Our Good Ol’ Boys In Iraq – Wait, They’re Mercenaries..

My United States of Whatever
More Private Forces Eyed for Iraq
“Civilian Contractors” Are Really Mercenaries
US hires mercenaries for Iraq role

“The U.S.-led authority in Iraq plans to spend as much as $100 million over 14 months to hire private security forces to protect the Green Zone, the four-square-mile area in Baghdad that houses most U.S. government employees and some of the private contractors working there.

The Green Zone is now guarded primarily by U.S. military forces, but the Coalition Provisional Authority wants to turn much of that work over to contractors to free more U.S. forces to confront a violent insurgency. The companies would employ former military personnel and be responsible for safeguarding the area for the first year after political authority is transferred to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.”

“Last month Blackwater USA flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of whom had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a 970-hectare training camp in North Carolina.

From there they would be taken to Iraq, where they were expected to stay between six months and a year, the president of Blackwater USA, Gary Jackson, said. “We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals – the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system.”