THAT's where all the contractors are?

A piece in Tuesday's WP says that a new census shows there are approximately 100,000 government contractors working in Iraq. That number does not include subcontractors. For those playing along at home, there are approximately 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq right now.

The survey finding, which includes Americans, Iraqis and third-party nationals hired by companies operating under U.S. government contracts, is significantly higher and wider in scope than the Pentagon's only previous estimate, which said there were 25,000 security contractors in the country.

It is also 10 times the estimated number of contractors that deployed during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, reflecting the Pentagon's growing post-Cold War reliance on contractors for such jobs as providing security, interrogating prisoners, cooking meals, fixing equipment and constructing bases that were once reserved for soldiers.