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' believe that critical gaps in this report have placed a cloud over it and indeed over the Inspector General's office. In my view, the report fails to discuss critical issues, omits critical material, and redacts key portions of the report in a manner that raises serious questions about whether this report meets applicable requirements for the independence of Inspectors General.'

The U.S. Defense Department's weapons buying chief and senior Air Force officials sidestepped regulations in a $23 billion proposal to lease and buy as many as 100 Boeing Co. tankers, the Pentagon's inspector general said. The acquisition process takes on added importance as the Pentagon plans to boost annual spending on new weapons by 52 percent during the next six years, as at least 13 programs move into production, to $118 billion in fiscal 2011 from $78 billion this year.

Global military spending in 2004 broke the $1 trillion barrier for the first time since the Cold War, boosted by the U.S. war against terror and the growing defense budgets of India and China, a European think tank said Tuesday.

Hart Security Ltd., a Cyprus-based British security firm, announced that a convoy of trucks its employees were escorting had been "ambushed by insurgents" near Habaniyah.

They looked so local that they risked drawing friendly fire if they attempted to move up to shelter under the American guns. So they sat in no man's land, chit-chatting by radio as they willed on the Americans to reopen the road before their cover was blown.

U.S. Marines forcibly detained a team of security guards working for an American engineering firm in Iraq after reportedly witnessing the contractors fire at U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians from an armed convoy. The employees have said that the incident was a case of mistaken identity. Several have accused the Marines of verbally and physically abusing them while they were in custody.

Striking Filipino workers employed in a US military camp have returned to work for International (PPI) and Kellogg Brown and Root. They were protesting against the delayed payment of their wages, inadequate food, and poor accommodations, which were violations of the contract signed by the workers prior to their deployment.

There are 50,000 to 100,000 contractors working in Iraq, experts say, though reliable estimates are hard to come by. The number of contractors killed is just as difficult to pin down, partly because the employers often keep the deaths quiet. The U.S. military death toll, now over 1,620, would be higher but for the number of military tasks contracted out to the private sector, analysts say.

A dispute between Filipino workers and a US group in Iraq over working conditions has been resolved, said a spokeswoman for US contractor Kellog Brown and Root.

The company, Point Blank, sold the U.S. Marine Corps 19,000 bulletproof vests that failed the military's own quality tests, heightening safety concerns among GIs deployed in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On 5 April, Greenpeace launched a new climate campaign by writing to the 100 largest U.S. corporations, many of whom funded Bush's election campaign, and asking them to explain their position on the Kyoto Protocol. As of today, only ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. corporation, has responded, not with a letter, but by taking out ads in major newspapers attacking the Kyoto Protocol.

U.S. troops, journalists and contractors returning from Iraq are among those who have been caught with forbidden souvenirs -- mostly paintings and small seals and cylinders that can be carved exquisitely and hidden easily.

Facing the constant threat of ambushes, suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices and kidnappers, former Scottsdale, Arizona, Police Chief Michael Heidingsfield travels to police stations and training camps around Iraq - an itinerary, according to one of his top aides, that is more difficult now than it was when he arrived six months ago.

With the exception of the submachine gun and a pistol tucked into his belt, Dale Stoffel looked the same in Baghdad as he had in Washington. His life-and death was a version, in miniature, of the American occupation itself. As a friend of his later told me, "When Stoffel first got to Iraq, it was the reaction most people have the first time they go to Vegas."

Charged with the front-line responsibility of defending infrastructure projects, homes, personnel and even U.S. military convoys, private security companies in Iraq are in some instances agitating for the right to arm themselves with heavy military-style weapons.

Tension and confusion are on the rise in Iraq after a group of American security contractors were thrown in jail under suspicion for shooting at the US Marines in Fallujah.

In what could be a test case, Iraq is suing over a reconstruction contract awarded by the Coalition Provisional Authority in April 2004 to manage the port at Khor Az Zubayr. A judge ``assessing the case'' will visit the facility on June 6 with a port expert.

A labor strike by some 300 Filipinos employed at Camp Cook in the Iraqi province of Taji who were protesting poor working conditions has been "temporarily resolved." The workers are under contract with Prime Projects International and Kellogg Brown and Root.

Some 300 Filipino workers in the sprawling American military base in Camp Cooke in Taji, Iraq went on strike because of alleged violations in their employment contracts, an e-mail message to INQ7.net disclosed.