contractors news stories on Newser

Iraqi Court Convicts First Westerner Since 2003

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:15:08 CST

An Iraqi court today convicted a British man and sentenced him to 20 years in prison over the shooting deaths of two contractors, making him the first Westerner convicted in an Iraqi court since the 2003 US invasion. Danny Fitzsimons, 30, was found guilty of fatally shooting a British and...

Foreign Workers at US Embassies Exploited

Kevin Spak — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:55:05 CST

Contractors at US embassies in the Arab world are abusing and exploiting their foreign workers, according to a new State Department report spotted by Foreign Policy . The department’s inspector general looked into six contractors, and found that more than 70% of their workers “live in overcrowded, unsafe, or unsanitary conditions,...

Karzai Ban May Squash US-Led Rebuilding Effort

Emily Rauhala — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:00:00 CDT

US-backed reconstruction projects—worth upward of $1.5 billion—are grinding to a halt, as firms begin to shutter them over the Afghan government's refusal to lift its ban on the use of private security contractors, reports the Washington Post . An official called the development "catastrophic" to America's effort to...

Yet Another Blackwater Case Collapses

Matt Cantor — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:24:00 CDT

Legal cases against Blackwater employees accused of committing murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan have been collapsing one by one, the New York Times reports. This week, the Justice Department dropped a case against an armorer accused of killing a guard to an Iraqi official; the move...

Contract Worker Says BP Covers Up Spill's Worst

Nick McMaster — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:16:42 CDT

BP is covering up the worst of the environmental damage from the Gulf oil spill, using its influence to keep images of crude-choked wildlife from becoming public, an anonymous contract worker tells the New York Daily News . The worker gave the newspaper a tour of the spill's most devastating views,...

Civilian Contractor Deaths Soar in Afghanistan

John Johnson — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:15:00 CDT

As the US ramps up its military presence in Afghanistan, life is becoming decidedly more dangerous for civilian contractors. Of the 289 killed there since the war started, 100 died in the last 6 months, reports ProPublica . And in what is apparently a first, the number of civilian workers (107,...

Pentagon Official Ran Private Assassin Support Crew

Rob Quinn — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:43:00 CDT

A senior Pentagon official secretly set up a private network of contractors to help track and kill militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, military officials say. Michael D. Furlong may have diverted money from other programs to fund his own network of former CIA and Special Forces operatives, officials tell the...

Up to 56,000 Contractors Headed to Afghanistan

Emily Rauhala — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:30:44 CST

Talk of the 30,000 troops Obama is sending to Afghanistan fails to note that they're likely to be joined by as many as 56,000 civilians, according to a tally by a congressional agency. The second surge would bring the number of independent contractors in Afghanistan to somewhere between...

UK Contractor Held in Green Zone Killing of 2 Co-Workers

Nick McMaster — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:33:37 CDT

A security contractor working in Iraq has been charged with fatally shooting two of his co-workers in Baghdad’s Green Zone, the Washington Post reports. Danny Fitzsimmons, an employee of British firm ArmorGroup Iraq, has been arrested in the killing of fellow Briton Paul McGuigan and Australian Darren Hoare in an...