By Dan Kenney
Co-coordinator of
No Private Armies
March 5, 2011
The Bipartisan Congressional commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan came out with their second Interim Report to Congress on February 24th. This report dispels any doubts about whether privatization is costing taxpayers too much. The Federal reliance on contractors is not only costing too much but billions are being lost to fraud and waste. The report proves that the unprecedented outsourcing that has occurred in these wars needs to be stopped. The “Commission believes the United States has come to over-rely on contractors.â€
The Commission’s conservative estimate is that since October 2001 at least $177 billion has been spent on private contracts and grants to support U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is equivalent to $407,000,000 per Congressional district or $1,505 per U.S. household. Of that misspent amounts run in the tens of billions.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warned the Commission in January of this year that the entire $11.4 billion for contracts to build nearly 900 facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces is at risk due to inadequate planning. This estimate does not include the waste that has resulted from Afghanistan‘s inability to sustain projects.
In addition to waste there is also the issue of fraud. According to the Association of Fraud Examiners an estimated 7% of revenue is lost to fraud, or $12 billion. Many observers also believe that waste accounts for substantially greater sums than the fraud and abuse.
The Commission conducted more than 900 meetings and briefings, along with a series of trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, and over 19 Commission hearings. After their research they have developed over 30 recommendations for congress and the Obama Administration.
The Obama Administration has been just as silent as the previous administration on this issue privatization. In March of 2009 Obama issued a memo on government contracting in which he stated:
“The Federal Government must have sufficient capacity
to manage and oversee the contracting process from start
to finish, so as to ensure that taxpayer funds are spent wisely
and are not subject to excessive risk.â€
The Obama administration failure to act on this memo however is made evident in a statement made by the Special Inspector General of Afghanistan Reconstruction. Major General Arnold Fields told the Commission in a hearing entitled “Recurring Problems in Afghan Construction†January 24th 2011, “We don’t have enough trained folks within the federal establishment to provide the oversight of the very contractors we are brining on board.†When government agencies lack experienced and qualified workers to provide oversight, the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse in contract performances increases exponentially. In some cases contractors are hired to perform the oversight of other contractors for the federal agencies. To this fact the Commission stated, “The Commission firmly believes that contractors need to be managed by military and government civilian personnel. Anything less is unacceptable.â€
During the same January 2011 hearing Secretary of Defense Gates expressed his own concern for the government’s “level of dependency†on contractors.
“Although there is historical precedent for contracted support to our military forces, I am concerned about the risks introduced by our current level of dependency, our future total force mix, and the need to better plan for { operational contract support} in the future. . . The time is now-while the lessons learned from recent operations are fresh- to institutionalize the changes necessary to influence a cultural shift.â€
The issue of accountability is also covered in the report. The report states, “A serious concern with relying on armed security contractors is a potential gap in legal accountability.†This “legal gray zone†in which these private military contractors operate can lead to diplomatic conflicts with the host nations. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan governments have all demanded private military companies to leave their countries. But this demand has not been met for the very dependency we have touched on earlier. As a nation the U.S. can not operate in Central Asia or any where else without the support of private companies. These present wars have become the most privatized wars in America’s history. We have moved into new territory and the Commission’s report makes it clear that this has been done haphazardly with great consequence to human life and taxpayer money.
Whether Congress listens to the Commission’s findings is yet to be seen. The report was ignored, coming out during the budget battle, although the connection between the Nation’s deficit and a war that is costing $700 million per week and nearly 50% of that amount going into contracts with over 600 companies operating in these war zones. And now we have the evidence to show that tens of billions of that money is being wasted or stolen. Also at this time of growing attacks on unions, workers, and the middle class in this country under the guise of budget deficits, it seems to be the most responsible choice to draw parallels between this wasting and thievery of public funds by private war profiteers and mercenaries.
In its conclusion the Commission said, “If, on the other hand, the federal government cannot muster the resources and the will to strategically employ, manage, and oversee mission-critical contractors effectively, then it should reconsider using contractors, or reconsider the scope of its mission with a view to trimming them.â€
Now that we have a majority in Congress that is dedicated to the Market solving all problems, and seemingly bent on breaking government down to a postage stamp size capabilities of real oversight, than it seems time for the citizens to call for the passing of the S.O.S. Act. The S.O.S. Act is the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, H.R. 4650, introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky D-IL and into the Senate by Mr. Sanders, I-VT.
The S.O.S. Act calls for the U.S. to phase out use of private military contractors. It seems that given the lack of will in Congress and in this administration to take oversight of these contractors seriously, we should end our use of them. This will be a difficult task given the present climate; it will require a great outpouring of citizen support to make such a cultural change within the Department of Defense, the State Department, and within the intelligence community. (75% of the intelligence agencies activities are performed by private contractors.)
If the resolve and will of the government is missing than this policy change must come from the people. It is after all, our money, the lives of our loved ones, and the future of our nation at risk.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Pakistan arrests US security contractor as rift with CIA deepens
ISI tells American agency to unmask all its covert operatives after arrest of Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar, over visa expiry
Pakistani authorities have arrested a US government security contractor amid a worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to "come clean" about its network of covert operatives in the country.
The arrest came at the start of the murder trial of another American held in Pakistan, the CIA agent Raymond Davis.
Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired.
Little was known about DeHaven except that his firm, which also has offices in Afghanistan and Dubai, is staffed by retired US military and defence personnel who boast of direct experience in the "global war on terror".
It was unclear whether his arrest was linked to escalating tensions between the Inter-Services Intelligence and the CIA, triggered by the trial of Davis, who appeared in handcuffs at a brief court hearing in a Lahore jail.
The 36-year-old former special forces soldier, whose status as a spy was revealed by the Guardian, refused to sign a chargesheet presented to him by the prosecution, which says he murdered two men at a traffic junction on January 27.
Davis instead repeated his claim of diplomatic immunity – a claim supported by President Barack Obama, who called him "our diplomat".
The press and public were excluded from the hearing in Kot Lakhpat jail, where Pakistani officials have taken unusual measures to ensure Davis's security amid a public clamour for his execution.
The furore has also triggered the most serious crisis between the ISI and the CIA since the 9/11 attacks. A senior ISI official told the Guardian that the CIA must "ensure there are no more Raymond Davises or his ilk" if it is to repair the tattered relationship of trust.
"They need to come clean, tell us who they are and what they are doing. They need to stop doing things behind our back," he said. There are "two or three score" covert US operatives roaming Pakistan, "if not more", he said.
CIA spokesman George Little said that agency ties to the ISI "have been strong over the years, and when there are issues to sort out, we work through them. That's the sign of a healthy partnership".
Pakistani civilian officials warned that the ISI was amplifying fallout from the Davis crisis through selective media leaks to win concessions from the US.
"They're playing the media; in private they're much more deferential to the Americans," said a senior government official, who added that the two agencies had weathered previous disagreements in private.
The crisis has sucked in the military top brass from both countries. On Tuesday, a Pakistani delegation led by General Ashfaq Kayani met US generals, led by Admiral Mike Mullen, at a luxury resort in Oman to hammer out the issues.
The US stressed that it "did not want the US-Pakistan relationship to go into a freefall under media and domestic pressures", according to an account of the meeting obtained by Foreign Policy magazine.
The ISI official agreed that future co-operation was vital. "They need us; we need them," he said. "But we need to move forward in the right direction, based on equality and respect."
