Big question: Where is the Washington Post's reporting on this huge story?

Big question: Where is the Washington Post's reporting on this huge story?

The United States has spent about $100 billion on private contractors to support operations in Iraq since the 2003 invasion for oil.

At the height of last year's military surge in Iraq, the United States had roughly 168,000 troops deployed in the country. But America's armed forces have been outnumbered by what some see as a private army funded by the federal government: contractors that provide a wide array of services, from security operations to rebuilding projects to logistical support. In simple terms, the Bush-Cheney administration has outsourced the jobs of the US Military to the tune of $100 Billion dollars. Politically tied companies such as KBR, Halliburton and Blackwater have reaped huge profits from the wars started by the Bush Neo-cons. The wars have benefited the OPEC Oil Cartel and the Political Contributors of the Bush Neo-Cons. Meanwhile our US Troops are Stop Lossed, denied benefits and treated like dirt by the Bush Crime family just look at Walter Reed Hospital.
Sick, Pathetic and Criminal!

U.S. spending on contractors in Iraq will reach $100 billion, a telling marker of the Bush administration's use of private corporations to support the war effort. Nice to know the Bush-Cheney-McCain war mongers have outsourced our US Military to private contractors. Before Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush teh US Military was self sufficient and independent of civilian influence and failure. Now, they are subject to the contractors and their pork barrel money grabs. I guess this is how the Bush-Cheney-McCains of the world support the troops? They won't support Veterans Benefits or R & R equal to time in country during war, rather they would implement Stop Loss, and give $100 BILLION to contractors like Halliburton, who has electrocuted our troops in showers they built and Blackwater who has shot our troops and made the Jihad worse with their cowboy unprofessionalism. Heckova job! And the Republican Neo-Cons want more of the same?
When are they going to become Americans again??? Pathetic!

When contractors can reap that kind of money for supporting wars, you can bet there will be a lot more of them. The US can no longer claim the moral high ground.

A brilliant statement made by MSNBC's Olberman when reporting this story:

The purpose of the war in Iraq was: THE WAR IN IRAQ.

As badly as the war plan has gone in many ways (big oil isn't reaping their rewards yet) the war profiteering part has, for the most part, gone very well.

Just more proof that Bush should be brought up on charges for allowing this country to get in this far in debt for "pork barrel" junk in Iraq when the bulk of this countries ingfrastructure is falling apart.
We have no Army, we can almost not afford bullets, Our poor service men and women have to pay for thier own bagage to get it sent to the war zone where they may well get killed, and McCain is out shouting to stay in Iraq and keep up the same policies for years to come.
The whole world is laughing at our political process because half of the republicans are getting caught with thier pants down..... and others are out chasing all the foxes in Washington. That leaves not to many to run the countryexcept bush and chenney and well....... you know what that means.

I have a cost-cutting suggestion for the IdiotBush administration which seems bent on donating not some, but ALL, of our tax money to private mercenary groups like Blackwater, and that is to build a simple, one-way conveyor belt to Eric Prince (Blackwater CEO) at his spacious headquarters in Moynock, North Carolina, and periodically dump pallets of cash on it, you know like we did in Iraq.

These comments are great. Huge scandal. Why doesn't Fox Noise pick up this story and run with it? Oh, right ...Must...keep...viewers...uniformed.

These contracts were hiding in plain sight--if you cumulate, even roughly, the many studies, SIGIR reports, DoD and AID budgets and spending data, this is no surprise. Be aware that only a very minor fraction of the total personnel are Americans, but rather are Iraqis and third-country nationals. Some comments allude to profits. Why? There was no release of profitability data, which is too bad. But sad to say, many media people and the citizenry don't know the difference between revenue and profit. They also might not recognize that goods are delivered and work is done for most of the dollars spent. Of course, there is waste and other wrongdoing. If you spend that kind of money anywhere in the US economy or abroad, you will find it. And it needs to be identified and government officials and any contractors held accountable. But would you rather have US military doing this work at higher cost and putting more American military in danger? Finally, compare it to the waste and abuse in US military and civilian government expenditures--the bulk of the $3-4 billion per week being spent in your name. Do you really think this war, no matter how you slice the dollars, is worth it? Do you get the impression that the WH doesn't care how much the war costs, or what the dangers are to Americans and national interests? If you think this story is primarily about contractors, you may have missed the point. It's a lot bigger than that.