This was bound to happen sooner or later. Now that the United States military has receded to the Iraqi Embassy, I mean left the country, the actual government of Iraq has started rounding up some of our mercenaries, I mean private contractors:
Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.
The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.
The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled.
I’m not surprised that the Iraq government has started to crackdown on these contractors considering the atrocities they were caught doing in the past. Still the fact contractors are being arrested at airports and checkpoints isn’t the most interesting news for me, it’s the fact we have contractors at airports and checkpoints outside of our Embassy. When Obama announced the end of the Iraq war I was quick to say we were probably replacing a large number of our troops with private contractors:
I’m actually willing to bet money that we’re going to increase the number of mercenaries in the region which means we’ll still be dumping untold trillions into this ill-fated war.
Too bad nobody took me up on my bet.