Given the news yesterday that the Iraqi government wants to ban Blackwater, the private security firm working in Iraq, after a firefight that reportedly killed between eight and eleven Iraqi civilians, our nation’s newspapers are taking a (brief) look at the prevalence of private security grunts in country.
Only problem is, no one seems to be able to agree how many of them are over there. According to the best estimates by our major newspapers, it’s somewhere between six thousand and fifty thousand.
The Washington Post figures that “at least 20,000 private security guards operate in Iraq,” while noting that the International Contractors Association has said that the number “could be as high as 50,000.” The New York Times splits the difference, calling it at “about 30,000” while The Los Angeles Times goes for the low end of the Times / Post numbers, calling it at “at least 20,000.”
An outlier, USA Today totally lowballs the count, relying on numbers provided by Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl Scott, commander of the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, who recently put the number at six thousand.
In other words, no one has any idea what the number is—but what I would like to know is where the two Times papers and the Post got their numbers, if the commander of the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan puts the number so low? And why the forty-four thousand person discrepancy between the number given by the contracting command and the International Contractors Association? While they’re both guessing best they can, one of them seems to be off by a significant margin, and thus far no reporter has been able to sound any more authoritative.
Perhaps if we could coax some of the self-proclaimed "professional journalists" out of the piano bar at the Baghdad Hilton and into the field in Iraq, we just might be able to get some of the first-hand "fact-thingies" that bloggers are sending home in droves.
I suppose the precise number of private contractors working in Iraq heralds some sort of crucial significance in the hearts and minds of McLearyland's moonbat denizens, but here in Realityville, it doesn't really matter to anybody that much.
The varying estimates are probably a product of an application of different classification schemes. An administrative assistant, working for a Blackwater subcontractor in an office, might be counted by one person as a "private security grunt", but not by another person. Same goes with all kinds of jobs.
At any rate.... Who gives a damn?
Posted by padikiller
on Tue 18 Sep 2007 at 08:26 PM
You're provide more ammo for moonbats than you know, Padi.
Posted by Circus Boy
on Mon 24 Sep 2007 at 08:22 PM
U.S. Central Command says there are 180,000 private contractors in Iraq. More than the number of US troops serving there. Who gives a damn? Well, there's the small matter of figuring out whose law these contractors are accountable to. What happened to the contractor who got drunk and shot an Iraqi official's bodyguard to death? He was whisked out of the country and ... then what?
Posted by xii
on Tue 25 Sep 2007 at 03:56 PM
xii wrote
What happened to the contractor who got drunk and shot an Iraqi official's bodyguard to death? He was whisked out of the country and ... then what?
padikiller responds
If the contractor in your story exists and was charged with murder, then he is a fugitive and will be subject to extradition.
However, I suspect this account to be either pure fiction or else so embellished and exaggerated as to render it a fairy tale. Such is often the case with these stories... For all we know, the shooting (if it occured) was in self-defense.
Remember Jamil Hussein's Sunnis who were supposedly "burned alive" on the streets of Baghdad?... You know, the charred corpses that neither the NY Times nor even Al Jazeera could find?
The MSM moonbats routinely swallow this kind of enemy propaganda whole and regurgitate it ad nauseum. For example, Jamil Hussein was represented as an official police source of information by the AP for more than SIXTY stories, until his credibility was blown apart when it was revealed that he was full of crap.
Posted by padikiller
on Tue 25 Sep 2007 at 08:32 PM
"Jamil Hussein was represented as an official police source of information by the AP for more than SIXTY stories, until his credibility was blown apart when it was revealed that he was full of crap."
Interesting. Except that this never happened except in your head. Jamil's identity was confirmed and his credibility was never "blown apart".
Here, educate yourself.
http://www.ap.org/FOI/foi_010407a.html
Posted by AhmNee
on Wed 26 Sep 2007 at 01:14 PM
AhmNee Wrote
The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq
padikiller reads from AhmNee's article
"The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq... ...he had been named by AP in dozens of news reports dating back to early 2006. Before that, he had been a reliable source of police information since 2004 but had not been quoted by name. "
AhmNee's source confirms everything I just wrote...
Posted by padikiller
on Thu 27 Sep 2007 at 07:53 AM
You're absolutely right. If the US Military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry question someone's veracity that means their credibility has been blown out of the water.
