The facts. For sure, it’s not news that, the so called contractors (with diverse nationalities) play an essential role in Iraq. They are so essential, that their presence is inferior only to the Washington soldiers. But today, the UN wants to shed the light on their “official” occupation in the Middle East country, also thanks to a special commission. Officially, Chilean contractors should deal with safety and protection in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital city, even thought many people doubt about their real employment. In order to understand what is going on, Josè Luis Gomez del Prado, a UN envoy, will meet the progressive government chaired by Michelle Bachelet and will ask for explanations. We know for sure that nearly 1.200 people, some are former soldiers and some former Santiago policemen, are called to “work”, earning nearly 3 thousand net dollars per month. They work for a Chilean company, whose headquarter is in Uruguay. But the most intricate aspect of the matter is that the Chilean company depends on a US company. The Chinese box widens up and we can forecast that we will keep hearing about this matter still for a long time.

This is not the first time. It’s not surprising that contractors are one of the main forces in Iraq, nor to know that most of them come from Chile. Indeed, a couple of years ago, a scandal arose. It dealt with the deployment of contractors in Iraq and it could have caused huge troubles to the international relationship between Chile and Honduras. In that occasion, some Chilean citizens were expelled from the country. They were in the nearby of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. They were training themselves in secret, thanks to the support of an agency called Your Solution Inc (a company run by Santiago former soldiers). But also Honduras had to face the harsh reality of hired soldiers. This small Central America country withdrawn from Iraqi war in 2005 and saw many of its former soldiers to go back to war in Middle East, after being recruited by US companies in country.

And probably some of them will join the sad list of the fallen. As for contractors, this list is still unknown. We don’t know why. Posterity will be the judge of it.