 |
| US: Billions over Baghdad; The Spoils of War
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Vanity Fair
October 1st, 2007
Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency--much of it belonging to the Iraqi people--was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. |
| IRAQ: Big oil’s waiting game over Iraq’s reserves
by Ed Crooks and Sheila McNulty, Financial Times
September 19th, 2007
Oil companies face a dilemma in Iraq over whether to wait for a new oil law which will give them a legal framework in which to operate or to sign agreements now with the Kurdistan Regional Government at the risk of sullying relations with Baghdad and the rest of the country. |
| CHINA: An Opportunity for Wall St. in China’s Surveillance Boom
by Keith Bradsher, New York Times
September 11th, 2007
China Security and Surveillance Technology, a fast-growing company that installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, has just been approved for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s listing is just a sign of ever-closer ties among Wall Street, surveillance companies and the Chinese government’s security apparatus. |
| US: Iraq convoy was sent out despite threat
by T. Christian Miller, LA Times
September 3rd, 2007
Senior managers for defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in the spring of 2004, ordering unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents. |
| US: Army to examine Iraq contracts
by Richard Lardner, Associated Press
August 29th, 2007
The Army will examine as many as 18,000 contracts awarded over the past four years to support U.S. forces in Iraq to determine how many are tainted by waste, fraud and abuse. |
| US: 'America's private army' under fire for Illinois facility
by E.A. Torriero, Chicago Tribune
July 23rd, 2007
Blackwater North, as the North Carolina-based firm calls its new site, is designed primarily as a tactical training ground for domestic law enforcement and contractors. Using civilians schooled in military warfare, the site offers training in weaponry, hostage dealings and terror reaction. Still, the sudden appearance of Blackwater is attracting criticism and questions from miles around. Anti-war activists and locals are wary about the new training site. |
| US: Filling Gaps in Iraq, Then Finding a Void at Home
by John M. Broder, New York Times
July 17th, 2007
Taking the place of enlisted troops in every American army before this one, contract employees in Iraq cook meals, wash clothes, deliver fuel and guard bases. And they die and suffer alongside
their brothers and sisters in uniform. About 1,000 contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war began; nearly 13,000 have been injured. The consequences of the war will be lasting for many of them and their families, ordeals that are largely invisible to most Americans. |
| IRAQ: A Private Realm Of Intelligence-Gathering; Firm Extends U.S. Government's Reach
by Steve Fainaru and Alec Klein, Washington Post Foreign Service
July 1st, 2007
On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad's Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq's daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation. The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military. |
| WORLD: US probes Saudi-linked UK arms firm
by David Robertson and Tom Baldwin, The Times (London)
June 28th, 2007
The British and US governments are on a diplomatic collision course after the US Department of Justice launched a formal investigation into allegations of corruption at defence company BAE Systems. The US investigation will scrutinise BAE's dealings with Saudi Arabia to expose an account allegedly held by the Bank of England that is used to facilitate Saudi payments for arms.
|
| IRAQ: Corporate Torture in Iraq
by
Ali Eteraz, Counter Punch
October 11th, 2006
What remains under-reported and under-appreciated is the fact that this war has afforded a vast collection of corporations to reap the benefits of lucrative government contracts. A number of such companies are involved in supervising, maintaining, and providing support for the numerous prisons in Iraq in the areas of interrogation, interpretation, and translation. |
| US: Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs
by Greg Miller, The Los Angeles Times
September 17th, 2006
At the National Counterterrorism Center — the agency created two years ago to prevent another attack like Sept. 11 — more than half of the employees are not U.S. government analysts or terrorism experts. Instead, they are outside contractors. |
| SOMALIA: US accused of covert operations in Somalia
by Antony Barnett and Patrick Smith, The Observer (UK)
September 10th, 2006
Dramatic evidence that America is involved in illegal mercenary operations in east Africa has emerged in a string of confidential emails seen by The Observer. The leaked communications between US private military companies suggest the CIA had knowledge of the plans to run covert military operations inside Somalia - against UN rulings - and they hint at involvement of British security firms. |
| IRAQ: Green Zone Construction Boom
by David Sarasohn, Oregonian
May 3rd, 2006
In Baghdad, the United States is now building a monument to rank with Grand Coulee Dam, the Pentagon, Disney World and the Mall of America. It has elements of all four, plus a 15-foot stone wall and surface-to-air missiles.
