Le chiffre du jour

85 milliards de dollars. C'est le coût de l'emploi de contractors en Irak, de 2003 à 2007, selon un rapport du Congressionnal Budget Office américain :

- From 2003 through 2007, and converting the funding into 2008 dollars, U.S. agencies awarded $85 billion in contracts for work to be principally performed in the Iraq theater, accounting for almost 20 percent of funding for operations in Iraq. Including funding for 2008 itself, the U.S. has likely awarded $100 billion or more for contractors in the Iraq theater.

- More than 70 percent of those obligations were for contracts performed in Iraq itself.

- Most contract obligations were for logistics support, construction, petroleum products, or food.

- Although personnel counts are rough approximations, CBO estimates that at least 190,000 contractor personnel, including subcontractors, work on U.S.-funded contracts in the Iraq theater. About 20 percent are U.S. citizens.

- The United States has used contractors during previous military operations, although not to the current extent. According to rough historical data, the ratio of about one contractor employee for every member of the U.S. armed forces in the Iraq theater is at least 2.5 times higher than the ratio during any other major U.S. conflict, although it is roughly comparable with the ratio during operations in the Balkans in the 1990s.

L'ensemble du rapport est à lire ici.