Four US Contractors Missing – No One Looks For Them
Cutting Costs, Bending Rules, And a Trail of Broken Lives
Ambush in Iraq Last November Left Four Americans Missing And a String of Questions About the Firm They Worked For
By Steve Fainar Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD — The convoy was ambushed in broad daylight last Nov. 16, dozens of armed men swarming over 37 tractor-trailers stretching for more than a mile on southern Iraq’s main highway. The attackers seized four Americans and an Austrian employed by Crescent Security Group, a small private security firm. Then they fled.
None of the hostages has been found, eight months after one of the largest and most brazen kidnappings of Americans since the March 2003 invasion.
Crescent is shuttered, like dozens of other companies that have come and gone in Iraq’s booming market for private security services. The firm leaves behind a trail of broken lives and a record of alleged misconduct. In March, the U.S. military barred Crescent from U.S. bases after it was found with weapons prohibited for private security companies, including rocket launchers and grenades, according to documents and interviews with former Crescent employees and U.S. officials.
Crescent violated U.S. military regulations while being paid millions of dollars to support the U.S.-led mission in Iraq. The company routinely sacrificed safety to cut costs.
By this year, the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, a trade group based in Baghdad’s Green Zone, listed 177 active foreign and Iraqi security companies. The Pentagon has said that some 20,000 security contractors support the U.S.-led coalition, although some estimates are considerably higher.
The industry is largely unregulated by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, leaving companies to establish their own standards for operating on the battlefield.
These contractors are not security cleared, but will be soon according to new pentagon rules are lowering the standards as we speak. Crescent had managers with criminal records and allowed employees to carry armaments which is a felony. Maybe this is why the US is not looking for them. The US is not very good at admitting it’s shortcomings. Few countries are. Cutting corners with contractors is one thing, but, cutting corners with the Constitution is quite another. Lets get rid of these lying bastards ASAP
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July 29th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
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July 29th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
We need to start calling these “contractors” what they are: Mercenaries. M-E-R-C-E-N-A-R-I-E-S.
The administration has sunk to such depths of moral depravity that they must pay MERCENARIES rather than trust that our mission can be covered by patriotic American troops who serve out of a sense of duty and honor.
Nope – Our military is even being outsourced. You know, when I read about the young Republican hacks that the Bush administration put in charge of various important things – these twenty-something fresh-out-of-college know-nothing wet-behind-the-ears brainwashed a-holes, I think perhaps we should replace some of these mercenaries with local chapters of the Young Republicans.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Whosplayin:
Since the mercenaries are not accountable for anything, Bush can use them for all of his black ops work to create more problems and start more wars.
The Young Republicans would never go, they would rather sit in the comfort of their homes and continue to shout the lies of Bush & Cheney. They don’t walk the talk.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
The old king george used german mercenaries in his failed occupation during the American revolution.
The current king george uses blackwater mercenaries in his failed occupation of Iraq.
history repeats itself…
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
January 10th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
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