|
| IRAQ: Death is a Price of Blood Money
by Vasemaca Rarabici, Fiji Times
May 2nd, 2006
In two weeks seven Fijian men serving as security guards in Iraq have died, leaving behind grieving wives and children with no fathers. But these are the risks they are willing to take, especially when you get to earn between $3000 to $6000 a month. |
| IRAQ: Breaking the Silence
by Michael Hirsh, Newsweek
March 22nd, 2006
A prominent former insider is criticizing the administration’s handling of Iraq’s reconstruction. And there’s more to come. |
| IRAQ: The Fatal Divide at the Heart of the Coalition
by Max Hastings, The Telegraph
March 12th, 2006
US security contractors and regular US soldiers who are evangelical Christians," writes John Geddes, the ex-SAS soldier "see themselves in a crusade against the Muslim hordes. In my view, they're not much different to the Iraqi militiamen and foreign fighters who see themselves at the heart of a jihad against the Christian crusaders." |
| US: Contractor Found Guilty of $3 Million Fraud in Iraq
by Erik Eckholm, The New York Times
March 10th, 2006
In the first corporate whistle-blower case to emerge from Iraq, a federal jury in Virginia yesterday found a contractor, Custer Battles L.L.C., guilty of defrauding the United States by filing grossly inflated invoices for work in the chaotic year after the Iraqi invasion. |
| US: Democrats Want Tougher Government Contracting Terms
Reuters
March 2nd, 2006
Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a co-sponsor of the new bill, said the legislation would set new standards to "restore integrity to a federal contracting process that has too often been operated in a manner that neither ensures confidence nor that taxpayers get a fair return for what they have paid." |
| UK: UK attacked for Uganda arms deal
by Karen Allen, BBC News
March 1st, 2006
The UK has failed to act on promises to plug loopholes that allow the sale of arms to countries with poor human rights records, aid agency Oxfam says. It says that military vehicles were sold to Uganda by a South African subsidiary of the UK firm BAE Systems. |
| IRAQ: US Army to Pay Halliburton Unit Most Disputed Costs
by By James Glanz, The New York Times
February 27th, 2006
Even though the Pentagon auditors identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially unjustified, the Army has decided to reimburse Halliburton for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq. |
| US: Defense Contractor Admits to Bribes
by Mark Sherman, Associated Press
February 24th, 2006
A defense contractor admitted Friday he paid a California congressman more than $1 million in bribes in exchange for millions more in government contracts in a scandal that prosecutors say reached into the Defense Department.
|
| IRAQ: A Permanent Basis for Staying
by Tom Engelhardt , Tomdispatch
February 16th, 2006
Nothing could be more concrete - though less generally discussed in our media - than the set of enormous bases the Pentagon has been building in Iraq. Quite literally, multibillions of dollars have gone into them. |
| IRAQ: Australia May Be Forced to Suspend Wheat Monopoly
by Owen Brown, Dow Jones Newswires
February 15th, 2006
Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, who defended the AWB's monopoly during a World Trade Organization gathering of trade ministers in Hong Kong in December, has attempted to separate the wheat exporter's privileged sales position from the ongoing inquiry into its business dealings with the former Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. |
| US: Day in Court for Custer Battles
by Pauline Jelinek , Associated Press
February 15th, 2006
Whistleblowers Robert Isakson and William Baldwin are suing their former employer, Custer Battles, accusing company officials of defrauding the U.S. government of about $50 million while doing security work in Iraq. |
| IRAQ: BHP's '$US100m Loan' for Saddam
by Dan Silkstone,, The Age
February 14th, 2006
BHP executives planned a $US100 million loan to Saddam Hussein's regime in a bid to curry favour and gain rights to explore a massive Iraqi oil field, the Cole inquiry was told. |
| IRAQ: Billions Wasted
by Steve Kroft, CBS.com
February 12th, 2006
Billions of dollars are unaccounted for, and there are widespread allegations of waste, fraud and war profiteering. |
| IRAQ: Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Can't Find Job
by David Martin, CBSNEWS.com
February 10th, 2006
Torin Nelson was a civilian interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He was not implicated in any of the abuses, but his name has been linked to the scandal, and he has been unable to hold a job as an interrogator ever since.
