Relatives of dead contractors on Capitol Hill

NPR reported today on the complaint from four relatives of slain Blackwater contractors in Iraq.

In the audio, Congressman Darrell Issa mistakenly refers to the "three women" while questioning them. One of them immediately speak up, and remind him that there are "four of us here."

The Congressman apologized.

All Things Considered, February 7, 2007:

Relatives of four American contract workers who were brutally killed in Iraq testify in Congress that the men, hired to provide security, were given inadequate armor and weapons to do their jobs. The mothers and widows of the workers have filed lawsuits against Blackwater, the company that hired them.

The incident in 2004 remains among the most gruesome images from the war in Iraq: Four American security contractors were killed in Fallujah, their bodies mutilated, dragged through the streets by an angry mob and strung over power lines.

The four were employees of Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based private firm hired to provide protection for U.S. officials in Iraq. But the families of those killed on that day in March say that Blackwater failed to provide what the men needed to protect themselves.

Kathryn Helvenston Wettengel, the mother of one of the slain Americans, answered Issa."We're subcontracting out our war," she said. "There's 100,000 contractors out there, and there doesn't seem to be a law that applies. They're literally getting away
with murder."

NonParty Politics has reported in the past on the size and scope of civilian contractors in Iraq.