About 5,000 Serving in Iraq

The CRS report added that currently, about 5,000 federal civilian employees are serving in Iraq, compared with about 25,000 civilian contractor employees and about 155,000 uniformed military personnel. As of last month, it said, there had been five fatalities among federal civilian employees there, compared with 110 among contractors and 2,145 among uniformed personnel. In addition to Iraq, the combat zone tax exclusion currently applies in Kosovo and Afghanistan, in the general Persian Gulf area and certain other parts of the Middle East, and in and near the former republic of Yugoslavia.