Oh, and the surge is working and it's perfectly safe to walk in the downtown markets of Baghdad. Whatever.
Posted by AhmNee
on Thu 27 Sep 2007 at 11:34 PM
Of course AhmNee's AP CYA press release neglects to mention a couple of little realities...
1. That in the "dozens" of articles it published sourced on Hussein, the AP never once informed readers that it knew that Hussein was not only an unofficial source, but also actually a specifically unauthorized source. Instead, the AP presented Hussein as a police official, quoting him by title and branding his quotes with the false mask of authority.
2. That NOBODY has been able to come up with a single shred of evidence to support Hussein's "burned Sunni" stupidity-not even Ed Wong from the NY Times who actually did some of that asphalt-pounding "reporting" stuff on his own.
3. That Hussein, that supposedly reliable source of ironclad data who earned AP's steadfast support, has apparently evaportated without explanation.
4. That during the month of doubt and questioning regarding the "burned Sunni" nonsense after Iraqi officials denied Hussein's existence, promtping skeptics (including Paul McLeary) to call for the AP to come clean about his whereabouts, the AP was in communication with Hussein.
Posted by padikiller
on Fri 28 Sep 2007 at 06:53 AM
"That in the "dozens" of articles it published sourced on Hussein, the AP never once informed readers that it knew that Hussein was not only an unofficial source, but also actually a specifically unauthorized source."
That's overstating the facts. The man was still the officer they said he was and he was not "specifically unauthorized". It was a blanket thrown over all Iraqis in official positions leaving us with only the "official line" to trust.
The AP released details on who Jamil Hussein was and the US and Iraqi ministry still denied he existed for at least 2 days before they verified his existance and postition.
You can stick to the "burned Sunni" story all you want. But one case where the bodies weren't found doesn't erase the other cases of violence that are just as ugly around Iraq.
"For the record, along with Hussein, the AP based its Burned Alive reporting on an account from Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder who told Al-Arabiya television about the killings. (He later recanted his story after being visited by a representative of the defense minister.) The AP also spoke to three independent eyewitnesses (two shopkeepers and a physician) and confirmed the story with hospital and morgue workers." - Copied from http://mediamatters.org/columns/200612120001
The fact of the matter is you and your warblogger buddies are still mad that you got burned when Jamil Hussein was identified and his identity verified by the Ministry of the Interior. I could go on but others have already made my case for me.
http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/media_literacy_bias/michelle_malkins_credibility_r_i_p
Posted by AhmNee
on Fri 28 Sep 2007 at 03:21 PM
AhmNee Wrote
The AP released details on who Jamil Hussein was and the US and Iraqi ministry still denied he existed for at least 2 days before they verified his existance and postition.
padikiller responds
The AP reported that Jamil Hussein was a police captain in the Yarmouk station in western Baghdad..
He later turned out to be real... But he didn't work there... He worked instead in the al-Khadra district in EASTERN Baghdad...
The resulting confusion was a direct result of the AP's misreporting.
Posted by padikiller
on Fri 28 Sep 2007 at 07:58 PM
The MoI's statement wasn't that there wasn't a Jamil Hussein in western Baghdad. They denied that the man existed at all and no one by that name worked for them.
Simple fact is not only did he exist but that he provided solid and valuable information. Even if the burning six story turns out to be wrong as you say it's one case in many. Plus reasonable steps were taken to verify the validity of the story.
Does this equal a "blown apart" credibility? Absolutely not.
Posted by AhmNee
on Sat 29 Sep 2007 at 01:54 PM
AhmNee Wrote
The MoI's statement wasn't that there wasn't a Jamil Hussein in western Baghdad. They denied that the man existed at all and no one by that name worked for them.
padikiller agrees
And that's why it was R-E-A-S-O-N-A-B-L-E for people to suspect that there was something wrong with the source and to call on the AP to produce him (people like Paul McLeary right here at CJR, by the way)...
I'm not aware of any mainstream bloggers or media-types who flat-out accused the AP of making him up... But a lot of them suspected as much.
Such suspicions are not unreasonable. We have seen scandal after scandal in the MSM over fictitious material..
And there certainly was a LOT wrong with Jamil Hussein...
You don't see him used anymore after the "burned Sunni" fairy tale, do you?
Posted by padikiller
on Sat 29 Sep 2007 at 03:12 PM