The media furore over Davis has fuelled scrutiny of other American security officials in Pakistan and their visa arrangements, and may have led police to Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar on Friday.
DeHaven runs a company named Catalyst Services which, according to its website, is staffed by retired military and defence department personnel who have "played some role in major world events" including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military mission to Somalia and the "global war on terror". Services offered include "full-service secure residences", protective surveillance and armed security.
One prospective customer who met DeHaven last year described him as a small, slightly-built man, who wore glasses and had broad knowledge of Pakistani politics. DeHaven said he had lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for one year, had married a Pakistani woman along the border with Afghanistan, and spoke Pashto fluently.
He said he moved his base from Peshawar to Islamabad last year over suspicions that he worked for Blackwater, the controversial US military contracting firm.
His business partner is listed on company documents as Hunter Obrikat with an address in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Guardian was unable to contact either men at listed numbers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and Dubai.
US embassy spokeswoman Courtney Beale said DeHaven was "not a direct employee of the US government" but added that details could not be confirmed until a consular officer had met him. The arrest is another sign of brittle relations between the two countries.
US officials in Washington argue that Davis is a registered diplomat who should be immediately released under the provisions of the Vienna convention. But that plea has fallen on deaf ears in Pakistan, where the papers have been filled with lurid accounts of the spy's alleged activities, including unlikely accounts of him working with the Taliban and al-Qaida.
The US has also struck some blows in the covert public relations war. After a lull of three weeks, the CIA restarted its drone campaign in the tribal belt last Monday, with near-daily attacks on militant targets since then. "It's their way of showing who's in charge," said a senior Pakistani official.
And at the Oman meeting, Mullen warned Kayani he would apply "other levers" to the Pakistanis if a solution to the case was not found, the official added.
Since Davis's CIA status was revealed, US officials have told Pakistani officials that their best hope is in offering compensation to the families of the two men Davis shot in Lahore. Religious parties, however, have pressured relatives not to accept money.
Meanwhile, the Zardari government says it will settle the issue of Davis's diplomatic status at a court hearing scheduled for 14 March.
Pakistani authorities have arrested a US government security contractor amid a worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to "come clean" about its network of covert operatives in the country.
The arrest came at the start of the murder trial of another American held in Pakistan, the CIA agent Raymond Davis.
Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired.
Little was known about DeHaven except that his firm, which also has offices in Afghanistan and Dubai, is staffed by retired US military and defence personnel who boast of direct experience in the "global war on terror".
It was unclear whether his arrest was linked to escalating tensions between the Inter-Services Intelligence and the CIA, triggered by the trial of Davis, who appeared in handcuffs at a brief court hearing in a Lahore jail.
The 36-year-old former special forces soldier, whose status as a spy was revealed by the Guardian, refused to sign a chargesheet presented to him by the prosecution, which says he murdered two men at a traffic junction on January 27.
Davis instead repeated his claim of diplomatic immunity – a claim supported by President Barack Obama, who called him "our diplomat".
The press and public were excluded from the hearing in Kot Lakhpat jail, where Pakistani officials have taken unusual measures to ensure Davis's security amid a public clamour for his execution.
The furore has also triggered the most serious crisis between the ISI and the CIA since the 9/11 attacks. A senior ISI official told the Guardian that the CIA must "ensure there are no more Raymond Davises or his ilk" if it is to repair the tattered relationship of trust.
"They need to come clean, tell us who they are and what they are doing. They need to stop doing things behind our back," he said. There are "two or three score" covert US operatives roaming Pakistan, "if not more", he said.
CIA spokesman George Little said that agency ties to the ISI "have been strong over the years, and when there are issues to sort out, we work through them. That's the sign of a healthy partnership".
Pakistani civilian officials warned that the ISI was amplifying fallout from the Davis crisis through selective media leaks to win concessions from the US.
"They're playing the media; in private they're much more deferential to the Americans," said a senior government official, who added that the two agencies had weathered previous disagreements in private.
The crisis has sucked in the military top brass from both countries. On Tuesday, a Pakistani delegation led by General Ashfaq Kayani met US generals, led by Admiral Mike Mullen, at a luxury resort in Oman to hammer out the issues.
The US stressed that it "did not want the US-Pakistan relationship to go into a freefall under media and domestic pressures", according to an account of the meeting obtained by Foreign Policy magazine.
The ISI official agreed that future co-operation was vital. "They need us; we need them," he said. "But we need to move forward in the right direction, based on equality and respect."
The media furore over Davis has fuelled scrutiny of other American security officials in Pakistan and their visa arrangements, and may have led police to Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar on Friday.
DeHaven runs a company named Catalyst Services which, according to its website, is staffed by retired military and defence department personnel who have "played some role in major world events" including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military mission to Somalia and the "global war on terror". Services offered include "full-service secure residences", protective surveillance and armed security.
One prospective customer who met DeHaven last year described him as a small, slightly-built man, who wore glasses and had broad knowledge of Pakistani politics. DeHaven said he had lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for one year, had married a Pakistani woman along the border with Afghanistan, and spoke Pashto fluently.
He said he moved his base from Peshawar to Islamabad last year over suspicions that he worked for Blackwater, the controversial US military contracting firm.
His business partner is listed on company documents as Hunter Obrikat with an address in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Guardian was unable to contact either men at listed numbers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and Dubai.
US embassy spokeswoman Courtney Beale said DeHaven was "not a direct employee of the US government" but added that details could not be confirmed until a consular officer had met him. The arrest is another sign of brittle relations between the two countries.
US officials in Washington argue that Davis is a registered diplomat who should be immediately released under the provisions of the Vienna convention. But that plea has fallen on deaf ears in Pakistan, where the papers have been filled with lurid accounts of the spy's alleged activities, including unlikely accounts of him working with the Taliban and al-Qaida.
The US has also struck some blows in the covert public relations war. After a lull of three weeks, the CIA restarted its drone campaign in the tribal belt last Monday, with near-daily attacks on militant targets since then. "It's their way of showing who's in charge," said a senior Pakistani official.
And at the Oman meeting, Mullen warned Kayani he would apply "other levers" to the Pakistanis if a solution to the case was not found, the official added.
Since Davis's CIA status was revealed, US officials have told Pakistani officials that their best hope is in offering compensation to the families of the two men Davis shot in Lahore. Religious parties, however, have pressured relatives not to accept money.
Meanwhile, the Zardari government says it will settle the issue of Davis's diplomatic status at a court hearing scheduled for 14 March.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Pakistan Trial of CIA Operative Adjourns
A Pakistani court has adjourned the murder trial of a CIA agent and former Blackwater operative accused in the shooting deaths of two men last month. The Obama administration had insisted Raymond Davis was a diplomat until acknowledging his work for the CIA this week. The United States has called for Davis’s repatriation as a diplomat entitled to diplomatic immunity, but Pakistani authorities are challenging his diplomatic status in court. Davis’s murder trial will continue next week. According to Reuters, two U.S. citizens were quietly withdrawn from Pakistan last month after causing a fatal car accident as they came to Davis’s aid. A police report says the pair struck a Pakistani motorist, only to flee the scene. The Davis case has strained U.S.-Pakistani ties. On Thursday, Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI, announced it’s scaling back cooperation with the CIA.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Gadhafi getting help from mercenaries
TRIPOLI, Libya, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was getting the help of African mercenaries and militiamen to maintain his 40-year rule, witnesses said Wednesday.
