U.S. Pays Steep Price for Private Security in Iraq

By Walter Pincus
Monday, October 1, 2007; A17

It costs the U.S. government a lot more to hire contract employees as security guards in Iraq than to use American troops.

It comes down to the simple business equation of every transaction requiring a profit.

The contract that Blackwater Security Consulting signed in March 2004 with Regency Hotel and Hospital of Kuwait for a 34-person security team offers a view into the private-security business world. The contract was made public last week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee majority staff as part of its report on Blackwater's actions related to an incident in Fallujah on March 31, 2004, when four members of the company's security team were killed in an ambush.