Contractors in Iraq now employ at least 180,000 people in the country, forming what amounts to a second, private, army, larger than the United States military force, and one whose roles and missions and even casualties among its work force have largely been hidden from public view.
Unsurprisingly they also focus on how these contracts inevitably end up in the hands of people with strong ties to the administration:
In addition, the dependence on private companies to support the war effort has led to questions about whether political favoritism has played a role in the awarding of multibillion-dollar contracts. When the war began, for example, Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company run by Dick Cheney before he was vice president, became the largest Pentagon contractor in Iraq.
That's concerning...but, as I said, kind of inevitable. Government money will always (to a large degree) go to people with the most powerful lobbyists. VP usually does a pretty good job.
I think what is more disturbing about this "unprecedented" level of contractor involvement in a war effort (according to Charles Tiefer, professor of government contracting- there is a whole academic offshoot of law dedicated to this?)is its potential impact on troop morale. Contracted employees (who serve in all sorts of functions- the range of which we can't really know because...well, they're private contractors with records that can be a little spotty) make tons more money than their military counterparts. Not only is this wasteful (which the article focuses on), but it seems like a good way to gut our military. This kind of system (I would think) encourages people to get their training in the military, but to abandon that career as soon as possible in favor of contracting where they can make a lot more money (and, again, as the article suggests, avoid a good deal of "bureaucratic" crap that comes with working in a branch of the government). Smart people won't be career military men - they'll go over to contracting.