The New York Times said thousands of mercenaries and militia were on roads headed for Tripoli, the capital and Gadhafi's stronghold, where Gadhafi appears to be strengthening his forces in anticipation of a decisive stage in the struggle for control of the country.
Opponents in Tripoli said they were making plans for their first organized protest Friday, the Times said.
GALLERY: Protesting Moammar Gadhafi
A growing number of military officers and officials Wednesday said they had broken with Gadhafi over his intentions to bomb and kill Libyan civilians, the report said.
Armed militiamen strafing crowds from the back of pickup trucks killed scores in Tripoli, residents told the Times, and bursts of gunfire extended the reign of terror Wednesday.
Human rights groups say they have confirmed about 300 deaths, though witnesses suggested the number was far larger. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy said there were probably more than 1,000 dead across the country.
Italy is the former colonial power in Libya.
CNN, citing Libya's Quryna newspaper, reported the crew of a Libyan military aircraft Wednesday refused to bomb Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and let the warplane crash in an uninhabited area southwest of the city.
The newspaper said the pilot parachuted out of the Russian-built Sukhoi-22.
CNN said Quryna has switched from reporting regime propaganda to reporting on the protests and casualties.
Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news channel, said its correspondent reported protesters claiming control of the western city of Misurata. In an Internet statement, army officers in the city vowed "total support for the protesters," the report said.
News outlets reported Benghazi had been taken over by the opposition.
Meanwhile, Italian warplanes were said to be keeping an eye on a stalled Libyan naval vessel off the coast of Malta. Al-Jazeera reported its correspondent in Malta said tensions were rising in Italy over the civil unrest in Libya.
There were rumors in Malta that the vessel had lowered its flags, suggesting its crew was defecting.
Much of the country's east region appeared to be in the hands of protesters, al-Jazeera said.
Meanwhile, the Swedish tabloid Expressen said Libya's recently resigned justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, claims Gadhafi personally ordered the Lockerbie airliner bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.
An al-Jazeera correspondent said there were no officials manning the border when the broadcaster's team crossed into Libya near Tobruk.
Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told al-Jazeera his troops had switched sides: "We are on the side of the people."
Earlier, Libyan government officials said the country's former interior minister, who resigned to support anti-government protesters, had been kidnapped.
Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN Wednesday he resigned earlier in the week after hearing unarmed civilians were killed in Benghazi, while Libyan state media reported that "gangs" in Benghazi had kidnapped the minister.
Libyan security forces have warned that the people responsible for Abidi's kidnapping "will be chased in their hiding places." Earlier Wednesday, Abidi said he had resigned his post to back protesters who want Gadhafi to end his rule.
"Gadhafi told me he was planning on using airplanes against the people in Benghazi, and I told him that he will have thousands of people killed if he does that," Abidi told CNN in a telephone interview.
He called Gadhafi "a stubborn man" who won't concede.
"He will either commit suicide or he will get killed," the former minister said.
Abidi urged security forces to defect and join the anti-government protesters. A number of security personnel have switched sides, and a growing number of Libyan government and diplomatic officials reportedly have resigned since the protests started Feb.15.
After Gadhafi's second televised speech in two days -- in which he vowed to kill protesters "house by house" -- thousands of his supporters went to the Tripoli's central Green Square, wearing green bandannas and carrying machetes, witnesses said.
"It looks like they have been given a green light to kill these people," one witness said.
Tripoli remained under an information blackout, with no Internet access and intermittent phone service, making independent confirmation of events difficult.
In Tobruk, on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian border, Libya's historic red, black and green flag -- barred during Gadhafi's reign -- flew over many buildings, The Wall Street Journal said.
Gadhafi, meanwhile, vowed to remain in the country "until the end."
"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," he said, calling the protesters "cockroaches" and "greasy rats," and blaming the unrest on foreigners, including the United States and al-Qaida.
Condemnations of the crackdown mounted, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the violence as "completely unacceptable."
The U.N. Security Council condemned Libya's use of anti-civilian violence, which it said was a "crime," and called for those responsible to be held accountable.
The League of Arab States condemned what it also called crimes against civilians and suspended Libya as a member until it responded to the people's demands.
In Brussels, the European Union suspended a framework agreement it had been negotiating with Libya.
Governments worked to get tens of thousands of foreigners out of Libya Wednesday, whether by sea or air. At least two oil companies said they were suspending some operations and evacuating workers.
Libya holds Africa's greatest oil reserves, normally exporting 1.2 million barrels a day, mostly to Europe, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
The New York Times said thousands of mercenaries and militia were on roads headed for Tripoli, the capital and Gadhafi's stronghold, where Gadhafi appears to be strengthening his forces in anticipation of a decisive stage in the struggle for control of the country.
Opponents in Tripoli said they were making plans for their first organized protest Friday, the Times said.
GALLERY: Protesting Moammar Gadhafi
A growing number of military officers and officials Wednesday said they had broken with Gadhafi over his intentions to bomb and kill Libyan civilians, the report said.
Armed militiamen strafing crowds from the back of pickup trucks killed scores in Tripoli, residents told the Times, and bursts of gunfire extended the reign of terror Wednesday.
Human rights groups say they have confirmed about 300 deaths, though witnesses suggested the number was far larger. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy said there were probably more than 1,000 dead across the country.
Italy is the former colonial power in Libya.
CNN, citing Libya's Quryna newspaper, reported the crew of a Libyan military aircraft Wednesday refused to bomb Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and let the warplane crash in an uninhabited area southwest of the city.
The newspaper said the pilot parachuted out of the Russian-built Sukhoi-22.
CNN said Quryna has switched from reporting regime propaganda to reporting on the protests and casualties.
Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news channel, said its correspondent reported protesters claiming control of the western city of Misurata. In an Internet statement, army officers in the city vowed "total support for the protesters," the report said.
News outlets reported Benghazi had been taken over by the opposition.
Meanwhile, Italian warplanes were said to be keeping an eye on a stalled Libyan naval vessel off the coast of Malta. Al-Jazeera reported its correspondent in Malta said tensions were rising in Italy over the civil unrest in Libya.
There were rumors in Malta that the vessel had lowered its flags, suggesting its crew was defecting.
Much of the country's east region appeared to be in the hands of protesters, al-Jazeera said.
Meanwhile, the Swedish tabloid Expressen said Libya's recently resigned justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, claims Gadhafi personally ordered the Lockerbie airliner bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.
An al-Jazeera correspondent said there were no officials manning the border when the broadcaster's team crossed into Libya near Tobruk.
Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told al-Jazeera his troops had switched sides: "We are on the side of the people."
Earlier, Libyan government officials said the country's former interior minister, who resigned to support anti-government protesters, had been kidnapped.
Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN Wednesday he resigned earlier in the week after hearing unarmed civilians were killed in Benghazi, while Libyan state media reported that "gangs" in Benghazi had kidnapped the minister.
Libyan security forces have warned that the people responsible for Abidi's kidnapping "will be chased in their hiding places." Earlier Wednesday, Abidi said he had resigned his post to back protesters who want Gadhafi to end his rule.
"Gadhafi told me he was planning on using airplanes against the people in Benghazi, and I told him that he will have thousands of people killed if he does that," Abidi told CNN in a telephone interview.
