- 1,235 U.S. government civilian employees (includes full-time and temporary government employees and personal-services contractors)
- 13,772 contractor personnel (U.S., Iraqi, and third-country nationals), 5,737 of whom were providing security services
There are growing reasons to end the presence of any US military personnel. Contractors are leaving as any allies have evacuated already.
June 18, 2014
ExxonMobil (click here) has carried out a "major evacuation,'' and BP had evacuated 20 percent of its staff, the head of Iraq's state-run South Oil Company said Wednesday.
Dhiya Jaffar also said ENI, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Baker Hughes had no plans to evacuate staff from Iraq following the lightning advance of Sunni militants through the country. The companies, which are based in southern Iraq where the government is still in firm control, were not immediately available for comment.
"This message is not satisfactory for us. We are not convinced the work should not be done remotely. They should be here on the ground,'' Jaffar told Reuters.
"I assure the companies that the current developments in the country have not affected and will not affect in anyway the operations in the south,'' he said, adding that the export level for June will be 2.7 million barrels per day.
CNBC could not immediately confirm the evacuations....
July 1, 2014
Indian government (click here) flies back citizens from Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad as evacuations continue from war-torn region. Efforts on to secure release of 39 abductees.
As many as 94 Indians left Iraq on Monday after a "pro-active approach" initiated by the Indian officials there that would see nearly 600 nationals leaving the war-torn country to safety this week.
Indian officials in Iraq are reaching out to fellow-countrymen themselves, and are busy facilitating the paperwork and ticketing for those who need it to enable them to fly back home, a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson said.
"The facilitation of Indian nationals in Iraq in areas which are not in conflict zones is now underway," the spokesperson said, adding that special mobile teams are reaching out to residences of Indians in Najaf, Karbala, Basra and Baghdad advising them to leave the country. ...
