High pay -- and high risks -- for contractors in Iraq
Friday, April 2, 2004 Posted: 10:30 AM EST (1530 GMT)
CNN) -- Blackwater Security Consulting -- whose four employees were viciously killed and their corpses mutilated by a mob in Fallujah, Iraq -- is one of a growing number of private security contractors that are hiring veterans for jobs previously assigned to the military
personnel working for private companies and non-government organizations in Iraq. "They provide very focused security for detailing out how a protectee's day occurs -- from the beginning of the morning until they tuck that person back into bed at night," said CNN national security analyst Ken Robinson, "whether that be an NGO trying to conduct operations trying to provide food or water or support to the population."
The four men killed Wednesday were providing security for a convoy delivering U.S. government food.
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Contractors a favorite target
Experts say that as coalition forces have turned over security patrols to the Iraqi police, the attacks that used to target the military are now directed at civilian contractors and their private security forces.
"There are something like
150 attacks per day of one kind or another and most of them are intercepted," said Rick Bardon of the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "So there's been some success in reducing the impact of these attacks, but that's a lot of action that we're involved in all over the country."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/ ... ontractor/
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