|
| IRAQ: Seized Money Found Squandered by Coalition
Associated Press
January 28th, 2006
"Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out," says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the Pentagon and State Department.
|
| INDIA: Labor Trafficking Victims Protest
newKerala.com/
January 27th, 2006
Citing a recent exposed case of over 40 youths stranded in Kuwait and Iraq without valid documents as "bonded labourers," the victims are said to have been penalised by the Kuwait police while hiding from them with no regular or valid documents. |
| IRAQ: Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects
by James Glanz, The New York Times
January 25th, 2006
A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe. |
| IRAQ: Cronyism and Kickbacks
by Ed Harriman, London Review of Books
January 25th, 2006
Auditors who have discovered Iraq’s deepening financial crisis have been ignored. They asked the US ambassador and the US military commander in Iraq for their views. Neither replied. The US State Department was to submit estimates of how much it will cost to complete all American-funded projects in Iraq to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The Office won’t discuss the matter. Earlier this month, Brigadier-General William McCoy told reporters: ‘The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq . . . This was just supposed to be a jump-start.’ |
| WORLD: Security Firms Try To Evolve Beyond The Battlefield
by Renae Merle, The Washington Post
January 17th, 2006
The industry grew rapidly when the government and corporations paid hundreds of millions of dollars for armed guards after Sept. 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq. Now many industry insiders reason that demand for private security in Iraq will begin to decline, and they want to expand beyond just toting guns. |
| The Incredible Shrinking Company
by Christopher Moraff , Dollars and Sense
January 15th, 2006
Between 2002 and 2005, St. Augustine, Fla., exercise equipment vendor Raul Espinosa watched mystified as, one after another, a series of Air Force contracts he had placed bids on were given to other companies. Of the 14 bids that Espinosa has documented, his company, FitNet International, did not win one. To his surprise, Espinosa learned that some of the competitors he was losing contracts to had never even bothered to bid on them. |
| US: Security for Sale
by Sarah Posner, The American Prospect
December 20th, 2005
Less than three years after Sept. 11, the brief but uninspiring history of DHS proves how little has actually changed in Washington, where the institutional cultivation of influence peddling, cronyism, and waste continues to thrive unimpeded. |
| IRAQ: US Army officer Charged in Iraq Fraud Scam
Reuters
December 15th, 2005
The U.S. Justice Department said Army Reserve Lt. Col. Debra Harrison, 47, who served with the Coalition Provisional Authority, was arrested on charges involving bribery, money laundering and fraud. |
| IRAQ: Pentagon's Information Campaign under Fire
by Stephen j. Hedges, The Chicago Tribune
December 11th, 2005
On Capitol Hill inquiries have been launched into everything from the Pentagon's use of prewar intelligence to bolster the case for the war to the Defense Department's reliance on public relations firms to shape the images and messages of war.
|
| IRAQ: Aussie Companies Snare $1.9 Billion in Contracts
by Richard Baker, The Age
December 10th, 2005
Austrade is refusing to release the identity of all Australian companies with reconstruction work, claiming many want details kept secret for security reasons. But last year, the Federal Government was more willing to reveal the identities of the companies. |
| IRAQ: How Iraq's Future Went Up in Smoke
by Richard Baker, The Age
December 10th, 2005
As the handover deadline approached, the US officials on the board had gone on a spending spree, directing billions from the Development Fund for Iraq to projects that were in many cases poorly planned or had already received substantial US taxpayer funding commitments.
