Which Costs More Per Year - Army Troop or Blackwater Troop?

[ThomWV]

I know the mercinaries from Blackwater are highly paid, but there are incredible expenses involved with keeping a GI in the field too. I wonder which is less expensive in total for a year's service in Iraq? Intuitively I'd say Blackwater costs more in a heartbeat but when I think about it for a little bit I'm not all that sure.

[ShortnFiery]

1. US Army Troops are much more economical.

In fact, we are going to have a crisis in force before the 2008 elections.

IMO, anyone and everyone who loves their kids and sports an IQ above 90 are DIS-couraging their children from signing up for Military Service ... in any DAMN way, shape or form. :shrug:

[Clovis Sangrail]

2. not sure how to quantify it

but don't forget plausable deniability.... that's worth an awful lot.

"The US Military doesn't condone the torturing of children to get parents to answer questions. If one of our contractors has done this it was without our knowledge or consent"

[benddem]

3. one of the big differences is

in what it costs over a lifetime for a soldier. The US doesn't have to pay retirement, health care and other benefits to mercenaries. BUT in the short term we are throwing money away.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Where did Blackwater troops receive their training?

[texanshatingbush]

6. Methinks you hit the nail on the head, LiberalFighter !

And if the United States military trained Blackwater et al, then the United States may well be paying Blackwater "troops" some retirement pay etc as well.

[napi21]

5. Nobody knows for sure, but this link details at least some of the

identified costs. It's quite an interesting article demonstrating how the costs are hidden.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11607

The base cost for a Blackwater hired gun is $600 a day! It expands from there!!!!

[stillcool]

7. I think this war is an equal opportunity employ...

Making a Killing: America’s Private Army
and the Business of War
By David Zlutnick
Fault Lines
March 25, 2007

On January 20th the Iraqi resistance shot down a Blackhawk helicopter killing thirteen American soldiers. Three days later, just hours before Bush would give his State of the Union address, a Little Bird helicopter was shot down, killing five more Americans—but this incident didn’t make nearly the amount of news as the former. While the five men died in combat, they were not members of the US military. They were employees of Blackwater USA, the shining star in a new breed of corporation specializing in private soldiers—also known as mercenaries. These private companies are part of a huge surge in the outsourcing of war, which is extremely evident in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, and numerous other countries. Private contractors are the second-largest contingent of the “Coalition of the Willing” with a ratio of about one armed contractor for every two American soldiers. This is up from a ratio of one to sixty during the first Gulf War. The Pentagon estimates the number of contractors at around 100,000—but this is only an estimate because after four years in Iraq the military is only now beginning a survey to find the size of its contractor force.
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For political purposes it is in the interests of the US government to build a large army of private soldiers. Even though 770 contractors have been killed in Iraq and 7,761 have been injured, they are not included in the official US death toll. Perhaps even more have been killed but the Pentagon doesn’t track contractor deaths, citing military regulations as the reason for this lack of oversight. Figures have to be deduced from insurance claims filed through the Depart- ment of Labor. Plus, if contractors are used for missions that are not quite legal or want to be distanced from official policy, their actions are completely deniable as they are not employees of the US government. This is the case along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where American forces are not allowed to venture into Pakistani territory.

With the job being so risky, what would attract so many to private companies? Well, Blackwater has been known to pay its employees $365,000 per year, compared to the $36,000 an average US soldier makes. No wonder so many former military personnel are signing up with a private employer instead of re-enlisting. Blackwater is able to pay its soldiers so much because they have received $505 million in contracts from the US government since 2000. Three hundred twenty million of this has been since June 2004 alone, when they received a no-bid contract to guard diplomats and staff in Iraq. With this amount of money the company has been able to build the largest base for a private military in the world, acquire a fleet of 20 aircrafts (including helicopter gunships, a Boeing 767, and even a zeppelin), develop its own armored vehicle called the Grizzly, and build up a force of 20,000 soldiers.
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KBR’s CEO Bill Utt said they plan on increasing the size of their force in Iraq in response to Bush’s announcement of sending more troops. The company now has over 500,000 resumes on file for people seeking employment in Iraq, Kuwait, or Afghanistan. With every troop “surge” the private military business gets an extra boost as well.
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The 21,500 combat troops Bush is sending into Iraq will have to be supported by 28,000 additional US military men and women, a government assessment recently concluded. This makes the actual number of US soldiers being deployed around 50,000 at a cost of $27 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office. Exactly how many more contractors will arrive in Iraq as a result has yet to be determined, but with the current ratio of nearly one contractor for every soldier, we can expect it to be a significant number.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/military/0325makeakilling.htm

