Iraq: Foreign Workers

Dr. Fox
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.

Des Browne
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.

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|Nationality/ Ethnicity|2003|2004|2005|2006|2007|Total|
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|Kuwaiti               |1   |—   |—   |—   |—   |1    |
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|Arabian               |1   |—   |—   |—   |1   |2    |
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|Bengali               |—   |1   |—   |—   |—   |1    |
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|Lebanese              |—   |1   |—   |2   |4   |7    |
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|Somali                |—   |1   |—   |2   |5   |8    |
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|USA                   |—   |2   |3   |1   |1   |7    |
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|Indian                |—   |—   |—   |8   |9   |17   |
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|Pakistani             |—   |—   |—   |4   |30  |34   |
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|Egyptian              |—   |—   |—   |10  |42  |52   |
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|Afghan                |—   |—   |—   |1   |—   |1    |
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|Jordanian             |—   |—   |—   |2   |10  |12   |
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|Canadian              |—   |—   |—   |—   |1   |1    |
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|New Zealand           |—   |—   |—   |—   |1   |1    |
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|Palestinian           |—   |—   |—   |—   |4   |4    |
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|Total                 |2   |5   |3   |30  |108 |148  |
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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.