|
| US: Stench of sleaze Rises from Congress
by Editorial, The DesMoines Register
December 2nd, 2005
It takes two to commit bribery — the person who takes the bribe and the person who gives it. Justice demands the next prosecution be of the defense contractors who kept the San Diego-area congressman supplied with an eye-popping flow of cash, luxury cars, yachts and other amenities. |
| US: Rep. Randy Cunningham’s Corruption Put Troops at Risk
by George E. Condon Jr., Copley News Service
November 30th, 2005
Cunningham betrayed his friends, his constituents, his colleagues and, certainly most important, the U.S. combat troops he so loudly championed. By steering contracts vital to the Iraq war effort to cronies, he risked putting those troops in greater peril as long as it meant money for him.
|
| US: Defense Contractor Spends Big on Key Lawmakers
by Matt Kelley and Jim Drinkard,, USA Today
November 30th, 2005
Brent Wilkes, the founder of defense contractor ADCS Inc., gave more than $840,000 in contributions to 32 House members or candidates, campaign-finance records show. He flew Republican lawmakers on his private jet and hired lobbyists with close ties to those lawmakers.
|
| US: The Hazy Story of the Lincoln Group
by Jason Vest, Government Executive
November 30th, 2005
At the December 2004 Destination Baghdad Expo in Iraq, Iraqex listed itself as Iraq-based, but provided only its Washington telephone and address. Then, in March 2005, it changed its name yet again, to Lincoln Group, a communications and PR firm "providing insight and influence in challenging and hostile environments." And on June 11, along with SYColeman and Science Applications International Corp., Lincoln Group got its JPSE contract. |
| U.S. Military Covertly Pays Company to Place Stories in Iraqi Press
by Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi, The Los Angeles Times
November 30th, 2005
Designed to mask any connection with the US military, The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets. |
| US: Military Vests Recalled
by James Bernstein, Newsday
November 20th, 2005
Army, Marines claim thousands more protective body armor vests made by Point Blank Body Armor Inc., failed to pass ballistic tests. |
| AFGHANISTAN: A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks
by Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, The Washington Post
November 20th, 2005
At the outset, the Louis Berger Group Inc., failed to provide adequate oversight and USAID officials were unable to identify the location projects in the field. Officials at contracting companies and nonprofit groups complain that they were directed to build at sites that turned out to be sheer mountain slopes, a dry riverbed and even a graveyard. |
| US: The Man Who Sold the War
by James Bamford, Rolling Stone
November 19th, 2005
John Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists. The Pentagon secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda. He is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media. |
| IRAQ: Pair Accused of Contract Fraud with US-Controlled Iraqi Assets
by Charles R. Babcock and Renae Merle, The Washington Post
November 18th, 2005
According to affidavits filed by government investigators, the two men allegedly conspired, starting in late 2003, to rig bids on contracts in the south-central region of Iraq from a CPA office in Al Hillah. One was the controller and funding officer at that office, in charge of some $82 million from the Development Fund for Iraq, which is made up of repatriated assets, receipts from the sale of Iraqi oil and transfers from the U.N. oil-for-food program.
|
| IRAQ: American Faces Charge of Graft for Work in Iraq
by James Glanz, New York Times
November 17th, 2005
In what is expected to be the first of a series of criminal charges against officials and contractors overseeing the rebuilding of Iraq, an American has been charged with paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to American occupation authorities and their spouses to obtain construction contracts, according to a complaint unsealed late yesterday. |
| WORLD: Private Military Industry Booming
candada.com
November 13th, 2005
The industry brings in about $100 billion US a year in revenues and operates in over 50 nations. But, since it is largely unregulated, there are no firm numbers worldwide on how many private contractors or companies there actually are. |
| US: Firm Helps Pentagon Mold News Abroad
by Stephen J. Hedges, The Chicago Tribune
November 13th, 2005
The Rendon Group has garnered more than $56 million in work from the Pentagon since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. These contracts list such activities as tracking foreign reporters; "pushing" news favorable to U.S. forces; planting television news segments that promote American positions, and creating a grass-roots voting effort in Puerto Rico on behalf of the U.S. Navy.
