Al-Arab Blog - مدونة العرب

More Money for Mercenaries - by Chris Shumway: "More Money for Mercenaries" :

In what has increasingly become an outsourced war, the Coalition Provisional Authority has just added half a billion dollars to the amount being spent on private security contractors.

The role of such mercenaries has taken on new dimensions in Iraq. Heavily-armed personnel frequently engage in work traditionally done by the military, though they may not be sufficiently trained for the task and are not subject to the same regulations and public review systems as regular soldiers.

While the exact number of private security contractors is unclear, it is estimated that 20,000 are currently working in Iraq.


This week the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) Program Review Board, which controls the spending of Iraqi oil revenues, approved more than $500 million in new funding for private protective forces and facilities, according to the Washington Post"