Keeping the size of the official military deployment into Iraq to a relative minimum appears to be a goal that the Pentagon has in mind, with the Obama Administration adding troops in small numbers but continuing to insist there isn't going to be a ground war, or that at the very least US troops won't be fighting in it.

During the last Iraq War, the US at times had over 100,000 military contractors on the ground there. The exact figures haven't always been easy to come by, but the message that contractors don't count as real troops on the ground in omnipresent.

The Pentagon is already sending out feelers for assembling this new unofficial army, posting a notice seeking contractors who are willing to work long-term in Iraq, with a minimum 12-month "initial" contract to be followed by extensions.