He called Gadhafi "a stubborn man" who won't concede.
"He will either commit suicide or he will get killed," the former minister said.
Abidi urged security forces to defect and join the anti-government protesters. A number of security personnel have switched sides, and a growing number of Libyan government and diplomatic officials reportedly have resigned since the protests started Feb.15.
After Gadhafi's second televised speech in two days -- in which he vowed to kill protesters "house by house" -- thousands of his supporters went to the Tripoli's central Green Square, wearing green bandannas and carrying machetes, witnesses said.
"It looks like they have been given a green light to kill these people," one witness said.
Tripoli remained under an information blackout, with no Internet access and intermittent phone service, making independent confirmation of events difficult.
In Tobruk, on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian border, Libya's historic red, black and green flag -- barred during Gadhafi's reign -- flew over many buildings, The Wall Street Journal said.
Gadhafi, meanwhile, vowed to remain in the country "until the end."
"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," he said, calling the protesters "cockroaches" and "greasy rats," and blaming the unrest on foreigners, including the United States and al-Qaida.
Condemnations of the crackdown mounted, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the violence as "completely unacceptable."
The U.N. Security Council condemned Libya's use of anti-civilian violence, which it said was a "crime," and called for those responsible to be held accountable.
The League of Arab States condemned what it also called crimes against civilians and suspended Libya as a member until it responded to the people's demands.
In Brussels, the European Union suspended a framework agreement it had been negotiating with Libya.
Governments worked to get tens of thousands of foreigners out of Libya Wednesday, whether by sea or air. At least two oil companies said they were suspending some operations and evacuating workers.
Libya holds Africa's greatest oil reserves, normally exporting 1.2 million barrels a day, mostly to Europe, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
How many Davis-type agents are in Pakistan?
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities are trying to figure out the exact number and locations of other Raymond Davis type CIA and Blackwater agents whose main focus, it is feared, is Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
The cold blooded killings in Lahore by Davis has alarmed the Pakistani security agencies, which, according to sources, have started collecting details of all the likes of Raymond Davis, their local moles and their activities in Pakistan.
However, as indicated by the former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that the issue of the Raymond Davis has been mishandled, the sources said that there are certain elements within the government who are found to be too supportive of Washington than Pakistan.
Sources believe that the number of Davis like CIA and Blackwater agents is high and may be around one hundred. However, there is no exact number available with the authorities. It was General Musharraf who, after 9/11 for perpetuating his dictatorial rule, opened the country’s gates for American agents at the cost of Pakistan’s own security.
In 2009, three Americans along with a Pakistani had tried to trespass into the restricted area of Kahuta but the official security agency deployed at the check post got alerted and intercepted them when they crossed the check post. The Pakistani accompanying these Americans was a retired assistant director of the FIA, who while introducing himself as an FIA officer had managed to free the Americans and returned.
Through this trespassing, according to an official report, the Americans had tried to check the security arrangements for the Kahuta Research Laboratories, one of the leading nuclear sites of Pakistan. “This one incident had a vital role in moving out DynCorp men from the Sihala Police College facility where they were allowed to train the police officials but were found in spying on the country’s nuclear facility,” a source said.
DynCorp, which is a Blackwater like private security agency that works for American CIA outside the United States, was also allowed to operate in sensitive areas, including the Sihala Police College by Musharraf but was pampered by the Interior Ministry of the present government.
Despite alarming intelligence reports about the DynCorp’s activities under the cover of Anti-Terrorism Assistance Programme (ATAP), the Interior Ministry, vide its letter number 1/41/2003-Police dated 29 June 2009, had granted an NoC for import of explosive material by the office of ATAP at the Sihala Police College.
“The NoC was issued without security clearance from intelligence agencies under the US pressure,” a security agency report submitted to the government said, adding that prior to approaching the Interior Ministry, the US Embassy in Islamabad had approached the Ministry of Industries to issue the NoC but the Industries Ministry’s authorities decided that it would be issued subject to the clearance by the ISI and IB.
“The IB sought some clarifications about quantity and type of explosives and detail of courses. Resultantly administration of Police College Sihala requested the Americans running the ATAP camp to provide the required details. However, instead of providing the details, Mr Robert A Clark and Mr Bob of ATAP Camp contacted the US Embassy, which used its influence and managed to get the NoC while bypassing the rules.”
In a similar fashion and following the request of the US Embassy as already reported by The News, the Interior Ministry had issued prohibited bore licenses to DynCorp’s local partner Inter-Risk which, after the media reported the matter, had become a major controversy but no one in the Interior Ministry was touched.
Even now some key elements in the Interior Ministry are said to be favouring Washington in Davis case. The same elements, it is said, are using their influence on the families of the deceased, killed by Davis, to accept dollars from Americans to ensure early release of the American killer.
The role of the Pakistani Embassy in the US is also under scrutiny after the reported issuance of about 400 visas to US citizens in the first two days of the implementation of the controversial visa policy under which the embassy was empowered to issue visas to US officials upto one year without referring the cases to Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities are trying to figure out the exact number and locations of other Raymond Davis type CIA and Blackwater agents whose main focus, it is feared, is Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
The cold blooded killings in Lahore by Davis has alarmed the Pakistani security agencies, which, according to sources, have started collecting details of all the likes of Raymond Davis, their local moles and their activities in Pakistan.
However, as indicated by the former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that the issue of the Raymond Davis has been mishandled, the sources said that there are certain elements within the government who are found to be too supportive of Washington than Pakistan.
Sources believe that the number of Davis like CIA and Blackwater agents is high and may be around one hundred. However, there is no exact number available with the authorities. It was General Musharraf who, after 9/11 for perpetuating his dictatorial rule, opened the country’s gates for American agents at the cost of Pakistan’s own security.
In 2009, three Americans along with a Pakistani had tried to trespass into the restricted area of Kahuta but the official security agency deployed at the check post got alerted and intercepted them when they crossed the check post. The Pakistani accompanying these Americans was a retired assistant director of the FIA, who while introducing himself as an FIA officer had managed to free the Americans and returned.
Through this trespassing, according to an official report, the Americans had tried to check the security arrangements for the Kahuta Research Laboratories, one of the leading nuclear sites of Pakistan. “This one incident had a vital role in moving out DynCorp men from the Sihala Police College facility where they were allowed to train the police officials but were found in spying on the country’s nuclear facility,” a source said.
DynCorp, which is a Blackwater like private security agency that works for American CIA outside the United States, was also allowed to operate in sensitive areas, including the Sihala Police College by Musharraf but was pampered by the Interior Ministry of the present government.
Despite alarming intelligence reports about the DynCorp’s activities under the cover of Anti-Terrorism Assistance Programme (ATAP), the Interior Ministry, vide its letter number 1/41/2003-Police dated 29 June 2009, had granted an NoC for import of explosive material by the office of ATAP at the Sihala Police College.
“The NoC was issued without security clearance from intelligence agencies under the US pressure,” a security agency report submitted to the government said, adding that prior to approaching the Interior Ministry, the US Embassy in Islamabad had approached the Ministry of Industries to issue the NoC but the Industries Ministry’s authorities decided that it would be issued subject to the clearance by the ISI and IB.
“The IB sought some clarifications about quantity and type of explosives and detail of courses. Resultantly administration of Police College Sihala requested the Americans running the ATAP camp to provide the required details. However, instead of providing the details, Mr Robert A Clark and Mr Bob of ATAP Camp contacted the US Embassy, which used its influence and managed to get the NoC while bypassing the rules.”
