Aegis Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, signed their original Defense Department contracts in May 2004. By July of this year, the contracts supported a private force that had grown to about 2,000 employees serving the Corps of Engineers. The force is about the size of three military battalions.


U.S. officials and company representatives attributed the overruns to the cost of protecting a largely civilian workforce amid an escalating insurgency, as Corps of Engineers commanders demanded more manpower and increasingly expensive armor to guard their field staff.

"To pay a man or a woman to come over here, put the vest on every day and escort military and civilians around the theater, knowing that people want to blow them up and kill them, you gotta pay to get that level of dedication," said Col. Douglas P. Gorgoni, senior finance officer for the Corps of Engineers in Iraq.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/11/AR2007081101378.html

[Doctor_J]

1. Pssh. $548M? That's about 5 hrs of occupation

Or one year's dividend check for Dead-eye

[Double T]

2. The bushco free-for-ALL looting of the Treasury will continue until THEY are GONE!!

Our nation is bankrupt; ONLY thing left is to determine to what degree we're bankrupt.

[alllyingwhores]

3. I know this must be a silly question...

...but, shouldn't the US military be providing military security for the US military?