Blackwater Wants Supporters to Flood Congressmen With Lies

The vigorous leaders of Blackwater are now taking their image-saving campaign to a whole new level after being finally booted out of Iraq. They have sent out a mass e-mail to their supporters urging them to contact their congressmen with calls, e-mails, and letters telling them verbatim that somehow the company is an asset in cost management, professional 'mature' employees with impressive experience, and of all things, pride in the amount of U.S. lives saved, leaving out the bad parts of course.

Blackwater’s claim to cost efficiency is specious at best. According to documents made available to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, “It costs the U.S. government a lot more to hire contract employees as security guards in Iraq than to use American troops.”

According to the data, “the average per-day pay to personnel Blackwater hired was $600,” which is significantly more than uniformed soldiers:

An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.