One Third of the “Coalition of the Willing” are Mercenaries

m taqi::independent freelance writer, Iraqi League

A UN report published recently showed that the number of mercenaries working in Iraq has been steadily increasing and is now estimated that the number of such professional mercenaries to over 30%. Between 30,000 and 50,000 mercenaries are working in Iraq, making them the second largest military force there after the occupying United States. The case of Iraq "is a new manifestation of the use of mercenaries that has caught the UN by surprise", Spain's Jose Luis Gomez del Prado -- a member of the UN working group on mercenaries -- said Friday during a visit to Peru. The United States has 130,000 soldiers in Iraq, he noted. Britain has 10,000 troops (...) The use of mercenaries is favoured by the forces occupation as a form of 'human-sheild’ inserted between US regulars and the forever rising potency of Iraqi insurgency. The mercenaries are seen as 'dispensable’ because the killing of mercenaries is not reflected in the US government statistics of 3,245 dead soldiers as reported by CNN online at the time of writing this article...

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