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| Iraq |
| US Plans for Iraq - Lots of Mercenary Security and Contractors |
| 2011-02-02 |
| With American troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the ambassador to Iraq will become a de facto general of a huge, for-hire army — one larger than a U.S. Army heavy combat brigade. A report that the committee released yesterday by the senate Foreign Relations Committee explained why: the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq. A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy. (The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercenaries at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra; and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk. “Roughly four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations,” the report states. In the past, private companies have hired non-westerners as guards, as they work cheaper than westerners. The Senate report anticipates 17,000 individuals working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, with hundreds of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. Most will be foreign employees, who do the laundry, cook the food, and cleaning and janitorial services. And aside from the static security stationed at those five State Department installations, they’ll be operating at the 15 different sites that State plans on operating, including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers, and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #1 As per DER SPIEGEL + OTHER, many German + a number of major International Carriers are hiring PRIVATE SEA SECURITY = "SEA GUARDS" for their MV's plying thru or near the HORN OF AFRICA, vee SOMALI PIRATES. They also are repor interested in procuring SURPLUS = ADVANCED MIL WEAPONS for Same + Crew elements in order to match the variable firepower of the Somali Boyz. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-02-02 19:13 |