WASHINGTON, Jan 25: There are more US contractors now in Iraq and Afghanistan than US military personnel, government officials told Congress at a recent hearing.

The Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security was informed on Thursday that there are more than 196,000 contractors in Iraq, compared to about 154,000 regular soldiers.

The contractors are hired privately to perform security duties. Although they work for the US Defence Department, they do not follow combat rules applicable to regular soldiers. Critics say this allows them to commit human rights violations without the fear of repercussion.

Jack Bell, deputy undersecretary of defence for logistics and materiel readiness, told the Senate panel that contractors have now become part of the US force and “must be managed on integrated basis with the military.

The United States, he said, is not prepared to address “this unprecedented scale of our dependence on contractors.”

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William M. Solis, director of defence capabilities and management for the Government accountability Office, testified that not enough trained service personnel are available to handle outsourcing to contractors in the wars. Senator Thomas R. Carper, the subcommittee's chairman, noted that the Defence Contract Audit Agency has reported that $10 billion of about $57 billion in contracts for services and reconstruction in Iraq “is either questionable or cannot be supported because of a lack of contractor information needed to assess costs.”

He added that more than 80 separate criminal investigations are underway involving contracts of more than $5 billion.