- 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.
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- Lieutenant-General Mark Kimmitt admitted on Tuesday 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.
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- He did not give a figure for Iraqi dead, which, across
the country may be as high as 900.
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- Full total of Western dead would have serious political
fallout 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.
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- The presence of such large numbers of mercenaries, first
publicised in The Independent two weeks ago, was bound to lead to further
casualties.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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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- This article was originally published on page 4 of The
Star on April 13, 2004
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- http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=vn2004041
3132117588C325435&click_id=2813&set_id=1
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