Contractor Casualties
Their status as civilian is controversial. They are employees of U.S. government contractors and subcontractors, private military contractors, U.S. Department of Defense, etc. The contractors come from many nations including Iraq and the U.S.
A July 4, 2007, Los Angeles Times article reports:
"More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. ...
"The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data."
A July 3, 2007, Reuters article reports:
"The department said it had recorded 990 deaths — 917 in Iraq and 73 in Afghanistan — by the end of March. Since then, according to incident logs tallied by Reuters in Baghdad and Kabul, at least 16 contractors have died in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. ...
"The Labor Department's statistics put the number of wounded in Iraq between March 1, 2003 and March 31, 2007 as 10,569. The corresponding figure for Afghanistan, from September 2001 to March 2007, is 2,428. ...
"Joseph McDermott, the Assistant Inspector General for Iraq, quoted Labor Department statistics as saying that of 900-plus contractors killed by the end of April, 224 were U.S. citizens."
From a New York Times article published May 19, 2007:
"At least 146 contract workers were killed in Iraq in the first three months of the year, by far the highest number for any quarter since the war began in March 2003, according to the Labor Department, which processes death and injury claims for those working as United States government contractors in Iraq.
The April 30, 2007, quarterly report to Congress of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction states:
- "Since Iraq reconstruction began, 916 death claims for civilian contractors working on U.S.-funded projects in Iraq have been filed. In the quarter ending March 31, 2007, the Department of Labor reported 146 new death claims. DoS reports that 16 U.S. civilians died in Iraq this quarter. Since the beginning of the U.S. reconstruction effort, 224 U.S. civilians have died in Iraq."
A February 23, 2007, Associated Press article reports that there are 120,000 contractors. It states that through the end of 2006 there have been 769 deaths and "3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job."
A January 28, 2007, Houston Chronicle article reports that the Pentagon estimates around 100,000 contractors are currently in Iraq, and that the Pentagon does not track contractor deaths. The article reports: "Halliburton's KBR is the largest military contractor operating in Iraq, with more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors working there, as well as in Kuwait and Afghanistan."
The article reports from Labor Department information that more than 770 civilian contractors of U.S.-based companies in Iraq died between March 2003 and December 31, 2006. 7,761 have been injured in Iraq. "How many of these civilian-contractor casualties were American citizens is unknown. Labor officials say they cannot provide a breakdown by nationality."
The article also reports:
- The Labor Department has these numbers because it tracks workers' compensation claims by injured workers or families of slain contractors under the federal Defense Base Act. "Using employee time lost is a kind of a weird way to track casualties", Singer noted. "But it's part of the bizarre nature of this industry and the way it's been used in Iraq." Still, the Labor Department figures don't tell the full story.
An October 10, 2006, Reuters article reports, "Their number in Iraq is estimated at up to 100,000, from highly-trained former special forces soldiers to drivers, cooks, mechanics, plumbers, translators, electricians and laundry workers and other support personnel."
An April 2, 2004, Boston Globe article reports: "Just how much the growing security burden in Iraq is costing US taxpayers is hard to gauge because few reconstruction contracts are made public and there is no official estimate of how many security specialists are active there. Analysts estimate that corporations have some 30,000 to 40,000 workers in Iraq"
Concerning the number of security-related contractors an April 19, 2004, New York Times article states: "But more and more, they give the appearance of private, for-profit militias — by several estimates, a force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000.
That article also reports: "Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be complex. Many security guards are hired as 'independent contractors' by companies that, in turn, are sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may have been hired by a United States agency."
An April 13, 2004, Robert Fisk article reports: "At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq."
The article reported: "At least 80 foreign mercenaries — security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies — have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq." The article noted that this was more than the roughly 70 coalition troops who were killed in the same period.
Read more about this topic: Casualties Of The Iraq War