In a similar fashion and following the request of the US Embassy as already reported by The News, the Interior Ministry had issued prohibited bore licenses to DynCorp’s local partner Inter-Risk which, after the media reported the matter, had become a major controversy but no one in the Interior Ministry was touched.
Even now some key elements in the Interior Ministry are said to be favouring Washington in Davis case. The same elements, it is said, are using their influence on the families of the deceased, killed by Davis, to accept dollars from Americans to ensure early release of the American killer.
The role of the Pakistani Embassy in the US is also under scrutiny after the reported issuance of about 400 visas to US citizens in the first two days of the implementation of the controversial visa policy under which the embassy was empowered to issue visas to US officials upto one year without referring the cases to Pakistan.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Growing Anger in Pakistan Over US CIA/Blackwater Killings
LAHORE, Pakistan - – New revelations about a CIA contractor in custody for shooting two men dead heaped pressure on Pakistan's fragile government Tuesday and exposed burning public mistrust of Washington.
Activists of Pakistan's outlawed religious party Jamaat-ud Dawa shout slogans during a protest against arrested US national Raymond Davis in Lahore on February 18. The unpopular government in Pakistan is under huge pressure from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands to release Davis, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). (Photo/Arif Ali) Officials in Washington cited by US media reports confirmed the account of a Pakistani intelligence official, who told AFP that Raymond Davis, the American being held in a prison in Lahore city, was working undercover for the CIA.
Washington is pushing hard for Pakistan's authorities to free Davis, arguing that he has diplomatic immunity and backing his claim to have acted in self-defence when he shot the men in a busy city street nearly four weeks ago.
The foreign ministry has so far refused to define Davis's diplomatic status and a Lahore court last week gave the government another three weeks to do so.
The opposition and relatives of the dead men said it was time for the government to come clean with what it knows of Davis and to address suspicions that he also worked for Xe, a US security firm formerly known as Blackwater.
"Davis deserves no pardon... We knew from day one that he was working for the CIA and Blackwater," said Mohammad Waseem, the brother of the deceased Mohammad Faheem.
"People like Davis have a role in terrorist activities in Pakistan. He should be tried and given the death sentence."
The New York Times on Monday reported that Davis was part of a CIA operation tracking Islamist extremists in eastern Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the virulently anti-Indian group blamed for the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai.
The newspaper said he "worked for years as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide". It noted that the company has long been seen by Pakistanis "as symbolizing a culture of American gun-slinging overseas".
"Whether he is a Blackwater or CIA agent the facts should be exposed by the federal government because it is their responsibility," said Pervez Rashid, spokesman for the opposition-controlled Punjab government.
Pakistani police say that after the shooting on January 27, they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from Davis's car.
A third Pakistani was struck down and killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to his assistance. US officials denied Pakistan access to the vehicle and the occupants are widely believed to have left the country.
Right-wing religious group Jamat-e-Islami, which wants Davis to be hanged for murder, said the courts should be left to adjudicate, but that he should also be now tried for espionage.
A lawyer for the three families of the men killed, Asad Manzoor Butt, raised the possibility of fresh espionage charges but said the claims should not affect an ongoing murder case in the courts.
The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as denying that Davis was directly involved in CIA espionage or drone operations, which have killed hundreds of alleged militants in Pakistan's northwest on the Afghan border.
The case complicates relations with the United States, which have already been strained by mistrust over the US-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday told parliamentarians that the two governments would not allow the Davis case to undermine their "mutually beneficial partnership".
But while he said Pakistan was mindful of its international obligations, he insisted the government "will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity".
US Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan last week to express regret and say Davis would face a criminal investigation at home.
Activists of Pakistan's outlawed religious party Jamaat-ud Dawa shout slogans during a protest against arrested US national Raymond Davis in Lahore on February 18. The unpopular government in Pakistan is under huge pressure from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands to release Davis, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). (Photo/Arif Ali) Officials in Washington cited by US media reports confirmed the account of a Pakistani intelligence official, who told AFP that Raymond Davis, the American being held in a prison in Lahore city, was working undercover for the CIA.
Washington is pushing hard for Pakistan's authorities to free Davis, arguing that he has diplomatic immunity and backing his claim to have acted in self-defence when he shot the men in a busy city street nearly four weeks ago.
The foreign ministry has so far refused to define Davis's diplomatic status and a Lahore court last week gave the government another three weeks to do so.
The opposition and relatives of the dead men said it was time for the government to come clean with what it knows of Davis and to address suspicions that he also worked for Xe, a US security firm formerly known as Blackwater.
"Davis deserves no pardon... We knew from day one that he was working for the CIA and Blackwater," said Mohammad Waseem, the brother of the deceased Mohammad Faheem.
"People like Davis have a role in terrorist activities in Pakistan. He should be tried and given the death sentence."
The New York Times on Monday reported that Davis was part of a CIA operation tracking Islamist extremists in eastern Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the virulently anti-Indian group blamed for the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai.
The newspaper said he "worked for years as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide". It noted that the company has long been seen by Pakistanis "as symbolizing a culture of American gun-slinging overseas".
"Whether he is a Blackwater or CIA agent the facts should be exposed by the federal government because it is their responsibility," said Pervez Rashid, spokesman for the opposition-controlled Punjab government.
Pakistani police say that after the shooting on January 27, they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from Davis's car.
A third Pakistani was struck down and killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to his assistance. US officials denied Pakistan access to the vehicle and the occupants are widely believed to have left the country.
Right-wing religious group Jamat-e-Islami, which wants Davis to be hanged for murder, said the courts should be left to adjudicate, but that he should also be now tried for espionage.
A lawyer for the three families of the men killed, Asad Manzoor Butt, raised the possibility of fresh espionage charges but said the claims should not affect an ongoing murder case in the courts.
The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as denying that Davis was directly involved in CIA espionage or drone operations, which have killed hundreds of alleged militants in Pakistan's northwest on the Afghan border.
The case complicates relations with the United States, which have already been strained by mistrust over the US-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday told parliamentarians that the two governments would not allow the Davis case to undermine their "mutually beneficial partnership".
But while he said Pakistan was mindful of its international obligations, he insisted the government "will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity".
US Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan last week to express regret and say Davis would face a criminal investigation at home.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Raymond Davis Is CIA Contractor, U.S. Officials Say
By MATTHEW COLE
Feb. 21, 2011
According to a current senior U.S. official and a senior intelligence consultant who worked with Davis, the 36-year-old American is a former Blackwater contractor who was posted to Lahore as part of the CIA's Global Response Staff, or GRS, a unit of security and bodyguards assigned to war zones and troubled countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Members of the GRS most often accompany CIA case officers, who meet with clandestine sources.
Davis and a group of fellow security officers lived in a safehouse in Lahore. The CIA keeps safehouses for security personnel in an effort to limit the ability for militants to track their movements, the intelligence contractor said.
ABC News was asked by the U.S. government to withhold publication of Davis's affiliation with the CIA, citing fears that disclosure would jeopardize his safety. After several foreign media organizations published parts of his background, the U.S. government rescinded its request to ABC News to embargo the information.
