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Iraq: Foreign Workers

Volume 467: debated on Thursday 15 November 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many third country nationals of each nationality have been employed by his Department in Iraq in each year since 2003; and if he will make a statement. (162564)

Available records indicate that UK military forces in Iraq have employed directly some 148 individuals not of UK or Iraqi nationality over this period. Details are set out in the table, broken down by the year in which each was recruited. However, it is possible that this information is not complete, especially for the initial stages of the deployment into Iraq, when some staff were recruited at short notice to meet urgent operational requirements, and data capture for these individuals may be incomplete.

Nationality/ Ethnicity

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Total

Kuwaiti

1

1

Arabian

1

1

2

Bengali

1

1

Lebanese

1

2

4

7

Somali

1

2

5

8

USA

2

3

1

1

7

Indian

8

9

17

Pakistani

4

30

34

Egyptian

10

42

52

Afghan

1

1

Jordanian

2

10

12

Canadian

1

1

New Zealand

1

1

Palestinian

4

4

Total

2

5

3

30

108

148

These figures do not include Commonwealth soldiers serving with the UK armed forces, UK-based civilian personnel, or contractor staff supporting the UK armed forces.