There are over 120,0 private contractors currently deployed in Iraq and yesterday, a House panel put some of the harshest criticisms of this privatization of war into the congressional record for the first time. The House Appropriations subcommittee on defense held a hearing on Thursday about defense contracting. Testifying before the panel was journalist Jeremy Scahill and filmmaker Robert Greenwald.
Jeremy is a Democracy Now! correspondent and an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine. He is author of the book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." In his opening remarks, he spoke about the lack of oversight of the tens of thousands of contractors deployed in Iraq.