On Jan. 27, Davis left the safehouse and conducted an "area familiarization route," according to the senior U.S. official. He drove through various Lahore neighborhoods for several hours. It was during his route, two U.S. officials say, that Davis stopped at an A.T.M. and possibly drew the attention of two Pakistani men on a motorcycle.
Davis has told the police in Lahore that the two men were attempting to rob him when he fired several rounds from his Glock handgun, hitting them both. The police report says that Davis claimed one of the men had a gun cocked at him. Davis fired multiple rounds from inside his car, killing one man in the street, while the second died later from his injuries.
Davis then called for help from several other CIA security officers who shared his Lahore safehouse, according to a U.S. official and the intelligence consultant. As they arrived near the intersection, they accidentally hit a Pakistani motorcyclist. The motorcyclist later died of his injuries. Davis' colleagues were unable to get to Davis before the police arrested him. They left the scene and returned to their safehouse.
Within hours, they had destroyed all government documents at the safehouse, abandoned it, and retreated to the U.S. consulate for safety. Both have since returned to the U.S., according to a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.
Feb. 21, 2011
According to a current senior U.S. official and a senior intelligence consultant who worked with Davis, the 36-year-old American is a former Blackwater contractor who was posted to Lahore as part of the CIA's Global Response Staff, or GRS, a unit of security and bodyguards assigned to war zones and troubled countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Members of the GRS most often accompany CIA case officers, who meet with clandestine sources.
Davis and a group of fellow security officers lived in a safehouse in Lahore. The CIA keeps safehouses for security personnel in an effort to limit the ability for militants to track their movements, the intelligence contractor said.
ABC News was asked by the U.S. government to withhold publication of Davis's affiliation with the CIA, citing fears that disclosure would jeopardize his safety. After several foreign media organizations published parts of his background, the U.S. government rescinded its request to ABC News to embargo the information.
On Jan. 27, Davis left the safehouse and conducted an "area familiarization route," according to the senior U.S. official. He drove through various Lahore neighborhoods for several hours. It was during his route, two U.S. officials say, that Davis stopped at an A.T.M. and possibly drew the attention of two Pakistani men on a motorcycle.
Davis has told the police in Lahore that the two men were attempting to rob him when he fired several rounds from his Glock handgun, hitting them both. The police report says that Davis claimed one of the men had a gun cocked at him. Davis fired multiple rounds from inside his car, killing one man in the street, while the second died later from his injuries.
Davis then called for help from several other CIA security officers who shared his Lahore safehouse, according to a U.S. official and the intelligence consultant. As they arrived near the intersection, they accidentally hit a Pakistani motorcyclist. The motorcyclist later died of his injuries. Davis' colleagues were unable to get to Davis before the police arrested him. They left the scene and returned to their safehouse.
Within hours, they had destroyed all government documents at the safehouse, abandoned it, and retreated to the U.S. consulate for safety. Both have since returned to the U.S., according to a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
5,500 Mercs to Protect U.S. Fortresses in Iraq
By Spencer Ackerman
In September 2007, Blackwater guards working for the U.S. State Department killed 17 Iraqis at Baghdad’s Nisour Square, one of the most controversial episodes in the long war there. But State isn’t backing away from its mercs. With American troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the ambassador to Iraq will become a de facto general of a huge, for-hire army — one larger than a U.S. Army heavy combat brigade.
During a Senate hearing today, John Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Iraq to “be careful” about “replacing a military presence with a private mercenary presence.” A report that the committee released yesterday and announced today explained why: the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq.
The report barely goes into the composition of the emerging mercenary army, but since State has been so tight-lipped about its plans, it sheds new light on how diplomats will be protected after the military leaves Iraq at the end of the year. A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy. (The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercs at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra (the report says Baghdad, but it appears to be a misprint); and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk.
“Roughly four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations,” the report states. In the past, private companies have hired non-westerners as guards, as they work cheaper than westerners do.
Non-Americans also make up a large proportion in a ginormous U.S. civilian presence. The Senate report anticipates a whopping “17,000 individuals” working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, backstopped by “hundreds” of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. But they’ll “mostly” be foreign employees “working as life-support and security contractors.” That is, the people who do the laundry, cook the food and clean the messes.
The size of the anticipated private-security force in Iraq is slightly lower than an estimate offered by a State official in June, but it’s much higher than the 2,700 security contractors employed in Iraq right now. And aside from the static security stationed at those five State Department installations, they’ll be operating at the “15 different sites” that State plans on operating, “including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers… and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites.”
At today’s hearing, both Amb. James Jeffrey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of American forces in Iraq, endorsed a 2011 troop withdrawal and a large U.S. diplomatic mission. That leaves State with its merc army to provide protection.
Those contractors will be “registered with the Iraqi authorities,” Jeffrey insisted, and “under the direct supervision of our security personnel,” the State contractor-oversight officials who’ll be “riding in every convoy” — a check against future Nisour Squares.
In September 2007, Blackwater guards working for the U.S. State Department killed 17 Iraqis at Baghdad’s Nisour Square, one of the most controversial episodes in the long war there. But State isn’t backing away from its mercs. With American troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the ambassador to Iraq will become a de facto general of a huge, for-hire army — one larger than a U.S. Army heavy combat brigade.
During a Senate hearing today, John Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Iraq to “be careful” about “replacing a military presence with a private mercenary presence.” A report that the committee released yesterday and announced today explained why: the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq.
The report barely goes into the composition of the emerging mercenary army, but since State has been so tight-lipped about its plans, it sheds new light on how diplomats will be protected after the military leaves Iraq at the end of the year. A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy. (The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercs at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra (the report says Baghdad, but it appears to be a misprint); and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk.
“Roughly four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations,” the report states. In the past, private companies have hired non-westerners as guards, as they work cheaper than westerners do.
Non-Americans also make up a large proportion in a ginormous U.S. civilian presence. The Senate report anticipates a whopping “17,000 individuals” working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, backstopped by “hundreds” of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. But they’ll “mostly” be foreign employees “working as life-support and security contractors.” That is, the people who do the laundry, cook the food and clean the messes.
The size of the anticipated private-security force in Iraq is slightly lower than an estimate offered by a State official in June, but it’s much higher than the 2,700 security contractors employed in Iraq right now. And aside from the static security stationed at those five State Department installations, they’ll be operating at the “15 different sites” that State plans on operating, “including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers… and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites.”
At today’s hearing, both Amb. James Jeffrey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of American forces in Iraq, endorsed a 2011 troop withdrawal and a large U.S. diplomatic mission. That leaves State with its merc army to provide protection.
Those contractors will be “registered with the Iraqi authorities,” Jeffrey insisted, and “under the direct supervision of our security personnel,” the State contractor-oversight officials who’ll be “riding in every convoy” — a check against future Nisour Squares.
Who is Raymond Davis?
Strangely, the more we get to know about the case of Raymond Davis, the less we seem to know. Even more strangely, the fact that the entire incident happened in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses seems is itself confusing the facts rather than adding clarity. Moreover, it seems that no one seems to want to get much clarity either; although different parties may want different parts of the story to ‘disappear.’ The incident was rather eerie and disturbing to begin with; and it continues to become more so.
