Al-Arab Blog - مدونة العرب

Keeping track of the number of contractors dying in Iraq is proving difficult

There are 50,000 to 100,000 contractors working in Iraq, experts
believe, though reliable estimates are hard to come by.

Private security personnel are thought to account for as many as
20,000 of those, or more than all U.S. coalition partners together.

The number of contractors killed is just as difficult to pin down,
partly because the employers often keep the deaths quiet.

The U.S. military death toll, now over 1,620, would be higher but for
the number of military tasks contracted out to the private sector, say
analysts.