|
| WORLD: Soldiers of Fortune
by David Pugliese, canada.com
November 12th, 2005
In the lawless reality of much of the post-Cold War world, private security is a booming business. And Canada, once noted for peacekeeping, is emerging as a source of talented guns for hire. David Pugliese reports. |
| IRAQ: Green Zone Private Security Switch Causes Anxiety
by Paul Martin, The Washington Times
November 4th, 2005
One concern is that Triple Canopy employees have been recruited mainly in Latin America and speak little English. Global Strategies relies heavily on British-trained Nepalese Gurkhas and Sri Lankans, a majority of whom speak at least some English and often speak it well.
|
| US: Iraq Rebuilding Poorly Planned, Inspector General Says
by Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg
October 30th, 2005
The assessment marks the first time a sitting inspector general -- in this case a former White House deputy assistant to President George W. Bush -- has formally criticized the prewar planning process. Most of the authoritative criticism to date has come from retired military or diplomatic officers or academics who worked in the reconstruction effort. |
| US: Bribe Inquiry Looks at Sale of Field Gear to Military
by Leslie Wayne, The New York Times
October 28th, 2005
In a widening scandal at the United States Special Operations Command, federal investigators are looking into a bribery scheme as well as accusations of improper influence involving millions of dollars in battlefield equipment used by Navy Seals and Army Green Berets and Rangers. |
| U.N.: Massive Fraud in Iraq Oil Program
by Maggie Farley, The Los Angeles Times
October 27th, 2005
The United Nations' oil-for-food program was so badly managed and supervised that more than half of the 4,500 companies doing business with Iraq paid illegal surcharges and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, finds an independent investigation into the program.
|
| US: Rules Tightened for Contractors in Combat Zones
by Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg
October 27th, 2005
The new rules mandate background checks and permission from the military before a contractor can carry a weapon, and they spell out conditions for medical care and evacuation. At least 524 U.S. military contract workers, many of them Iraqis, have been killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
|
| US: Pentagon Settles Some Halliburton Billing Disputes
by Tom Fowler, The Houston Chronicle
October 26th, 2005
The Army Corps of Engineers has settled payment disputes for six out of 10 task orders costing about $1.4 billion under its Restore Iraqi Oil contract with Houston-based Halliburton. Auditors concluded the military had been overcharged by about $108.4 million for fuel brought into Iraq from Kuwait under the orders. |
| US: Technology Company Hired After 9/11 Charged Too Much for Labor, Audit Says
by Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham, The Washington Post
October 23rd, 2005
Federal auditors say the prime contractor, Unisys Corp., overbilled taxpayers for as much as 171,000 hours' worth of labor and overtime by charging up to $131 an hour for employees who were paid less than half that amount while working on a $1 billion technology contract to improve the nation's transportation security system. |
| IRAQ: Making a killing
by Jon Swain, The Sunday Times
October 23rd, 2005
The American government is hiring private security firms to stabilise Iraq — and paying them a fortune to do it. But many of them are unregulated and operate outside the law. |
| IRAQ: Into a War zone, on a Deadly Road
by Cam Simpson, The Chicago Tribune
October 13th, 2005
Thousands of workers are needed to meet the demands of the unprecedented privatization of military support operations unfolding under the watch of the U.S. Army and KBR, its prime contractor in Iraq. KBR, in turn, KBR, outsources much of the work to lowly-paid workers imported from developing nations.
