“A nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued Thursday reveals that the U.S. is spending as much as $33,000 per private security contractor per month — some $396,000 per year on individual guards,” RAW STORY reports.
Friendly Fire: “According to GAO, private security contractors have reported that ‘they are fired upon by U.S. forces so frequently that incident reports are not always filed’.”
High Security Costs: “GAO found that security costs represented a significant portion of the total funds spent under major reconstruction contracts.” MORE BELOW:
The report, entitled Rebuilding Iraq: Actions Needed to Improve Use of Private Security Providers, examined contractors hired directly by federal agencies to provide security in Iraq, as well as security subcontractors hired by other contractors to protect their personnel and reconstruction projects, and is viewable in PDF format here. This summary was prepared by the ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).
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Reconstruction Projects Have Been Cancelled As a Result: Unexpectedly high security costs resulted in the cancellation or scaling-down of planned reconstruction projects. For example, in March 2005, USAID cancelled two electricity generation projects worth $15 million to help pay for the increased security costs of another electricity project.
Agencies Are Not Tracking Security Costs: GAO found that the Defense Department, State Department, and USAID were not adequately tracking security costs incurred under reconstruction contracts. According to GAO, “the agencies generally had only limited information readily available on the costs associated with private security providers.”
(Full article at Raw Story)