The Los Angeles Times:

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government’s capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.

More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.

The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.

Of course, 118,000 of those contractors are Iraqi, which is a good thing if you ask me. Rather than contracting out services to Americans or other foreign nationals, better to give Iraqis jobs and money.

Note that it is unclear if the numbers above include contractors hired by the Department of State as well as the Department of Defense. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) contractors are not included in the above.

Unfortunately, and ultimately damningly:

Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry and government officials.

Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special criticism from military experts.

“We don’t have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That’s dangerous for our country,” said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon “is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that’s obscene.”

Anyway, beyond what little I’ve posted, there’s a ton more to learn in the quite long article. I’d write more on the subject (because I have serious problems with contractors taking over military duties), but I’m too inebriated from celebrating Independence Day to continue in this vein. If I did, this post would be far too long.