The Houston Chronicle online edition has a story today on the number of American contractors killed and wounded since they “flowed” into Iraq after the fall of Saddam. The data was obtained by FOIA requests to the US Labor Department, which keeps the statistics. The number of contractors killed up through the end of 2006 is 769 and the number wounded or injured seriously enough to miss 4 or more days of work is 3,367. The article reports there are as many as 120,000 American contractors, employees of Halliburton/KBR, Blackwater and Wackenhut. I believe there may be more companies, as I’ve seen other names in past years, organizations providing translators, for example.
This number is double the 388 killed as currently shown for contractors on the iCasualties.org website. This list is clearly marked “Partial,” and it even includes all nationalities.
Wounded contractors are cared for by US medics, as we learned from the National Guardsman who spoke to our group this week.
On February 7, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky introduced HR 897, concerning contracting oversight:
HR 897 Sponsor: Janice Schakowsky (D-IL-9)
“To require the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Interior, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to provide to Congress copies and descriptions of contracts and task orders in excess of $5,000,000 for work to be performed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”Introduced: February 7, 2007
Cosponsors: 27 Democrats, see THOMAS
Summary: H.R. 897, also known as the “Iraq and Afghanistan Contractor Sunshine Act,” seeks to increase oversight of reconstruction contracts issued for Iraq projects by laying out detailed instructions for monitoring these contracts and reporting back to Congress.
This is one of 35 House and 16 Senate bills listed in reverse chrono order having to do with the Iraq war! If interested in reading the entire list, go to MoveCongress.org.