104,000 !! Number of private contractors in Afghanistan NOW

[Thickasabrick]

without the extra 30,000!!! Holy Blackwater!!

Private contractors employed by the Defense Department in Afghanistan will continue to outnumber the size of the American troop presence, even after President Obama sends 30,000 more soldiers to fight in the war, according to the military's most recent contractor count.

The latest figure on DOD contractors in the country is a whopping 104,100, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command tells TPM. That number, which is expected to grow, is already greater than the 98,000 U.S. troops that will be in the country after the new deployments.

We told you yesterday about the little-noticed but giant shadow army of contractors that allows the United States to prosecute the war by providing food, transport, construction, security, and other services. Many believe the size of the contracting force presents security and transparency concerns.

And the lack of discussion of the topic -- Obama, for example, didn't mention contractors in his address last night -- warps perceptions of the size of the American commitment in Afghanistan.

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/so_how_many_private_contractors_are_there_in_afgha.php?ref=fpblg

We could pay for healthcare for 5 years for what we are paying these people...and will continue to pay

[Junkdrawer]

1. To say nothing of the private contractors that guide the killer drones...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/24/blackwaters_secret_war_in_pakistan_jeremy

[Thickasabrick]

6. That was creepy. Thank you. nt

[napi21]

2. That's the cost of wars without a draft! I don't know that I want

a draft again, but when you don't have enough people enlist to provide what you need to fight a war, you have to pay an exhorbetent pay to anyone who is willing to do that for a price!

[Thickasabrick]

5. You know - if we paid our soldiers even 1/4 of what these guys get

paid, I bet recruitment would double. This is really disgusting to me.

[Political Heretic]

7. I want a draft. Without deferrments. Rich kids, stand next to poor kids and flip a coin.

[napi21]

11. I read an article last week that said more than 60% wouldn't

qualify for a draft due to overweight! I have no idea if that's true, but it wouldn't surprise me!

[Political Heretic]

14. There are not set conditions for a draft. By that I mean:

The conditions of a previous draft might have excluded 60% of people. But the conditions of a new draft would not have to.

If that's even true, but I'm a little fat happy Buddha myself and quite content to be so, so it wouldn't surprise me either. :)

[metalbot]

35. A draft punishes people who want to serve

Speaking as a former soldier, I would not want the person next to me, on whom I have to trust my life, to be a draftee who has no interest in military service.

We aren't short on troops for Afghanistan. What's unfortunate is that we've transitioned to a reserve based fighting force, and we're having to over rely on reserve forces that were never meant for multiple combat rotations. The army would recruit more if we gave them the budget to do so and better pay. Right now they are rejecting nearly 60% of applicants for a variety of reasons (primarily physical fitness to serve). I know one of the recruiters who works in my town, and he complains that he can get plenty of people to volunteer, but his rejection rate at MEPS is over 50%.

[valerief]

3. K&R

[ipaint]

4. The iraq numbers are even more shocking.

Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of "private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings," according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Percentage of private contractors in total U.S. forces deployed in World War II and the Korean War: 3-5%, according to the Congressional testimony of human rights lawyer Scott Horton. In Vietnam and the first Gulf War, that figure reached 10%. Now, it is at least near parity.

Number of private companies working in Iraq on contract for the U.S. government: 630, with personnel from more than 100 countries, according to Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling Blackwater, The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Typical pay of a former U.S. Special Forces soldier working for a private-security company in Iraq: $650 a day, according to Scahill, "after the company takes its cut." That rate, however, can hit $1,000 a day.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/engelhardt

And that was 2007.

More numbers:

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.

Missing - $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces. (Per CBS News on Dec 6, 2007.)

Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings

Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion

Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion

Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 billion

Number of major U.S. bases in Iraq - 75

Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $800 billion of US taxpayers' funds spent or approved for spending through mid-2009, including $76 billion requested by President Obama and approved by Congress.

U.S. 2009 Monthly Spending in Iraq - $7.3 billion as of Oct 2009

U.S. 2008 Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion

U.S. Spending per Second - $5,000 in 2008 (per Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on May 5, 2008)

http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

[Thickasabrick]

8. Great info....so what do you think - total 250,000?? When you

multiply that by the daily salary these people get as referenced in your post - it boggles the mind.

