Civilian Corps Plays Big Role in Iraq War. It's the other army. The private one, perhaps 160,000 strong in Iraq alone, armed, sometimes dangerous, often sloppy with tax dollars, and without which U.S. troops would represent a far less formidable force.

The coalition of willing contractors has swallowed more than $100 billion of U.S. spending on the Iraq war. More than 1,000 of its ranks have been killed since the 2003 invasion. Today, there is a U.S.-paid contractor doing everything from manning a machine gun to cleaning toilets for virtually every soldier tromping around the country.

Like never before in modern conflicts, military analysts say, war has become a corporate affair.

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"To some degree, having these companies makes it easier to go to war," said William Hartung, a military analyst at the New America Foundation. "Without massively increasing the size of the (uniformed) force, you couldn't do a conflict like Iraq without these guys..."

William Hartung is Director of the Arms and Security Initiative, a part of New America's American Strategy Program. For the complete article, please visit The Kansas City Star web site.