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Pentagon Uses Clever Accounting Trick To Hide Americans Operating In Syria

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

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Saagar Enjeti White House Correspondent
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The Pentagon is artificially deflating the number of American military personnel in Syria by spending millions of dollars on private contractors.

The Pentagon signed a $10 million, non-competitive, contract with Six3 Intelligence Solutions for “intelligence analysis services,” The Daily Beast reports. Six3’s deployment to Syria indicates the U.S. military is deepening its footprint in Syria, and may be gathering valuable intelligence for the possibility of a larger military deployment.

The Obama administration admitted earlier this year it had deployed 300 special operators to Syria to advise and assist U.S. friendly forces fighting the Islamic State. Private intelligence contractors have a history of deploying with special operator teams. “I’ve long said, the military looks at professional services contractors like the old American Express commercial, i.e., they dare not leave home without them,” David Isenberg, a private contractor expert, told The Daily Beast.

The White House has insisted the 300 special operators are a limited force and do not represent an entrenched U.S. military presence on the Syrian battlefield. The contract with Six3, which may be on of many with private contractors, indicates the size and scope of the U.S. mission in Syria is expanding without acknowledgement by senior defense officials or President Obama.

“Contractors encourage ‘mission creep’ because they allow the Administration to put more people on the ground than they report to the American people,” Dr. Sean McFate, a professor at Georgetown University, told The Daily Beast. The Pentagon can continue scaling up the mission in Syria, while publicly maintaining they have made no “official” change in the number of U.S. troops in Syria.

The Pentagon used private military contractors to obfuscate the size of the U.S. effort in Iraq in 2008. The Christian Science Monitor notes the number of Pentagon contractors in Iraq was 155,826 which was nearly equal to the 152,275 U.S. troops stationed in the country. Between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. army spent nearly 5 billion dollars on private military contractors.

Six3’s specialization in biometrics and identifying intelligence, could also represent an effort to boost air power targets of high value terrorists. Six3 does not traditionally contract with the Pentagon, but has received several contracts from the U.S. intelligence community.

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