|
| IRAQ: War Fuels Human Labor Trade
by Cam Simpson and Aamer Madhani, The Chicago Tribune
October 13th, 2005
The United States has long condemned the practices that are now part of the privatization of the American war effort and which is central to the operations of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the U.S. military's biggest private contractor in Iraq. |
| IRAQ: Rescue Spares Some Workers
by Cam Simpson, The Chicago Tribune
October 10th, 2005
Footage of 12 of their countrymen executed at the hands of insurgents in Iraq last year set off a panic among Nepalis who didn't want to risk the same fate. But a manager for First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co., issued an ultimatum: Agree to travel to Iraq and they would get more food and water. Refuse, and they would get nothing and be put out on the streets of Kuwait City to find their way home. |
| WORLD: Steady Growth Expected for Private Security Industry
by Stephen Fidler, The Financial Times
September 13th, 2005
There are estimated to be more than 20,000 armed expatriates working for private security companies in Iraq, more than all the non-US troops combined and contrary their numbers do not appear to have fallen appreciably. The Baghdad bubble, as it has been dubbed, has yet to burst.
|
| US: Disaster Hacks
by Editorial, The Los Angeles Times
September 11th, 2005
As with the hurricane, there were warnings that FEMA was turning into a disaster. The union representing its career employees wrote to members of Congress last year that politically connected contractors and novices without disaster-relief experience had taken over and trashed FEMA's professionalism. |
| IRAQ: Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings
by Jonathan Finer, The Washington Post
September 10th, 2005
Recent shootings of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving the legion of U.S., British and other foreign security contractors operating in the country, are drawing increasing concern from Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders who say they undermine relations between foreign military forces and Iraqi civilians.
|
| US: Boeing May Avoid Criminal Prosecution
by Jame Gunsalus and Cary O'Reilly , Bloomberg
September 10th, 2005
Boeing is in talks with the Justice Department to pay a fine and avoid criminal charges related to the scandals through a "deferred prosecution." The fine may be as high as $500 million. |
| US: Private Sector Poised to Reap Windfall from Katrina
by John Broder, The New York Times
September 10th, 2005
Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction. |
| IRAQ: Security Contractors Under Scrutiny After Shootings
by Jonathan Finer, The Washington Post
September 10th, 2005
Recent shootings of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving the legion of U.S., British and other foreign security contractors operating in the country, are drawing increasing concern from Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders who say they undermine relations between foreign military forces and Iraqi civilians. |
| UK: War Opponent Holds Stake in Iraq Security Firm
by Isabel Oakeshott, The Evening Standard
September 9th, 2005
Sir Malcolm has been a fierce critic of the war, but an investigation into his financial interests shows his share options in a private security firm are rocketing in value as the company wins new contracts while the insurgency in Iraq continues.
|
| US: Bush Insider Pushes Clients for Hurricane Rebuilding
by Thomas B. Edsall, The Washington Post
September 8th, 2005
After leaving FEMA in March 2003, Joe M. Allbaugh, who managed the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign, founded Allbaugh Co., a lobbying-consulting firm with many clients in the disaster-relief business. The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I'm dedicated to helping private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
|
| IRAQ: Extra Funds Needed for Iraq Reconstruction
by Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
September 7th, 2005
Stuart Bowen, U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said it is unclear where the new funds would come from, but it is not the right time to discuss more money to given the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. Gulf region. |
| US: Halliburton for Help on Hurricane Damaged Bases
by Jon H. Cushman Jr., The New York Times
September 4th, 2005
It is a familiar role for KBR, which under longstanding contracts has delivered the engineering equivalent of first aid to the Navy and other military and government agencies after natural disasters for more than 15 years. This time, the Halliburton unit's performance is likely to be watched especially closely, as its work under separate contracts in Iraq has come under extensive criticism in the past two years. |
| US: Pentagon Acquisition Needs Cultural Change
by Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters
September 3rd, 2005
Some lower-level U.S. Air Force and Pentagon officials do not yet fully recognize the need to overhaul defense procurement to make it more transparent and avoid problems of the past, the U.S. military's top internal watchdog said on Thursday. |
| US: Defense firms feast on Bush’s 'War on Terror'
Taipai Times
August 29th, 2005
According to reports, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Honeywell and United Technologies posted all-time best-ever profits in the first half of this year and they still have a huge list of orders. |
| IRAQ: Re-engineering Iraqi agriculture
by Jeremy Smith, Global Research
August 27th, 2005
Under the guise of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is setting out to totally re-engineer the country's traditional farming systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness. They’ve even created a new law – Order 81 – to make sure it happens. |
| US: Lockheed Martin Is Hired to Bolster Transit Security in N.Y.