....and don't forget the Brits

Mercenaries' to Fill Iraq Troop Gap
By Brian Brady
Scotsman
February 25, 2007

Ministers are negotiating multi-million-pound contracts with private security firms to cover some of the gaps created by British troop withdrawals. Days after Tony Blair revealed that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from war-torn Basra within months, it has emerged that civil servants hope "mercenaries" can help fill the gap left behind. Officials from the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence will meet representatives from the private security industry within the next month to discuss "options" for increasing their business in Iraq in the coming years.
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A senior official from one of the biggest PSCs already operating in Iraq last night claimed firms had been told to expect increased business opportunities in areas such as personnel protection, highway security and the training of Iraqi police and soldiers. "It is not entirely surprising that they recognise PSCs still have a value in Iraq," the source said. "But them wanting to meet us demonstrates that they have accepted just how valuable the industry can be. "No one is saying PSCs can take over all the jobs of regular military, but the British forces have not been doing regular military work recently. If there is a need to protect people and supply routes and areas, there are a lot of specialised private-sector companies that can do that perfectly well."
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The size of the private-security companies market is difficult to determine, but an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 private security contractors are thought to be working in Iraq. At a conference of British private-security companies last month, delegates said that the industry had increased about tenfold over the past decade and was worth the equivalent of about $4bn (£2.04bn) a year.

Almost 40 international PSCs are licensed to operate in Iraq, and the Foreign Office has paid out tens of millions of pounds to a handful of the largest British firms over the past four years. The department's bill for bodyguard protection alone rose from £19m in 2003-04 to £48m the following year. Most of the firms employ veterans from the forces, including former members of the SAS and SBS, who can command wages of up to £600 a day. One company has taken £112m in just three years. Another has been paid £42m for work in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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By the end of 2006, the Labour Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job. The contractors are paid handsomely for the risks they take, with some making £50,000 per year, mostly tax-free - at least six times more than a new Army private. Houle's brother-in-law, Hector Patino, was driving a truck for a Halliburton subsidiary in the Green Zone when he was killed by friendly fire at an Australian checkpoint.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2007/0225mercenariesfill.htm

Worry Grows as Foreigners Flock
to Iraq's Risky Jobs
By Sonni Efron
Los Angeles Times
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contra...
July 30, 2005
For hire: more than 1,000 U.S.-trained former soldiers and police officers from Colombia. Combat-hardened, experienced in fighting insurgents and ready for duty in Iraq.
Fijians, Ukrainians, South Africans, Nepalese and Serbs reportedly are on the job in Iraq. Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, author of a book on the private military industry, said veterans of Latin American conflicts, including Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans, also had turned up. "What we've done in Iraq is assemble a true 'coalition of the billing,' " Singer said, playing off President Bush's description of the U.S.-led alliance of nations with a troop presence in Iraq as a "coalition of the willing."
............................
The Colombians would join the lucrative private military industry in Iraq even as the U.S.-funded war against drug traffickers continues to rage in their homeland. Experts are divided on the effect that would have on U.S. national interests. "It's not necessarily self-defeating, but it's not optimal," Singer said. The recruitment of Colombians shows that although "there's still a local demand" for high-end military services in Colombia, "the global demand is far higher," he said.

The Baghdad boom
Mar 25th 2004 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
British companies have been grousing about losing out to the Americans in Iraq. But in one area, British companies excel: security
In industry jargon, these companies' manpower is split into Iraqis, “third-country nationals” (Gurkhas and Fijians) and “internationals” (usually white first-worlders). Iraqis get $150 a month, “third-country nationals” 10-20 times as much, and “internationals” 100 times as much. Control Risks still relies on westerners, but ArmorGroup, a British rival, employs 700 Gurkhas to shepherd America's primary contractors in Iraq, Bechtel and KBR. Erinys's corps of pipeline protectors is overwhelmingly Iraqi. The cheapness of the other ranks, compared with western soldiers, is one reason why PMCs are flourishing. “Why pay for a British platoon to guard a base, when you can hire Gurkhas at a fraction of the cost?” asks one.
http://www.sandline.com/hotlinks/Economist-Baghdad.html

[global1]

8. On This Iraq Funding Appropriation They Should Break Out The Dollars.....

What goes to Blackwater. What goes to Halliburton and its subsidiary's. And - What goes to the U.S. troops.

It would be interesting to see that breakdown.