The Other Casualties

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Information incomplete on contractors in Iraq


By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

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WASHINGTON — While acknowledging the death toll of contractors working in Iraq has crossed the milestone of 1,000, the government Wednesday provided incomplete information about the companies the victims worked for or their nationalities.

About 137,000 Defense Department contractors are on the job in Iraq, supporting 162,000 U.S. troops there, according to the latest Pentagon numbers.

And as of June 30, 1,001 civilian contractors working for U.S. firms had died there since the war's start more than four years ago, including 231 in the first six months of 2007, according to Labor Department statistics the Chronicle received Tuesday.

How many of those killed were Americans is unclear, since the Labor Department records do not provide the nationalities of the casualties.

About half of the U.S. company contractors working in the country — 69,000 — are Iraqis, said Navy Lt. j.g. Joseph Holstead, a media officer for the U.S. Central Command said Wednesday.

The contractor fatalities are in addition to the 3,672 U.S. military personnel the Defense Department as of Wednesday had confirmed dead in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003.

While military casualties are updated daily and posted on the Pentagon's Web site, civilian contractor deaths are updated only quarterly by the Labor Department.

White House officials declined to comment on the civilian casualty figures, referring calls to the Labor Department.

The department broke down 776 contractor deaths by company, leaving out almost a fourth for unspecified reasons, and did not include all companies whose employees or contractors have died in the war.

The list of such companies, for example, doesn't include Houston-based KBR, the Pentagon's largest contractor operating in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, which has acknowledged 110 fatalities in the Middle East.

Under a multibillion-dollar Army contract, KBR's more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors in the Middle East build bases, serve meals, deliver mail and provide other services for U.S. troops.

"Obviously, all of our employees that work in the region perform their work under harsh and dangerous conditions," KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said this week. "We continue to grieve with the families of those we have lost and remain committed to the safety and security of all our employees and subcontractors in the region."

The civilian contractor figures are compiled by the Labor Department's Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation, which tracks workers' compensation claims by injured workers or families of contractors who died.

Because the list only includes fatalities reported to the Labor Department, it doesn't necessarily include all deaths, department official Miranda Chiu noted in a letter to Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., who has pressed the administration to provide information about civilian contractor casualties.