Chapter 760 Expansion

People who often go to sea will understand that the scenery you see when sailing on the sea is indeed very spectacular.

But if you face such scenery every day, you will soon get bored.

However, for Barron and his group, they don’t feel this way. After all, in the middle of this voyage, they will also dock to visit different local customs and practices.

And even at sea, whether it is Devonshire Poseidon or Caesar, they have complete facilities. If you don’t look at the environment outside, daily life is not much different from their home.

Especially the children brought by Barron, the older ones are already four or five years old, which is the lively time. Under the care of the maid, they can have fun on the slide on the yacht for a whole day.

What’s more, there are so many interesting things to do, such as fishing, riding a motorboat and even a helicopter.

These children of his may have been a little strange when they first lived together, but now they have played together and have a good relationship with each other.

For example, now, George, Ethel, Emily and other children are surrounding Barron, with several pairs of big eyes, looking at the fishing rod in his hand and the fishing line extending from it to the sea with expectation.

"Got it, did you see it? My dears, it's very strong and trying to break free..."

Hearing their father's words, the children can see the splashes on the sea surface, which are caused by the struggle of the big fish caught on the hook...

And the fishing rod is pulled and slightly bent...

"Dad, pull it up, I'll help you!"

George said, and was about to come over to help...

"Don't worry, this fish is too big, we need to slowly consume its strength first..."

Seeing such a big fish caught on the hook, the children were very excited and kept discussing on the side.

Finally, after a while, Barron began to reel in the line and eventually pulled a big fish more than one meter long out of the water...

"We are lucky, this is a Spanish bluefin tuna. After processing, we can have it for dinner!"

...

On July 25, the Protector Military Services Company, headquartered in the northern city of Munger, sent more than 1,500 military personnel to Iraq again. This is the fifth time that the Protector Military Services Company has added military personnel to Iraq this year.

At this time, the total number of employees of the Protector Military Services Company has exceeded 15,000, and all the personnel they have sent to Iraq have exceeded 8,000, of which more than 7,200 are military personnel!

The main reason for this is that with the US withdrawal plan in Iraq, they need more military contractors to fill their presence in Iraq, such as the Protector Military Services Company, which currently undertakes a number of businesses in Iraq, including security and military training.

In the first few years of the Iraq War, its troops stationed in Iraq reached more than 130,000.

Since 2007, in response to the worsening security situation in Iraq, the US military has continuously increased its troops in Iraq. In October of that year, the number of US troops stationed in Iraq reached a record high of 166,000.

However, on November 17, 2008, before the expiration of the United Nations' authorization for the US-led multinational force to perform its mission in Iraq, the United States and Iraq reached a bilateral agreement on the future US military presence in Iraq. According to the agreement, US combat troops stationed in Iraq will withdraw from all Iraqi towns by June 30, 2009, and will withdraw from Iraq by the end of December 2011.

This agreement officially came into effect in early 2009.

Then, Obama won the US presidential election, and he also prepared to withdraw the US military from Iraq in accordance with his previous promise.

In February 2009, Obama officially announced the US plan to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

The withdrawal plan includes withdrawing most of the troops from Iraq before August 31, 2010, ending the combat mission, leaving 35,000 to 50,000 troops to support the military operations of the Iraqi government and its security forces.

Then, withdraw all the remaining troops by the end of 2011.

Of course, Barron knew that the first half of the plan went smoothly, but the United States did not complete the withdrawal from Iraq neatly afterwards - after all, there is still the most attractive oil here, and because of the changes in the situation in the Middle East later, the United States needs to maintain its presence here.

And the decision to withdraw from Iraq is not to say that Ao Guanhai and others are so peace-loving, but mainly because from the current point of view, Iraq is becoming more and more a quagmire for them.

This can be seen from a data - in the large-scale military operation against Iraq, only 138 US soldiers were killed; but since then, the US military has been frequently attacked by anti-US armed forces in Iraq, and the number of casualties has continued to rise. As of now, the total number of deaths of US troops stationed in Iraq has reached 4,415, and about 32,000 people have been injured in the battle.

The huge military expenditure also puts a heavy burden on the US economy, especially when the US encountered the subprime mortgage crisis and has not yet recovered.

As of the end of July 2010, the US spent 742.3 billion US dollars on the Iraq War, exceeding the cost of the Vietnam War and the Korean War - based on the approximately 2,700 days from the start of the war to the withdrawal of troops, an average of 275 million US dollars per day was spent.

This is also one of the reasons why O'Guanhai was able to win at that time - due to the high cost of war, the Bush administration had to maintain a high military budget by squeezing the funds for health care, education, housing and other domestic projects.

The huge war expenditure has increased the fiscal burden of the United States. In addition, the US government launched a large-scale economic stimulus plan to cope with the financial crisis and economic recession, as well as factors such as a significant decline in tax revenue. In the first nine months of the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the US federal fiscal deficit exceeded 1 trillion US dollars for the first time.

But after withdrawing from Iraq, there is still a lot of work to be done, so the Protector Military Services Company has received a large number of orders including training local troops and police, protecting the safety of American companies and employees, which has led to their continuous expansion of personnel in Iraq since this year.

According to the New York Times, several American officials who did not want to be identified said that more than 1,200 missions performed by the US military have been scheduled to be transferred to non-military departments, the Iraqi government, or canceled.

The United States also plans to hire 6,000 to 7,000 security company personnel to provide protection for about 2,400 personnel working in American diplomatic institutions in Iraq.

After Blackwater was driven out of the country due to various scandals and boycotts by the Iraqi government, at least one-third of the insurance orders fell into the hands of the Protector Military Company, which has a relatively good reputation.

Of course, because of the business they undertake and the cooperative relationship with the British and American coalition forces, the Protector Military Service Company has been continuously obtaining equipment supplements from them, either openly or secretly.

So much so that even the Kolo Corps, with the blessing of these equipment, looks a bit beautiful...