Well the Obamessiah gave his speech that the United States has officially ended combat operations in Iraq. Now everybody is stating that the war in Iraq is over, but with all this talk about combat troops leaving one thing has seemingly been overlooked. We have quite a few of those mercenaries [sorry that’s the politically incorrect word now] private contractors over in Iraq at the moment:
Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of “private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings,” according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Even though we only have 50,000 “non-combat soldiers” in Iraq there are over three times that many mercenaries employed by the United States still sitting there. That seems like a lot of personnel to have in a country where we are no longer performing “combat operations.”
Personally I don’t call that a mission accomplished (again?) but a sly way of claiming the war is over while still keeping the country occupied.