As Josh Marshall points out, "I'm not sure I've ever seen actual numbers" on private contractors killed in Iraq. Is there any reason why these statistics have not been released previously? They may be private sector, but they're still Americans killed in Iraq, helping the U.S. military carry out its mission.
I would also point out that the policy of our government, certainly during the Bush Administration, has been to contract out as many military functions as possible, to companies like Halliburton, Bechtel, and Blackwater. Whether or not you think this is a good thing (I don't), the fact is that it means we've got a lot more Americans fighting - and dying - in Iraq than the U.S. military statistics would lead us to believe.
The outsourcing played into part of the administration's obfuscation conducted from the very inception. These fellows did not plan much past the first phase of the Iraq effort, but I do think that they saw an opportunity to set up contractors to benefit from the oil dollars that would flow after the "liberation." In the meantime, the administration seemed to benefit from the contractors' assumption of risk which mediated US military and policy vulnerabilities.
The occupation hasn't turned out quite as pretty as it was nonchalantly conceived. But, this "transformation" has allowed the administration to evade responsibility for these deaths.
Yes they have weird thinking about those statistics, but I find most of their thinking wierd.
And sadly these Americans who die or are wounded in Iraq are not under the reporting protections that soldiers are give. So if your contractor relative is missing you may find it difficult to find out from the government whether they've been killed, wounded, kidnapped, etc.
I found the Frontline http://www.pbs.org/w...] informative on the issue of contractors in Iraq.