The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

January 2008
The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

KBR, Inc., the global engineering and construction giant, won more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006—far more than any other company, according to a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, the total dollar value of contracts that went to KBR—which used to be known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root and until April 2007 was a subsidiary of Halliburton—was nearly nine times greater than those awarded to DynCorp International, a private security firm that is No. 2 on the Center's list of the top 100 recipients of Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction funds.

Another private security company, Blackwater USA, whose employees recently killed as many as 17 Iraqi civilians in what the Iraqi government alleges was an unprovoked attack, is 12th on the list of companies and joint ventures, with $485 million in contracts. (On November 14, the New York Times reported that FBI investigators have concluded that 14 of the 17 shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, and that Justice Department prosecutors are weighing whether to seek indictments.) First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, which immediately precedes Blackwater on the Top 100, came under fire in July after a pair of whistleblowers told a House committee that the company essentially "kidnapped" low-paid foreign laborers brought in to help build the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad. First Kuwaiti and the U.S. State Department denied the charges.

State Department pays private contractors $4 billion a year

October 24, 2007
State Department pays private contractors $4 billion a year

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Over the past four years, the amount of money the State Department
pays to private security and law enforcement contractors has soared to nearly $4 billion a year
from $1 billion, administration officials said Tuesday, but they said that the department had
added few new officials to oversee the contracts.

It was the first time that the administration had outlined the ballooning scope of the
contracts, and it provided a new indication of how the State Department's efforts to monitor
private companies had not kept pace. Auditors and outside exerts say the results have been vast
cost overruns, poor contract performance and, in some cases, violence that has so far gone
unpunished.

Blackwater Withdraws from "The International Peace Operations Association"

October 12, 2007
Blackwater Withdraws from "The International Peace Operations Association"

WASHINGTON (AP) — Blackwater USA has ended an inquiry into the private security contractor's performance by withdrawing from an industry group that initiated the review after the company's guards were accused of killing 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month.

The International Peace Operations Association said in a statement Friday that Blackwater withdrew its membership two days after the group decided to examine whether the contractor's "processes and procedures" complied with the group's code of conduct.

Making a killing: how private armies became a $120bn global industry

September 21, 2007
Making a killing: how private armies became a $120bn global industry

This is a snapshot of a working day in the burgeoning world of private military companies, arguably the fastest-growing industry in the global economy. The sector is now worth up to $120bn annually with operations in at least 50 countries, according to Peter Singer, a security analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"The rate of growth in the security industry has been phenomenal," says Deborah Avant, a professor of political science at UCLA. The single largest spur to this boom is the conflict in Iraq.

Report: Private Contractor Oversite Lacking

September 19, 2007
Report: Private Contractor Oversite Lacking

The Iraqi government's decision to temporarily ban the security company Blackwater USA after a fatal shooting of civilians in Baghdad reveals a growing web of rules governing weapons-bearing private contractors but few signs U.S. agencies are aggressively enforcing them.

Nearly a year after a law was passed holding contracted employees to the same code of justice as military personnel, the Bush administration has not published guidance on how military lawyers should do that, according to Peter Singer, a security industry expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Private Contractors Outnumber US Soldiers

September 20, 2007
Private Contractors Outnumber US Soldiers

More than 180,000 Americans, Iraqis and nationals from other countries work under federal contracts to provide security, gather intelligence, build roads, improve infrastructure, forge a financial system and transport needed supplies in a country the size of California.

That figure contrasts with the 163,100 U.S. military personnel, according to U.S. Central Command, responsible for military operations in the Middle East. The Pentagon puts the military figure at 169,000. An additional 12,400 coalition forces are stationed in Iraq.

Contractors in Iraq Have Become U.S. Crutch

August 20, 2007
Contractors in Iraq Have Become U.S. Crutch

When years from now historians and government officials reexamine precedents set by the U.S. experience in Iraq, many "firsts" are likely to pop up.

One still playing out is the extraordinarily wide use of private contractors. A Congressional Research Service report published last month titled "Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues," puts it this way: "Iraq appears to be the first case where the U.S. government has used private contractors extensively for protecting persons and property in potentially hostile or hostile situations where host country security forces are absent or deficient."

It quotes U.S. Army Corps of Engineers data that show "an increasing proportion of registered supply convoys has been attacked." In the first 18 weeks of 2007, 14.7 percent of the convoys were struck, according to the data, while only 5.5 percent were hit in 2005. Earlier this month, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) reported that Labor Department figures show 1,001 civilian contractors had died in Iraq as of June 30, 2007.

