Chicago Tribune: America's hidden war dead

[babylonsister]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703260081mar26,1,5984421.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

America's hidden war dead
More than 770 civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives supporting the military in Iraq, and some families are now speaking out

By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published March 26, 2007

HOUSTON -- Like thousands of other Americans who have served in Iraq since the U.S. intervention began four years ago, Walter Zbryski came home in a coffin. Only his coffin was not draped in an American flag or accompanied by a military honor guard.

Instead, the mangled body of the 56-year-old retired firefighter from New York City was shipped back to his family in June 2004 in the bloodied clothes in which he died, with half of his head blown away, according to Zbryski's brother Richard.

"I viewed the body," Richard Zbryski said. "What really upset me was that he was laying there floating in at least 6 inches of his own body fluids. They didn't even clean him up for us."

Zbryski's death was not counted among the official tally of more than 3,200 American military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, nor was it noted by the Defense Department in a news release. That's because Zbryski was not a soldier--he was a truck driver working in the private army of hundreds of thousands of contractors hired by the Pentagon to support the logistical side of the massive American war effort in Iraq.

More than 770 civilian contractors working for American companies have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began on March 20, 2003, according to an obscure office inside the U.S. Department of Labor, which loosely tracks the figures. If those deaths--of truck drivers and cooks, laundry workers and security guards--are added to the military toll, the human cost of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is nearly 25 percent higher.

Now the family members of some of those American workers killed and injured in Iraq are raising their voices, complaining that the contributions of their loved ones have been forgotten by the U.S. public. Some allege that the workers were put in harm's way without adequate protection. Others charge that their own financial and psychological hardships have been ignored by the contracting companies that promised to help them.

more...

[Fresh_Start]

1. sorry for the families. maybe they shouldn't have let

their loved ones become mercenaries. Of course, the money was probably good.

[ClintonTyree]

4. I wouldn't call a truck driver a mercenarie....

an opportunist, a desperate man who wants to provide for his family, perhaps even a greedy man, but a mercenary? :shrug: Now, Blackwater employees and their ilk that are providing "protection" and are doing the very jobs our soldiers are doing and making 20X the money? THOSE are mercenaries, in my opinion.
This guy was more a civilian contractor, probably working for one of Bush's hand picked, no-bid contract buddies who are war profiteers.
Just my opinion.

[Fresh_Start]

7. why not call them a mercenary

if the weren't there, the army truck drivers would be moving the freight.
They took over logistics from the military associated with the military mission.
In effect they are a mercenary.

[genie_weenie]

14. A guy sucking shit out of a port-a-potty

is not a mercenary.

Unless you are making your definition of mercenary include everyone involved with the DoD. Of course, the huge post WWII DoD is the reason we continue to have these little "Operations".

Ahhh, war, glorious, glorious war. It makes money for the *right* people, it galvanizes support for the Regime, it renders political opponents impotent and it culls the lower class herd.

How could anyone not LOVE war.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. No they wouldn't.

There aren't enough Army truck drivers to support the effort. Death is not a fun thing. I've got no more or less sympathy for a dead American private truck driver than I do for a dead Iraqi who was killed by troops sustained by the food that the dead American truck driver brought to the base that housed the soldiers who killed him. Private contractors aren't the problem here. The war is the problem. The whole basic premise is the problem.

[babylonsister]

12. I thought mercenaries were hired professional soldiers. You think

everyone working in Iraq is a mercenary? I think some were just trying to put food on their table, and were willing to accept the risk, which turned out to be a bad idea.

[Fresh_Start]

15. I think anyone who is supporting the military mission in Iraq

that is not in the military or an Iraqi is a mercenary.

The army used to contain cooks, doctors, truck drivers, mechanics, and even people who emptied latrines.
Anyone replacing the regular army functions including logistics should be considered mercenaries since they are supporting hostilities for person gain.

[coalition_unwilling]

2. How sorry are we supposed to feel for mercenaries? n/t

[rodeodance]

3. good grief-------they do nto even embalm the dead before placed in

a casket!!

[mediaman007]

9. I think that a good entrepreneur could find opportunity here!

[merh]

5. Not forgotten by the public

Forgotten by our government, covered up by our government, unknown to the public. :grr: :(

Not.In.My.Name.!! :cry:

[mopinko]

6. the tribune printed this? what's next? snow in august?

they even called it "the intervention". wow. better late than never.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. That was my first thought, as well...

The Chicago Tribune and the Wall Street Journal are the two most reliably Republican publications in the country. If they've gone sour on Iraq, that's saying something.

[catmandu57]

18. That makes three of us

The trib? man they're rabid wingnuts, our local rag picks up editorials from them, unsigned editorials accredited to the tribune, I can't get past the first paragraph, they're so digusting.

[qwlauren35]

10. I wonder if this is Halliburton.

A part of me feels no sympathy for anyone who would go to Iraq just to make money out of the war. HOWEVER, it's not really any different than someone who goes into the Army because they need the income... so I guess I should let it go.

However, if the company isn't coming through for its employees and their families in terms of insurance, etc., then I hope there are class action suits in abundance.

Wouldn't it be nice to see companies like Halliburton go under!

[stillcool]

11. from an article...

in the Washington Post last year it was reported that a census taken revealed over 100,000 contractors working in Iraq...not including sub-contractors. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401311_pf.htmlThat number was from companies contracted by the U.S. government. There are other 'defense/security' contracts issued by the Brits, and who knows how many Iraqi/Kuwait/Dubai/Saudi Corporations are in the mix? They out-source the work to the poorest countries to get the cheapest labor, and for more sensitive jobs they use those already experienced in the art of war. The answer that 'they shouldn't be mercenaries', or 'they volunteered' is a little simplistic...isn't it? Again, cause and effect fall by the wayside.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/stillcool47
Why the US Is Not Leaving Iraq: The Booming Business of War Profiteers
By Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh *
Global Research
January 12, 2007
...................Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate ‘post-conflict’ plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries ‘at the same time,’ each lasting ‘five to seven years.’" 11

Here we get a glimpse of the real reasons or forces behind the Bush administration’s preemptive wars. As Klein puts it, "a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction." Klein also documents how (through Pascual’s office) contractors drew "reconstruction" plans in close collaboration with various government agencies and how, at times, contracts were actually pre-approved and paper work completed long before an actual military strike:

"In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual's office keeps ‘high risk’ countries on a ‘watch list’ and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to ‘mobilize and deploy quickly’ after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think-tanks Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, some will have ‘pre-completed’ contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Doing this paperwork in advance could ‘cut off three to six months in your response time.’"
<<read more>>http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issue...

[Imagevision]

13. In Kos they say that mercenaries and Iraqi civilians don't count.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. Sad.

Now the family members of some of those American workers killed and injured in Iraq are raising their voices, complaining that the contributions of their loved ones have been forgotten by the U.S. public.

I have some sad news for the families of these victims of the war. The great majority of the American public never gave a flying fuck about their sacrifice, and never will.