Here is what one does know. Raymond Davis, a staff member of the US Consulate in Lahore shot two Pakistani men dead on Thursday in a crowded part of Lahore (Mozang Chowk), according to him in self-defense. A US Consulate vehicle that rushed in to ‘rescue’ Mr. David then ran over a third person, who also died. A murder case was then registered against Raymond Davis, who was handed into police custody. A case has also been registered against the driver of the US Consulate vehicle that ran over a third person, but the driver has not yet been apprehended. After a fair deal of scrambling by both US and Pakistani officials on what to do or say, the positions of both have now started becoming clear and they have taken the stance that is usually taken in such cases: the US is asking that Raymond Davis, as a diplomatic functionary, should be handed back to them; Pakistan seems to be responding that the matter is sub judice and should take its course.
Beyond that, there are more questions than answers. For most part, these questions fall into three categories: (1) Questions about who is Raymond Davis? (2) Questions about exactly what happened at Mozang, Lahore? (3) Questions about what should happen now ?
On the first question, earliest reports suggested that Raymond Davis was a “technical adviser” and a “consular” official. More recently, US Embassy officials have described him as a “functionary” of the Embassy assigned to the US Consulate in Lahore and carrying a US Diplomatic passport. Reportedly he was hired at the US Consulate in Lahore as a security contractor from a Florida-based firm Hyperion Protective Consultants. All of this has material relevance to whether he would enjoy diplomatic immunity or not, but even more because of the apprehensions of many Pakistanis that he could be linked to the CIA or to the infamous firm Blackwater (later renamed XE Services).
And that leads squarely to the second question: what exactly was happening at Mozang? Very much in line with the immediate knee-jerk reaction of many Pakistanis, an early commentary by Jeff Stein in The Washington Post seemed to suggest rather fancifully that the shootout could have been a “Spy rendezvous gone bad?” That would be a conspiracy theory, but not an entirely implausible one. Mozang is not a part of town that you would expect too many foreigners, let alone a US official, visiting; and certainly not in what was reportedly a rented private vehicle. And while Pakistan today is clearly an unsafe place, the question of just why an Embassy official was carrying a firearm be wished away. On the other hand, however, Mr. Davis claims that he shot in self defense as the two men on the motorcycle were trying to rob him at gun point. Anyone who knows Pakistan knows all too well that this, too, is entirely possible. TV footage and reports coming immediately after the incident showed one of the young men lying dead with a revolver and wearing an ammunition belt. And certainly, the question of why at least one of the two young men on the motorcycle was carrying a loaded firearm cannot be wished away just because he had “dushmani.” Indeed, serious questions need to be asked about just who the two young men on the motorcycle were, just as they need to be asked about who Raymond Davis is. There just seem to be too many unnecessary weapons in too much proximity in this story. All of the many explanations that are floating around are very disturbing, but also very plausible. Which is exactly why this story is even more dangerous if left unresolved.
Finally, the third question – which is now getting the most attention – about what should happen now. Much is being made – maybe too much – about the Vienna Convention and its implications for diplomatic immunity. Familiar diplomatic games about the minutia of vocabulary are being played and will in most likelihood result in all too familiar results. That is exactly what one would expect in any such situation anywhere. But this is not ‘any‘ situation’; and this is not ‘anywhere‘. This is about US-Pakistan relations: there is just about nothing that the US can say or do which Pakistanis are likely to believe, and there is just about nothing that Pakistan can say or do which Americans are likely to trust. Which is why getting stuck in the intricacies of the Vienna Convention of 1963 is the exact wrong place to get stuck. This is a time for public diplomacy: certainly from the US and maybe even from Pakistan. It is not in America’s interest to be seen to be standing in the way of justice and due process. And it is not in Pakistan’s interest to be seen to conducting a flawed process of justice. There are too many people on the extreme in both countries who will not and cannot to change their opinion and apprehensions about the other. But there are even more people in both countries who could all too easily be swayed to the extremes on distrust if this delicate case is not handled with clarity and transparency by both countries. Doing so will probably bring with it more than just a little diplomatic embarrassment. Not doing so can only bring worse in the tinderbox that is US-Pakistan relations.
Here is what one does know. Raymond Davis, a staff member of the US Consulate in Lahore shot two Pakistani men dead on Thursday in a crowded part of Lahore (Mozang Chowk), according to him in self-defense. A US Consulate vehicle that rushed in to ‘rescue’ Mr. David then ran over a third person, who also died. A murder case was then registered against Raymond Davis, who was handed into police custody. A case has also been registered against the driver of the US Consulate vehicle that ran over a third person, but the driver has not yet been apprehended. After a fair deal of scrambling by both US and Pakistani officials on what to do or say, the positions of both have now started becoming clear and they have taken the stance that is usually taken in such cases: the US is asking that Raymond Davis, as a diplomatic functionary, should be handed back to them; Pakistan seems to be responding that the matter is sub judice and should take its course.
Beyond that, there are more questions than answers. For most part, these questions fall into three categories: (1) Questions about who is Raymond Davis? (2) Questions about exactly what happened at Mozang, Lahore? (3) Questions about what should happen now ?
On the first question, earliest reports suggested that Raymond Davis was a “technical adviser” and a “consular” official. More recently, US Embassy officials have described him as a “functionary” of the Embassy assigned to the US Consulate in Lahore and carrying a US Diplomatic passport. Reportedly he was hired at the US Consulate in Lahore as a security contractor from a Florida-based firm Hyperion Protective Consultants. All of this has material relevance to whether he would enjoy diplomatic immunity or not, but even more because of the apprehensions of many Pakistanis that he could be linked to the CIA or to the infamous firm Blackwater (later renamed XE Services).
And that leads squarely to the second question: what exactly was happening at Mozang? Very much in line with the immediate knee-jerk reaction of many Pakistanis, an early commentary by Jeff Stein in The Washington Post seemed to suggest rather fancifully that the shootout could have been a “Spy rendezvous gone bad?” That would be a conspiracy theory, but not an entirely implausible one. Mozang is not a part of town that you would expect too many foreigners, let alone a US official, visiting; and certainly not in what was reportedly a rented private vehicle. And while Pakistan today is clearly an unsafe place, the question of just why an Embassy official was carrying a firearm be wished away. On the other hand, however, Mr. Davis claims that he shot in self defense as the two men on the motorcycle were trying to rob him at gun point. Anyone who knows Pakistan knows all too well that this, too, is entirely possible. TV footage and reports coming immediately after the incident showed one of the young men lying dead with a revolver and wearing an ammunition belt. And certainly, the question of why at least one of the two young men on the motorcycle was carrying a loaded firearm cannot be wished away just because he had “dushmani.” Indeed, serious questions need to be asked about just who the two young men on the motorcycle were, just as they need to be asked about who Raymond Davis is. There just seem to be too many unnecessary weapons in too much proximity in this story. All of the many explanations that are floating around are very disturbing, but also very plausible. Which is exactly why this story is even more dangerous if left unresolved.
