Contractor Injured in Green Zone Rocket Attack aimed at Security Contractor

FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Sept 23

BAGHDAD – Three rockets targeting a security company were fired at Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone government and diplomatic enclave, wounding one foreign contractor, an Iraqi army source said. Police said two rockets were fired without giving any further details.

Contractor Deaths Exceed Military in Iraq and Afghanistan

This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan

by T Christian Miller ProPublica Disposable Army

More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields.

More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts died in the war zones between January and June 2010, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Labor, which tracks contractor deaths. In the same period, 235 soldiers died, according to Pentagon figures.

This milestone in the privatization of modern U.S. warfare reflects both the drawdown in military forces in Iraq and the central role of contractors in providing logistics support to local armies and police forces, contracting and military experts said.

Steven Schooner, a professor of government contracting at George Washington University Law School, said that the contractor deaths show how the risks of war have increasingly been absorbed by the private sector. Private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan provide fuel, food and protective services to U.S. outposts — jobs once performed by soldiers.

“It’s extremely likely that a generation ago, each one of these contractors deaths would have been a military death,” Schooner said. “As troop deaths have fallen, contractor deaths have risen. It’s not a pretty picture.”

Schooner, who conducted a recent study of contractor fatalities published in Contractor Services [1] (PDF), an industry newsletter, said contractors now make up more than 25 percent of total deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — a proportion that has grown steadily throughout the conflicts. Official figures show that 5,531 troops and 2,008 civilian contract workers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan between the beginning of hostilities in 2001 and June 2010.

Many working under U.S. contracts are local civilians, often working as translators for troops, or are hired from third world countries to do basic labor, such as cleaning kitchens and toilets.

Previous ProPublica stories [2] have noted that companies employing such workers often fail to report their deaths and injuries to the Labor Department, as required by law. Government figures likely understate the total number civilian contractor deaths.

The rising fatalities have received little public attention, concealing the full human cost of the war, Schooner said. When President Obama spoke of troop deaths in Afghanistan earlier this month, he made no mention of fatalities among the private workforce that feeds and fuels U.S. forces.

“I’m not accusing either the Bush or the Obama administration of intentionally deceiving the public,” Schooner said. “But when a president applauds a reduction in military deaths but fails to acknowledge the contractor personnel now dying in their place, someone isn’t telling the whole story.”

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most privatized in American military history. Today, there are 150,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. As of March 2010, there were more than 200,000 private contractors, though that number is believed to have declined with the drawdown of U.S. forces.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced [3] a plan last month to sharply reduce the number of contractors, saying the Pentagon has become overly dependent on private workers to carry out jobs once done by soldiers.

A recent Congressional Research Service report [4] (PDF) found that the heavy use of contractors had exposed troops to supply shortfalls, wasted taxpayer money, and stirred anger among locals. In several high-profile incidents, heavily armed private security contractors have killed unarmed Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

“Some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the report found.

Marcie Hascall Clark, an advocate for contract workers, said that contractor deaths and injuries reflected contractors’ importance in fighting the wars.

Labor Department figures [5] show that more than 44,000 contractors have reported injuries since 2001, compared to about 40,000 U.S. troops. The figures are not entirely comparable, since contractor injuries include minor workplace injuries.

“I don’t think most contractors expect to be treated as nobly as our soldiers, but they don’t expect to be forgotten, either,” said Hascall Clark, who runs a group called American Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan [6]. “I think there should definitely be some recognition of what they do.”

Trial set in case of flight crews suing for hazardous-duty pay

By Steve Green (contact)  Las Vegas Sun

Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010 | 2:33 a.m.

Trial is set to begin Oct. 4 in a class-action lawsuit claiming Vision Airlines Inc. of North Las Vegas pocketed tens of millions of dollars of hazard pay that was due flight crews assigned to dangerous war-related missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The trial was set after Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada Roger Hunt on Sept. 15 denied motions by both sides to close the case based on their summary judgment motions.

Hunt found there are disputed facts that a jury will have to sort out, making the case ineligible for closure on summary judgment motions.

The trial will likely focus on two of the plaintiffs’ surviving claims, for unjust enrichment and conversion.

The legal dispute erupted in January 2009 when attorneys for former Vision pilot Gerald Hester of Colleyville, Texas, filed suit in federal court in Las Vegas claiming Hester and some 300 other current and former employees hadn’t received extra pay for flying in and out of the war zones since 2005. The lawsuit said at least $21 million was due the flight crews.

The lawsuit brought some unwanted attention to aspects of Vision’s business, including reports its aircraft were involved in CIA “rendition” flights in which alleged terror suspects may have been shuttled around the globe for undisclosed reasons. Locally, Vision is known for more mundane operations like Grand Canyon tour flights.

Former soldier, Private Security Contractor, Karl Bowen 30, killed after returning to war zone

September 23 Wales Online

A VALLEY man has been killed while working for a security firm out in Iraq.

For eight years Karl Bowen, 30, of Abercwmboi, served in 2 Company 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, touring war-torn countries like Bosnia and Iraq.

In 2007 he was discharged from the Army and began working in HR recruitment – but decided that life on ‘civvy street’ was not for him.

Earlier this year he returned to Iraq to work for a close protection unit. He died in a freak road accident in Iraq on September 14.

Tributes have flooded in describing Mr Bowen as a great father, a “legend”, and an outstanding friend and football player who was the life and soul of the party and lived life to the extreme.

A father of two young girls, Elise, 11, and eight-year-old Lois, Mr Bowen had returned to Iraq just days before the car he was driving suffered a double blow out. He was killed instantly in the crash alongside an Iraqi interpreter and an American colleague was critically injured.

His distraught mother Clare Bowen said: “He always said he would not live to see his 31st birthday.

“Karl was never afraid to die, and he lived his life to the full.

“He fitted so much into such a short time – he was very intelligent and an absolute party animal. He had hundreds of friends.

“Life on civvy street was just not for him. He wanted to go back to the Army, but he couldn’t so he decided to take up this job.”

The former Blaengwawr Comprehensive School pupil started his army career with the Welsh Guards in November 1999.

His career took him to Bosnia on a peacekeeping mission in 2002 and again in 2006, and to Iraq in 2004 after qualifying as a sniper.

In 2007 he left the army and worked as a recruitment consultant before joining a private security company, working in Iraq for seven months.

Mr Bowen’s body has been flown to Kuwait while paperwork is completed.

It is expected to be flown to Cardiff later this week so that his family can organise funeral arrangements.

“The last few days have been an absolute mess for us – his younger brother Adam is in bits,” said his mother.

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