Auditors: Private security in Iraq costs over $6B

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer

No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S.
has paid well over $6 billion to private security
companies who've been guarding diplomats, troops,
Iraqi officials and reconstruction workers in Iraq.

The money amounts to about 12 percent of the $50
billion Americans are paying for reconstruction in
the country, said Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction Stuart Bowen.

The figure, included in a report being released by
Bowen's office Thursday, is likely to be taken as
the most authoritative accounting so far of what it
has cost taxpayers to provide private security since
2003 in the violence-plagued nation.

-snip-

There are likely more contractors he has yet to count
and so the $6 billion is almost certainly not the full
picture, he said in an interview Wednesday. LinkHere