New Orleans had a Wal-Mart parking lot serving as a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center with perhaps the tightest security of any parking lot in the world. That's thanks to the more than $30 million Washington had shelled out to the Blackwater USA security firm since its men deployed after Katrina hit.
During Katrina, documents show that the US government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its mercenary guards in the New Orleans.
Normally, this work would have been done by the National Guard for less than $100 per day, per man, but most of its troops were in Iraq.
Interviewed by The Nation several of the Blackwater's guards stationed in New Orleans said they were being paid $350 a day. That would have left Blackwater with $600 per man, per day to cover lodging, ammo, other overhead--and profits.
According to Blackwater's government contracts, obtained by The Nation, from September 8 to September 30, 2005, Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to "protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA."
Blackwater had about 400 employees in Iraq. Its armed commandos earned an average of about $1,000 a day.
Often, Blackwater, Halliburton and other Iraq contractor companies will bill the US Government for the cost of “the same employee”. With each company billing from $800 to $1500 per man, per day, one mercenary could cost the tax payer up to $4500 per day.
Much of this work was previously done by military personnel being paid less than $100 per day.
Other Snippets About Mercenary Costs to US Tax Payers
...Government contracting records show Blackwater Training was paid $13 million between April 2002 and June 2003 for security training of Navy personnel.
…the Army awarded Blackwater a $21.3 million no-bid contract for security guards and two helicopters for U.S. Iraq civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer, according to the inspector general's report.
...Soldiers, diplomats and private contractors in Iraq are all putting their lives on the line...But should anyone be paid $350,000 a year to work in Iraq? ...That's the basic labor rate for a liaison officer under the contract that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Charlotte's Zapata Engineering to help dispose of captured munitions.
...The Army Corps has set aside as much as $1.47 billion for explosives-demolition contracts with 10 private companies. Neither …Zapata nor the Army Corps of Engineers would reveal exact salaries, but the first one-year contract the company received in September 2003 totaled $3.8 million for five management positions in Iraq.
...The single liaison officer cost taxpayers not just the $350,000 in salary, but $850,000 in overhead, insurance and profit costs, according to a Winston-Salem Journal analysis.
...Four project managers were budgeted for a total of $2.7 million, which includes $275,000 in annual pay for each and a total of $1.6 million for overhead, insurance and profit.
...Those figures do not include security, food and lodging, which were provided under separate contracts. In February 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Zapata another one-year contract worth $32.5 million to hire as many as 108 technicians and support staffers to oversee a munitions depot in Iraq.
...In Zapata's $32 million contract extension, security forces accounted for 50 of the 108 positions...
...Firms such as Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C., have reportedly offered as much as $1,000 a day for former special-operations personnel to provide private security, compared with about $150 a day that the Pentagon pays a Green Beret with 20 years of experience.
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