[ipaint]

9. And we have no intention of leaving either country.

Cost of U.S. bases in Iraq (which Congress has mandated as not "permanent") and in Afghanistan (which the Pentagon refers to as "enduring"): Unknown. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of "several billion dollars" being sunk into base construction. According to the Washington Post, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) claims $2 billion went into "military construction" in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-2006; another $1.7 billion was approved by Congress for 2007. And the Pentagon is still building. For fiscal 2008, $738.8 million was requested "for 33 critical construction projects for Iraq and Afghanistan." (When it comes to base construction, these figures are undoubtedly undercounts.)

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/engelhardt

[Echo In Light]

17. Thanks for including all of that

[BeFree]

10. But

Obama said everyone will be held accountable...

I guess not Bush Cheney and the contractors. Everyone else tho?

[leftstreet]

12. K&R

[Swamp Rat]

13. k&r

[slipslidingaway]

15. knr nt

[Flaneur]

16. Privatizing military support operations is utter bullshit.

Capitalist ideology run amuck for the benefit of whom?

[BeHereNow]

26. Not bullshit for those who profit from it...

Like our congress-piggies feeding at the MIC trough.

BHN

[TheKentuckian]

18. I don't recall the Constitution granting the Executive the ability to

raise an independent army. Of all the insanely failed systems and policies we've been going with this might be the most directly and clearly obviously illegal and insane of the lot and almost nary a word of opposition even from liberal sources.

Bush seldom got a word on this and with Obama there are nearly none other than if they get busted doing something criminal but its still more of a these guys should be out thing rather than raising some hell about the whole bogus practice.

[bvar22]

19. The real BIG MONEY in War Profiteering is in Contracting.

If it is good for BIG BUSINESS, it is GOOD for the Obama Administration!



The DLC New Team
APPROVED by the Chamber of Commerce!
Liberal Democrats Need NOT Apply

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

[Mithreal]

20. Kick & Rec

[ClarkUSA]

21. So what? "95% of Private Contractors employed in Afghanistan are Afghans"

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x37387

Why are you against employing Afghanis?

[ipaint]

22. Afghans? so what.

What does their nationality have to do with it? They are still private for profit corporate armies we pay for with our tax dollars.

[ClarkUSA]

23. Security contractors account for only 11% of the total, while more than 50% perform support ops.

Armed security contractors make up only a small portion of the overall Pentagon contractor workforce. The Defense Department employed a total of 193,674 private contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan as of June (compared to a total U.S. military deployment of 189,678 soldiers), according to a separate Congressional Research Service report.

Security contractors accounted for only 11 percent of private contractors in Iraq, for example, while more than half of the contractors performed support operations on U.S. bases, such as laundry and catering services.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113389274

I have no problem with my taxpayer dollars going towards employing Afghanis in a country where there is grinding poverty.

[ipaint]

24. That's not where your tax dollars are going.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan along with the promised long global war against terror has created a boom in the security and risk advisory market. Trained and experienced military personnel from Special Forces units in the US, UK, Israel and South Africa are retiring to take part. The same is true for the intelligence agencies as companies aiding business ventures in Iraq like GlobalOptions and Diligence see executives on the boards from the CIA, DIA, FBI, the Secret Service, FEMA and MI6.

Many companies are subsidiaries of larger firms. MPRI and Titan were bought by L-3 Communications which is traded on the NYSE. Defence Systems Limited was bought by Armor Holdings, Inc., renamed ArmorGroup than bought out by its board. Group 4 Securicor is a merger between Group 4 Falck and the Wackenhut Corporation providing services from armed prison guards to guarding embassies to supplying electronic surveillance. Computer Sciences Corporation acquired DynCorp.

Many of these companies, while paid with taxpayer money when working under government contracts, are often registered offshore somewhere, escaping tax on many profits from re-entering the representative, public Treasury.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Private_Military_Corporations




And they do a shitty job.

"The Army Times reported on Tuesday that "ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province ... and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition."

According to one Afghan security official, private security guards have killed or wounded more than thirty civilians over the past four years in just the Marwand district, and the district chief there claims that "most of them are addicted to heroin."

