[A-List] Deaths of scores of mercenaries hidden from view

[Richard Menec <menecraj@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.thestar.co.za/general/print_article.php?fArticleId=401463&fSectionId=132&fSetId=257

The Star, April 13, 2004.

Deaths of scores of mercenaries hidden from view

By Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn

Baghdad - At least 80 foreign mercenaries - security guards
recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa
and working for American companies - have been killed in
the past eight days in Iraq.

Lieutenant-General Mark Kimmitt admitted yesterday that
"about 70" American and other Western troops had died
during the Iraqi insurgency since April 1 but he made no
mention of the mercenaries, apparently fearful that the full
total of Western dead would have serious political fallout.

He did not give a figure for Iraqi dead, which, across the
country may be as high as 900.

At least 18,000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to
protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be
in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a
day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses
unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in
Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public
knowledge.

The presence of such large numbers of mercenaries, first
publicised in The Independent two weeks ago, was bound
to lead to further casualties.

But although many of the heavily armed Western security
men are working for the US Department of Defence - and
most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are
not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can
therefore be hidden from public view.

The US authorities in Iraq, however, are aware that more
Western mercenaries lost their lives in the past week than
occupation soldiers over the past 14 days.

The coalition has sought to rely on foreign contract
workers to reduce the number of soldiers it uses as drivers,
guards and in other jobs normally carried out by uniformed
soldiers.

Often the foreign contract workers are highly paid former
soldiers who are armed with automatic weapons, leading to
Iraqis viewing all foreign workers as possible mercenaries
or spies.


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