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In the biggest foreign-bribery penalty under U.S. law, Titan Corp. pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $28.5 million to settle allegations that it covered up payments in six countries, including millions of dollars funneled to an associate of an African president to influence a national election.
A history of recent wars makes the region attractive to private companies recruiting for security forces, including El Salvador, the only Latin American country to maintain troops in the US-led coalition in Iraq. While the small nation has 338 soldiers on the ground, there are about twice as many Salvadorans working there for private contracting companies.
Titan Corp. has pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it bribed foreign officials for business favors and agreed to pay $28.5 million in both criminal and civil fines to the federal government to settle the charges.
Congress in July approved a Bush administration request for $25 billion extra in fiscal 2005 and is now weighing a request for $75 billion more. Of that $100 billion, $6 billion could go to Halliburton, the world's second-biggest oilfield services company, according to the Army charts.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and chairman of Senate Finance Committeem, sends Feb. 17 letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting update on Bush administration's position regarding legal status of the Coalition Provisional Authority and questions of contract fraud in Iraq.
The chairman of Occidental Petroleum is staging his own protest against the human rights groups who picket his home and office --he is suing them for harassment and wants a court to grant him damages.
At least 232 civilians working on U.S. military and reconstruction contracts have been killed there, many in violent but largely overlooked slayings, according to a report issued to Congress several weeks ago, but the death toll actually could be far higher.
The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root, the shipments of concrete, the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclavesÂcomplete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul.
The Defense Department is investigating a pool of former senior military and civilian Defense managers now working for government contractors for possible criminal violations of federal conflict-of-interest rules, according to law enforcement officials.
Although under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, Halliburton has been given bonuses for some of its work supporting the U.S. military in Kuwait and Afghanistan. The Army said KBR's performance has been rated as "excellent" to "very good" for more than a dozen "task orders" in Kuwait and Afghanistan supporting troops.
Privacy advocates say a committee set up recently to advise the Homeland Security Department on privacy issues amounts to little more than a fox guarding a chicken coop.
The Sao Paulo Attorney General´s Office established as illegal the behavior of German subject Frank Guenter Salewski and the Body Guard Company, which were hiring army and reserve forces to work in Iraq, according to reports made public.
A report by a U.S. security consulting, Strategic Forecasting Inc., hired by the State and Defense departments to study the presence of weapons in Latin America called the mercenary force an expanding gang with intimate knowledge of Mexican drug-trafficking methods and routes.
William Taylor, a U.S. diplomat who oversees Iraqi reconstruction efforts, said the Iraq's violent insurgency creates a "security premium," gobbling up money that otherwise would have been spent to provide clean water, electricity and sanitation for Iraqis.
The Rock is just one part of the complicated balancing of government, military and private interests all across Iraq every day. On one side are U.S. intelligence officers warily declassifying information. On the other are contractors seeking access to sensitive data to do jobs once done by soldiers: protecting VIPs, transporting goods and guarding vulnerable targets.
Today, though, the major threat on Baghdad's notorious airport road may no longer be snipers, insurgents or suicide bombers. What drivers most need to fear: trigger-happy security contractors. "Civilian contractors fire indiscriminately."
President George W. Bush did an abrupt about face Tuesday, reversing a previous pledge to legislate limits on carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. Bush said such a rule would prove too costly, launching another in a slew of recent federal and state government attempts to roll back environmental protections in favor of controlling energy prices.
An Anglo-Iraqi billionaire who has close links to the Blair government, built his financial empire on peddling his influence with Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime.
Former Boeing official, Michael Sears, was sentenced to four months in prison for deceiving the government by offering a job to a Pentagon official while negotiating a $23 billion defense contract. Sears, 57, also was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and perform 200 hours of community service.