by Sewell Chan and Shadi Rahimi, The New York Times
August 23rd, 2005
A new world of transit security in New York City began to take form this morning, as officials disclosed plans to saturate the transit system with 1,000 video cameras, 3,000 motion detectors and a wide array of sophisticated gadgets, all intended to buffer the city's subways, bridges and tunnels from a terror attack.
|
| IRAQ: Mercenaries Mount Offensive
by John Hanchette, Niagra Falls Reporter
August 23rd, 2005
Retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired "private security companies" -- as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year's worth of salary -- certainly better than Army pay.
|
| IRAQ: The Trillion-Dollar War
by Linda Bilmes, The New York Times
August 19th, 2005
The cost goes well beyond -- ongoing current costs, foreign aid to reward cooperation in Iraq, inducements for recruits and for military personnel serving second and third deployments, replacing military hardware and long-term costs for disability and health payments of returning troops bring the price tag to over $1 trillion. |
| IRAQ: The Other Army
by Daniel Bergner, The New York Times
August 14th, 2005
One of the largest private security companies in Iraq, Triple Canopy, was born immediately after the invasion. Plenty of other companies have done the same, some that were more established before the American invasion, some less. |
| IRAQ: Pentagon Report Finds 'Coordination,' Not 'Control' of Security Contractors
by Nathan Hodge, Defense Daily
August 12th, 2005
Earlier this summer, Marines detained a group of private contractors in Iraq for allegedly firing on their positions in Fallujah; the contractors, who worked for North Carolina-based Zapata Engineering, were expelled from Iraq after their release. That highly publicized incident followed questions from lawmakers about oversight of contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
| IRAQ: Lucrative Fraud
The Baltimore Sun
August 12th, 2005
Since 2003, the disbursement of aid and reconstruction funds in Iraq has not been in the hands of the United Nations, and if anything the record is even more dismal. |
| IRAQ: Fraud in Weapons Deals Drained $1 billion
by Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder/San Jose Mercury News
August 11th, 2005
Iraqi investigators have uncovered widespread fraud and waste in more than $1 billion worth of weapons deals arranged by middlemen who reneged or took huge kickbacks on contracts to arm Iraq's fledgling military, according to a confidential report and interviews with U.S. and Iraqi officials. |
| US: The Hidden Contractor Casualties in Iraq
by Kevin Whitelaw, US News and World Report
August 8th, 2005
In a report the Pentagon submitted to Congress earlier this year, some partial figures have been released. From May 2003 through October 2004, U.S. authorities recorded at least 1,171 contractor casualties, including 166 contractors who were killed. |
| IRAQ: Sierra Leone Workers Head for Iraq
Aljazeera
July 30th, 2005
The Labour Ministry's overseas employment officer Ismael Kargbo declined to reveal the name of the company, but said the government had contracted a wage of roughly $100 per month for each of the workers, plus perks such as free international telephone calls. |
| IRAQ: Worry Grows as Foreigners Flock to Risky Jobs
by Sonni Efron, The Los Angeles Times
July 30th, 2005
If hired, the Colombians would join a swelling population of heavily armed private military forces working in Iraq who are seeking higher wages in dangerous jobs and what some critics say is a troubling result of efforts by the U.S. to "outsource" its operations in Iraq and other countries.
|
| IRAQ: Security Costs Slow Iraq Reconstruction
by Renae Merle and Griff Witte, The Washington Post
July 29th, 2005
Efforts to rebuild water, electricity and health networks in Iraq are being shortchanged by higher-than-expected costs to provide security and by generous financial awards to contractors, according to a series of reports by government investigators. |
| US: The Best Army We Can Buy
by David M. Kennedy, The New York Times
July 25th, 2005
Our soldiers are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify. |
| US: Recruiting Database Inspires Outrage
by Sue Bushell, CIO
July 15th, 2005
Privacy advocates and anti-war campaigners in the US are outraged at revelations that the Defense Department and a private contractor have been building an extensive database of 30 million 16-to-25-year-olds to assist military recruiters. |
| INDIA: Bechtel Sells Its Stake In Dabhol Power Plant
by JOHN LARKIN, Wall Street Journal
July 14th, 2005
Bechtel Group Inc. agreed to sell its equity in the troubled Dabhol power project for $160 million, according to people involved in the transaction, edging India closer to ending a four-year dispute that has plagued its efforts to boost foreign investment.
|
| IRAQ: L-3 Snaps Up $426-million Army Intel Work
Red Herring
July 11th, 2005
L-3 Communications has landed a contract with the U.S. Army to provide “intelligence support services in Iraq” worth up to $426 million, another sign that the eight-year-old defense contractor could be on the road to one day rivaling industry heavyweights like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. |
| US: Judge rules in Iraq Whistle-Blower Case
by Sue Pleming, Reuters
July 11th, 2005
A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that a whistle-blower case alleging fraud against Custer Battles, a U.S. security contractor employed in Iraq could go ahead, but excluded any work paid for with Iraqi oil money. |
| IRAQ: Tension and Confusion Between Troops, and Contractors on the Battlefield
by Josh White and Griff Witte, The Washington Post
July 10th, 2005
Private security contractors operate outside the military chain of command and are not subject to military law, which can lead to resentment and confusion in the field. Contractors, many of them veterans of years in combat, complain that young U.S. troops lack their experience and judgment under pressure. Yet each group cannot carry out its mission in a hostile Iraq without the other.
|
| IRAQ: Halliburton's Higher Bill for $5 Billion More
by Griff Witte, The Washington Post
July 6th, 2005
The new order, which comes despite lingering questions about the company's past billing, replaces an earlier agreement that expired last June but had been extended through this spring to ensure a continuous supply of food, sanitation, laundry and other logistical services for the troops. |
| Hallliburton Wins New $4.9Billion Iraq Contract
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
July 6th, 2005
With little fanfare and no public announcement, the U.S. Army quietly awarded $4.972 billion in new work to Halliburton on May 1 to support the United States military occupation of Iraq. |
| IRAQ: Workers Pay with Their Lives in War Zone
by Brendan Nicholson, The Age
June 25th, 2005
In just two years, 244 civilian contractors have died violently in Iraq. Money attracted most of them to the most dangerous place in the world - and there they died, in sniper attacks, missile and rocket attacks, helicopter crashes, suicide bombings and decapitations that followed kidnappings.
|
| JORDAN: Land of Tycoons
by Stephen Glain, Newsweek International
June 19th, 2005
Driven from their own country by a deadly insurgency, Iraq's most prominent business families have exiled themselves to neighboring Jordan, where they manage their empires by telephone, e-mail and courier. At the core of this group are leaders of Iraq's dozen or so powerful merchant families who for the past century have controlled Iraq's private sector. |
| US: Off-budget Accounting for Iraq
by Editorial, The Roanoke Times
June 18th, 2005
The 2006 budget submitted to Congress in February didn't contain one penny for combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. Bush insisted it would be impossible to know how much would be needed, so instead of including anything in the regular budget, he plans to continue the tradition of coming to Congress for emergency supplemental appropriations when war funds get low. |
| UK: Land Rovers Deployed Against Civilians
by Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
June 18th, 2005
Evidence that military Land Rovers are being used against civilians - despite assurances from the British government that they are not - is revealed in photographs taken in Gaza, Uzbekistan, and Aceh province in Indonesia. |
| US: SAIC Rejoins Pentagon's Media Blitz
by Dean Calbreath, The San Diego Union-Tribune
June 18th, 2005
The Pentagon's Special Operations Command last week launched a five-year, $300 million media campaign to promote its message overseas – notably in "higher-threat areas such as Iraq and Lebanon" – to be coordinated by the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element. SAIC was one of the companies picked to lead the campaign
|
|
|
