The Daily Background

According to an Associated Press investigation, almost 800 civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war’s beginning in March 2003. In addition to that, well over 3,000 have been wounded in Iraq.

The 2006 documentary “Iraq For Sale” examined the contracting industry and really exposed in my mind how dangerous it is for civilian contractors in Iraq, in large part due to all the corners that corporations like Halliburton, Blackwater, and CACI cut in order to make bigger profits.

In order to save time and money, these corporations will hire unqualified workers (particularly in the case of translators), they’ll send them into the most dangerous areas of Iraq without things they were promised they would have, such as body armor, weapons (particularly armed guards protecting convoys), armored vehicles, a chance to be familiar with the environment, or even without proper maps in some cases.

The film details cases where contractors were sent without warning into areas where even the US military was afraid to go into because they were so dangerous, and where convoys were ambushed and contractors were killed as a result. In some cases, corporations like Halliburton will send empty or near-empty trucks out on missions to go to places that were very dangerous without actual payloads: that is, they weren’t carrying anything and were only making the trip to bill the government for travel expenses.

The film is not only a portrait of waste, but also a portrait of how greedy these corporations are, that they don’t bother to properly prepare, equip or protect their own employees in the most dangerous place in the world. Below is a clip from Iraq for Sale.

Filed under: Video, Iraq Related, Z-TDB Blog