Contractors, military in 'bidding war' (Iraq)

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-07-31-contractors-private_x.htm

Contractors, military in 'bidding war'
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has hired private companies at a cost approaching $1 billion to help dispose of Saddam Hussein's arsenal in Iraq. That spending has created fierce competition for specialized workers that's draining the military's ranks of explosives experts.

Experienced military explosives specialists can earn $250,000 a year or more working for the private companies. In the military, an enlisted man with 10 years' experience can make more than $46,000. The better pay from private companies has led troops to sign on with contractors when their service ends and has aggravated tensions between military and civilian workers in Iraq. (Related story: Bomb specialists needed)

Those tensions boiled over in May, when Marines arrested 16 security workers for Zapata Engineering, one of the companies doing ammunition-disposal work in Iraq. The Marines said the workers had fired at U.S. troops and civilians. The contractors said they're innocent and claim they were treated badly by jeering Marines.

"When I was put face down on the ground to be cuffed, I heard one Marine ask me, 'How's it feel to make that contractor's money now?' " said one of the former Zapata workers, Matt Raiche of Dayton, Nev.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Well I don't like Mercs any more, even in fiction

[SHRED]

2. More proof...

that Libertarians are full-o-shit.

I work in the Public sector and recall the drive to "privatize", in the mid 1990's. The city I worked for hired a company to study the feasibility. Turns out that the cost would be many times higher, especially in the Public Services Department, to bid out jobs.

Contractors look at the "government" negatively and overcharge the shit out of us. Real patriotic...eh?
:sarcasm: