How many blackwater security personnel are there in Iraq

[madokie]

and how many of them are being killed? Maybe that helps to explain why the Iraqi are fighting so hard, except it is their homeland, because they can see a different outcome than we. To them blackwater or US official troops is one and the same I suspect. What is the true number of casualties of the united states in Iraq, including mercenaries?

[Lerkfish]

1. that's private information

part of the wonderful magical world of mercenaries.

:sarcasm:

[madokie]

3. I guess it is because I keep coming up with a big fat goose egg

But seriously I do believe that helps to explains why they are fighting so fiercely

[Lerkfish]

6. I agree with you. I'm just saying that is PRECISELY why Bushco uses

mercenaries, no accounting, no accountability, no geneva convention, and plausible denial when they do horrible things.
also has the advantage of kickbacks for HUGE fees.

I believe it is intentional, and I believe it is the way they will continue to operate.

[madokie]

7. I know, and I agree with you

they are all things what the constitution tried to prevent. sad, so sad

[KansDem]

2. Between a quarter and a third of a billion dollars worth...

Mercenary Jackpot
by JEREMY SCAHILL

(from the August 28, 2006 issue}

While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror."

Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."

A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.

The WPPS contract awarded in 2004 was divided among a handful of companies, among them DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater was originally slated to be paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater's two years of WPPS earnings exceed many estimates of the company's total government contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since 2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.
--more--

The Nation

[madokie]

5. have they, the bush* cabal no shame

[whistle]

4. It is a closely guarded secret which BushCo will not divulge....

...but a shit-load of money is being turned over to private security companies in Iraq. Among them are DynCorp and Triple Canopy as well as Blackwater and estimates suggest that more than a half a billion dollars have been paid out by BushCo to these companies so far in Iraq.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/40164/

[SutaUvaca]

8. Blackwater IS Halliburton of course

and, as I have posted before, Grand Vizer Cheney's private Blackwater army guys were the first "military" presence to enter NO once Katrina passed by. This same "army" might some day be rounding up dissenters for the camps Halliburton has built in the "homeland."

[madokie]

9. didn't know that blackwater was halliburton, but know about the camps

I like this, 'recovered baptist', I'm one of them too
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