What about the mercernaries, ie blackwater goons

[madokie]

how many are there still there in Iraq now and how many will be there when the troops are reduced to the 35 to 50 thousand numbers. Anyone know?

[Donnachaidh]

1. I would think that they'd have a hard time getting contracts and permission

to be in Iraq -- didn't the Iraqis official tell them to leave?

[SteppingRazor]

2. Well, for starters, Blackwater's already gone:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803319.html?wprss=rss_world%2Fmideast%2Firaq


And I understand that all private security forces -- but not private contractors as a whole, of course -- will be gone as well. Will look for a link or something on that.

[uppityperson]

4. And they changed their name to Xe.

[SteppingRazor]

6. When all else fails, rebrand!

:eyes:

[madokie]

7. Don't worry about a link as opinions is what I wanted anyway

So that being as it is it is probably some of the reasons for the violence being down there now?

[SteppingRazor]

9. Oh, I dunno about that.

I think the whole Anbar Awakening thing is probably the greatest halt to violence in that province, and a lot of the other violence has tapered off, in my opinion, because of a very ugly fact that often gets overlooked: Most of the ethnic cleansing has already happened. Once a Shiite neighborhood rids itself of all its Sunnis, or vice versa, there's no need for further violence.

And of course, in the north of the country, Diyala Province, Mosul and whatnot, things are still not exactly nonviolent these days.

[madokie]

12. I also wondered about how much could be attributed to

maybe that they've got the cleansing done. No matter how its sliced the poor innocent Iraqi took a fucking on the deal.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. And if any DO stay, they will be contracted with the Iraqi government,

not the US military.

[gratuitous]

3. Curious thing about mercs

You stop paying them, they vanish.

Even curiouser, if someone else pays them more, they'll fire on you. And it doesn't even have to be a lot more.

[tekisui]

5. Blackwater is gone, and nearly all of the contractors will be by next summer.

[madokie]

8. I hope if we've not learned anything from this carnage it is that merc's are not to be used

under any circumstances, even as support personel. We have to remember the water some had to drink, the water that they had to bath in, some of the food that were fed, had to eat. A fellow army person will not serve you trash for food on sewer water for drinking water etc. I've read of all of that happening by non-military personel.

[EFerrari]

11. Obama has said that the contractors and our troops need to be drawn down

at the same rate (paraphrasing). This was in an interview with Amy Goodman.