Defense Agency Proposes Outsourcing More Spying

August 19, 2007
Defense Agency Proposes Outsourcing More Spying

The Defense Intelligence Agency is preparing to pay private contractors up to $1 billion to conduct core intelligence tasks of analysis and collection over the next five years, an amount that would set a record in the outsourcing of such functions by the Pentagon's top spying agency.

The proposed contracts, outlined in a recent early notice of the DIA's plans, reflect a continuing expansion of the Defense Department's intelligence-related work and fit a well-established pattern of Bush administration transfers of government work to private contractors.

U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq

August 12, 2007
U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq

The private security industry has surged in Iraq because of troop shortages and growing
violence. After the March 2003 invasion, hundreds of foreign and Iraqi companies, many of them
new, signed contracts with the U.S. and British militaries, the State Department, the Iraqi
government, media and humanitarian organizations and other private companies.

The size of this force and its cost have never been documented. The Pentagon has said that
about 20,000 security contractors operate in Iraq, although some estimates are considerably
higher. Private security contractors have been used in previous wars, but not on this scale,
according to military experts. Several lawmakers have recently sought to regulate the private
security industry and account for billions of dollars spent on outsourcing military and
intelligence tasks that once were handled exclusively by the government.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who was briefed by Aegis and the Corps of Engineers during a February visit to Iraq, said lawmakers are only now realizing the scope of private security there. "We're in the wake of this speedboat. We
can't even catch up to the contracts," said Kaptur, who opposes the use of private forces and
initiated an audit of Aegis by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the second
the agency has conducted.

Iraq contractors avoid legal restraints

August 11, 2007
Iraq contractors avoid legal restraints

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — and about half of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

Labor Dept: 1,001 contractors have died in Iraq

August 8, 2007
Labor Dept: 1,001 contractors have died in Iraq

WASHINGTON — More than 1,000 civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion more than four years ago, according to Labor Department records made available Tuesday.

In response to a request from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., the Labor Department revealed that 1,001 civilian contractors had died in Iraq as of June 30, including 84 during the second quarter of the year.

So far in 2007, at least 231 contractors working for U.S. firms have died in Iraq.

Our national security is being outsourced

July 8, 2007
Our national security is being outsourced

In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret. What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.

Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing. Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year. Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Contractors Back From Iraq Suffer Trauma From Battle

July 5, 2007
Contractors Back From Iraq Suffer Trauma From Battle

WASHINGTON, July 4 — Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict United States military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts.

A vast second army, one of contractors — up to 126,000 Americans, Iraqis and other foreigners — is working for the United States government in Iraq. Many work side-by-side with soldiers and are exposed to the same dangers, but they mostly must fend for themselves in navigating the civilian health care system when they come back to the United States.

Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq

July 4, 2007

Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.

More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.

The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.

"These numbers are big," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting. "They illustrate better than anything that we went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It's the coalition of the billing."

The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis — all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data.

Private Contractors Provide Military With Intelligence

July 1, 2007
Private Contractors Provide Military With Intelligence

The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, as might be expected, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the hub of Aegis's sprawling presence in Iraq and the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military.

Legal questions 'open or dodged'

The deepening and largely hidden involvement of security companies in the war has drawn the attention of Congress, which is seeking to regulate the industry. The House intelligence committee stated in a recent report that it is "concerned that the Intelligence Community does not have a clear definition of what functions are 'inherently governmental' and, as a result, whether there are contractors performing inherently governmental functions."

"There is simply not the management and oversight in place to handle this properly, not only to get the best of the market but to ensure that everything is being done," said Peter W. Singer, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who wrote a book on private security and has been critical of the lack of government oversight. "It leaves a lot of legal questions that are open or dodged."

Private Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever

February 3, 2007
Private Contractors Take On Biggest Role Ever

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, officials at the General Services Administration responded with what has become the government's reflexive answer to almost every problem.

They hired another contractor.

It did not matter that the company they chose, CACI International, had itself recently avoided a suspension from federal contracting; or that the work, delving into investigative files on other contractors, appeared to pose a conflict of interest; or that each person supplied by the company would cost taxpayers $104 an hour. Six CACI workers soon joined hundreds of other private-sector workers at the G.S.A., the government's management agency.