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October 31, 2008

Audit: $6B Spent on Private Security Companies in Iraq
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A new government audit has found at least $6 billion in US taxpayer
money has gone to private military and security companies operating in
Iraq. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says that’s
about 12 percent of the $50 billion in Iraq reconstruction money that
has mostly flowed to American corporations. A recent internal report
found the US has contracted at least 310 private security companies in
Iraq. The most notorious of the companies, Blackwater Worldwide, has yet
to face any charges for the September 2007 massacre of seventeen Iraqis
in Baghdad’s Nissour Square.



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