"Although the convoys sometimes carry U.S. military vehicles and represent a vital lifeline for the coalition effort," the Times explains, "no Afghan, U.S. or other coalition military forces accompany them. Instead, each convoy is protected by Afghan security guards armed with AK-series assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in sport utility vehicles."

The problem is not new. A Congressional Research Service report (pdf) obtained last summer by Secrecy Times revealed that as of March 2009 there were more private contractors working in Afghanistan for the Department of Defense than there were US military personnel. The report further warned that "abuses and crimes committed by armed private security contractors and interrogators against local nationals may have undermined U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan."

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/army_convoy_security_112909w/


So these for profit private defense corporations pay little to no taxes and do a piss poor job and you are satisfied your tax dollar is well spent.

[ClarkUSA]

30. Yes they are. Nothing you cited changes the facts NPR reported.

:shrug:

[BeFree]

28. 11%

Rounds out to about 20,000 armed people.

And who do they pledge allegiance to?
Their company. Not the flag, not the US, but some corporation.
And that makes you happy somehow?

[ClarkUSA]

31. There aren't enough troops to do the security work needed.

There's not enough of them, which is one reason why Pres. Obama made the decision he did.

... those officials pitted on the front line against the Taliban insurgents, said a rapid surge of 30,000 troops this winter was desperately needed, since Afghan forces could not fight off the current insurgency on their own.

“It’s a very good idea,” said a senior security official who has been in the forefront of tracking Al Qaeda and Taliban since 2001. The United States had very good human intelligence on Taliban on both sides of the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan but they did not have enough good fighters in the Afghan army and police, he said.

“They need the Americans,” he said. A surge of extra forces could undercut the insurgency in six months since many of the Taliban were ready to negotiate and could be persuaded to swap sides with a concerted effort, he said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=34387&mesg_id=34387

I have no idea who "they pledge allegiance to" and I doubt you do, either. I'm sure they didn't sign up to go there to act as overt traitors to the United States.




I have no idea who "they pledge allegiance to" and I doubt you do, either. I'm sure they
aren't there to act as overt traitors to the United States.

[BeFree]

36. Exactly, no one knows what they do

Meanwhile Senator Kerry says:

I would hope that just as the exit strategy is based on conditions on the ground, so too should our strategy for escalation be based on conditions on the ground. I continue to believe that, absent an urgent security need, we should not send American troops in to clear places unless we are confident that we have the Afghan partners and resources in place to build on our victories and transfer both security and government functions to legitimate Afghan leaders. Frankly, I am concerned that additional troops will tempt us beyond a narrow and focused mission. And, with 30,000 troops rushing into Afghanistan, I believe we will be challenged to have the civilian and governance capacity in place quickly enough to translate their sacrifice into lasting gains.

[Thickasabrick]

27. From the same article I reference in the OP:

The Army Times published a story yesterday showing just how damaging bad contractors can be to the counterinsurgency strategy: along one route in Kandahar province, over 30 civilians have been killed or wounded by heavily armed security contractors, who are mostly Afghans."

I would say those particular Afghans aren't doing a very good job with our money. This is just one example. I don't have a problem with hiring contractors to do construction, etc., but not security - that is what our military is for.

[ClarkUSA]

29. "but not security - that is what our military is for"

There's not enough of them, which is one reason why Pres. Obama made the decision he did.

... those officials pitted on the front line against the Taliban insurgents, said a rapid surge of 30,000 troops this winter was desperately needed, since Afghan forces could not fight off the current insurgency on their own.

“It’s a very good idea,” said a senior security official who has been in the forefront of tracking Al Qaeda and Taliban since 2001. The United States had very good human intelligence on Taliban on both sides of the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan but they did not have enough good fighters in the Afghan army and police, he said.

“They need the Americans,” he said. A surge of extra forces could undercut the insurgency in six months since many of the Taliban were ready to negotiate and could be persuaded to swap sides with a concerted effort, he said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=34387&mesg_id=34387

[ipaint]

32. Oh good do the americans have experience in rehabing drug addicted

trigger happy corrupt thugs? In 18 months no less.

[ClarkUSA]

33. I could care less. WTF has that got to do with the OP?

:eyes:

[ipaint]

34. My reply plainly states response to reply #29 not the OP. n/t

[BeHereNow]

25. Obama also did not mention the COST of the PC mercs.

We are so fucked.
BHN