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U.S. Contractors Still Willing to Work in Danger Zones
Monday, June 28, 2004
By Liza Porteus
PHOTOS PHOTO ESSAYS
Photo Essays:•The Paul Johnson KidnappingSTORIES BACKGROUND
•Truck Drivers Train for Iraqi Jobs •South Korea Confirms Hostage Killed•Saudis Search for Johnson's Body•Bush: U.S. Won't Be Intimidated by 'Extremist Thugs'•Four Foreign Hostages Freed in Iraq•Four Civilian Contractors Killed in Iraq •U.S. Hostage Escapes in Iraq
Although terrorists are kidnapping, killing and even beheading American and other contractors and civilians in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, defense contractors say thousands of workers still want to go overseas.
"There's tons of people who are applying for these jobs … But security has got to be in place, whether that's in Saudi Arabia or Iraq or wherever," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association.
The beheadings of American Paul M. Johnson Jr. (search) and South Korean worker Kim Sun-il (search) were just the latest terrorist killings of contractors working in those two countries. Others have been kidnapped and still others remain missing with no word of their whereabouts.
The killings of Johnson and Sun-il are just the latest in a series of events that have grabbed headlines and stoked outrage in their home countries.
Four civilian security personnel from Blackwater USA (search) — one of the biggest and best-known private security firms working in Iraq — were killed in Fallujah, Iraq, on March 31 after their vehicle was hit by rocket-propelled grenades. Even after their bodies were mutilated, burned, dragged through the streets then hung from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River, employment lines at home grew.
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