Iraq Contractors: Raw Data From CENTCOM

[EV_Ares]

In an era of privatization and occupation, we need to know how many contractors are working in Iraq. Civilian personnel certainly are performing military-related operations, but we don't know the numbers of civilian contractors filling in the ranks of truck drivers, cooks, service personnel and other logistic roles. Unfortunately, those statistics have been hard to come by.

To remedy this, ePluribus Media filed its first Freedom of Information ACT (FOIA) request for such information in June of 2006. Almost exactly a year later, Central Command (CENTCOM) released updated results of its census on contractors working in Iraq. This census was first compiled in response to a Memorandum issued by Robert A. Burton, Deputy Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) in the Executive Office of the President, with a subject line entitled: Request Contracting Information on Contractors Operating in Iraq, from the Office of Management and Budget, dated May 16, 2006.

With information beginning to be available, it will take the diligence of citizen journalists to make sense of the role of civilian contractors in Iraq, starting with analysis of this new census. At the end of this article, anyone interested in becoming involved in this will find links to the information and suggestions on how to proceed.

About the Information

The CENTCOM response to our request was a 'data dump.' The raw data is roughly organized by Contract Number, with 1901 entries. Data fields for each entry include: Reporting Unit, Company Name; Contracting Agency; Mission; Location; and the Total Number of Employees, broken down by U.S., Coalition, Third Country Nationals and Iraqis. Unfortunately, many entries contain numerous blank fields, making it impossible to arrive at correct figures for the number of contractors working in Iraq. So the wait for accurate information continues.

Figures from CENTCOM:

Total Employed Total US Total Coalition Total Third Country Nationals Total Local Nationals
129805 21593 1689 69358 26181


Additionally, a closer look at the data released by CENTCOM reveals there are at least 133,196 contracted employees working on U.S. funded projects in Iraq, significantly more (3,391) than the 129,805 shown for Total Employed.

(rest of the article @ link)

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/2007/20070708_contracting_numbers.html

[WilliamDGoose]

1. FOIA

Under FOIA, they give you documents responsive to your request. They do not answer questions, even if they could.