"I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help." This American Life.

[AP]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Civilian contractors make up a huge part of the American occupation of Iraq. They were interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Twenty thousand of them are private guns-for-hire doing security work. And they've been getting killed. This American Life Contributing Editor Nancy Updike recently spent three weeks with several contractors, talking to them about what they do, how they view the situation on the ground, and why in the world they volunteered for jobs in the middle of a war zone. We devote the whole hour this week to her special report about what's it like to be a private citizen on the payroll of an occupying army. Broadcast the weekend of June 4-6 in most places, or available here via RealAudio next week.



Pictured: Doing business in Baghdad at least has one upside: no long lines at the airport.

Unless you're on the West Coast, you might have missed this. It will be available on Real Audio next weekend.