Finally, the third question – which is now getting the most attention – about what should happen now. Much is being made – maybe too much – about the Vienna Convention and its implications for diplomatic immunity. Familiar diplomatic games about the minutia of vocabulary are being played and will in most likelihood result in all too familiar results. That is exactly what one would expect in any such situation anywhere. But this is not ‘any‘ situation’; and this is not ‘anywhere‘. This is about US-Pakistan relations: there is just about nothing that the US can say or do which Pakistanis are likely to believe, and there is just about nothing that Pakistan can say or do which Americans are likely to trust. Which is why getting stuck in the intricacies of the Vienna Convention of 1963 is the exact wrong place to get stuck. This is a time for public diplomacy: certainly from the US and maybe even from Pakistan. It is not in America’s interest to be seen to be standing in the way of justice and due process. And it is not in Pakistan’s interest to be seen to conducting a flawed process of justice. There are too many people on the extreme in both countries who will not and cannot to change their opinion and apprehensions about the other. But there are even more people in both countries who could all too easily be swayed to the extremes on distrust if this delicate case is not handled with clarity and transparency by both countries. Doing so will probably bring with it more than just a little diplomatic embarrassment. Not doing so can only bring worse in the tinderbox that is US-Pakistan relations.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Mystery Merc Group Is Blackwater’s 34th Front Company
By Spencer Ackerman
If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it’s hard to find. A business records search co-locates one of the jackpot winners of a State Department contract worth up to $10 million with Kaseman LLC, the well-connected private security security firm that partnered with Blackwater arm U.S. Training Center to win the contract.
That would suggest International Development Solutions — a company few industry experts have heard of, sporting a generic, Google-resistant name — is yet another front group the company set up to win government contracts while concealing its tainted brand. More of a mystery is why the State Department let the company get away with it. Again.
An earlier version of this story reported on the results of a different business records search that turned up a listing for the company in a residential neighborhood of Washington DC. But since it’s more likely that the firm be headquarted in Virginia with Kaseman — who didn’t return phone calls for this story, like Blackwater — I’m removing information on that house, along with an image of it, and hereby issue a full and frank apology to its owner; IDS; Kaseman; Blackwater/U.S. Training Center; and you, the reader; and a shout-out goes to Scrarcher in comments for calling me out on this.
A months-long investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year found that the Army and Raytheon awarded a multi-million dollar subcontract to a firm called Paravant for the training of Afghan troops. Paravant claimed to have “years” of experience performing such work. As it turned out, Paravant didn’t really exist. “Paravant had never performed any services and was simply a shell company established to avoid what one former Blackwater executive called the ‘baggage’ associated with the Blackwater name as the company pursued government business,” committee chairman Carl Levin said in March.
If you like Paravant, you’ll love International Development Solutions. Very few people seem to be familiar with it. Hill sources didn’t know what it was. Both critics of and advocates for the private-security industry were just as baffled. “I’ve never heard of IDS,” confesses Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations for the Project on Government Oversight, in a typical comment.
All of a sudden, though, International Development Solutions is a major player in the private-security field. Last week, Danger Room broke the story of the State Department including it in an eight-company consortium of merc firms, including industry giants like DynCorp, that will hold its elite contract for protecting diplomats and embassies: the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The official announcement of the award gives absolutely no indication that International Development Solutions is tied to Blackwater; State only disclosed that fact after Danger Room pressed it.
Diligent work by the Senate Armed Services Committee determined a web of names under which Blackwater — renamed Xe last year — did business to avoid such baggage. Among them (deep breath): Total Intelligence Solutions; Technical Defense Inc.; Apex Management Solutions LLC; Aviation Worldwide Services LLC; Air Quest Inc.; Presidential Airways Inc.; EP Aviation LLC; Backup Training LLC; Terrorism Research Center, Inc. All in all, the committee found 33 aliases. International Development Solutions appears to be number 34.
Those other spinoffs are generally up front about the services they offer. Aviation Worldwide Services, for instance, is now part of AAR Corp, which provides cargo services and “specialized aircraft modifications” to the military. Total Intelligence Solutions does threat analysis for corporate clients doing business in dicey parts of the world. Its subsidiary, Terrorism Research Center Inc., offers clients classes in DIY counterterrorism and threat prevention. (A forthcoming module: “How to Identify a Terrorist Cell in Your Jurisdiction.”) By contrast, International Development Solutions doesn’t have much of an online profile.
The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein provided a clue as to how the newcomer might have gotten a foot into the door for the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The board of Kaseman, Blackwater’s partner on the venture, is filled with former State Department, CIA and military notables: State’s one-time anti-terrorism chief Henry Crumpton; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; and retired General Anthony Zinni, to name a few. (The CIA and Blackwater have a looooong history.)
Blackwater has a lot it might reasonably wish to obscure. To wit: High-profile shootings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; murder trials; allegations of steroid and cocaine abuse; improper removal of weapons from U.S. weapons depots using the name of a South Park character.
The big question is why the State Department is continuing to do business with this oh-so-classy-group. In the past, government contracting officials have explained that they can’t stop any company that hasn’t been de-certified from federal bidding from seeking contracts. Blackwater, despite everything, somehow has retained its certification.
But that doesn’t explain why State awarded the contract to the Blackwater-tied company. State has always taken notice of the fact that Blackwater has never lost a single diplomat it’s protected. But that sends the implicit message that State considers foreign lives less valuable than American ones — a problematic one for a diplomatic entity to send. The new Worldwide Protective Services contract was, among other things, an opportunity for State to break from the company that caused an international debacle when its guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. State stood by Blackwater — or at least a company that didn’t want the public to know it was Blackwater.
For years, numerous internal reviews and external watchdogs have criticized State for weak oversight over its security contractors — or worse. In March, the New York Times reported that the department’s oversight officials “sought to block any serious investigation” of Nisour Square. After discovering that State failed to correct years’ worth of security violations from the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Project on Government Oversight’s executive director, Danielle Brian, testified last year that the department is “incapable of properly handling a contract.” A former State security official told Mother Jones that a “bigtime revolving door” between the department and the contractors accounts for State’s blase attitude.
“The State Department has supported the Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of this case every step of the way,” reads an official answer the State Department provided when Danger Room asked why it did. “We fully respect the independence and integrity of the U.S. judicial system, and we support holding legally accountable any contractor personnel who have committed crimes.”
But that’s not a substantive answer. What experience does International Development Solutions have with providing security for diplomats in war zones? What makes this unknown company more qualified than at least four other established firms that didn’t win part of Worldwide Protective Services? What sort of due diligence did State perform to ensure that International Development Solutions isn’t another Paravant? State has yet to address any of those questions.
If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it’s hard to find. A business records search co-locates one of the jackpot winners of a State Department contract worth up to $10 million with Kaseman LLC, the well-connected private security security firm that partnered with Blackwater arm U.S. Training Center to win the contract.
That would suggest International Development Solutions — a company few industry experts have heard of, sporting a generic, Google-resistant name — is yet another front group the company set up to win government contracts while concealing its tainted brand. More of a mystery is why the State Department let the company get away with it. Again.
An earlier version of this story reported on the results of a different business records search that turned up a listing for the company in a residential neighborhood of Washington DC. But since it’s more likely that the firm be headquarted in Virginia with Kaseman — who didn’t return phone calls for this story, like Blackwater — I’m removing information on that house, along with an image of it, and hereby issue a full and frank apology to its owner; IDS; Kaseman; Blackwater/U.S. Training Center; and you, the reader; and a shout-out goes to Scrarcher in comments for calling me out on this.
A months-long investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year found that the Army and Raytheon awarded a multi-million dollar subcontract to a firm called Paravant for the training of Afghan troops. Paravant claimed to have “years” of experience performing such work. As it turned out, Paravant didn’t really exist. “Paravant had never performed any services and was simply a shell company established to avoid what one former Blackwater executive called the ‘baggage’ associated with the Blackwater name as the company pursued government business,” committee chairman Carl Levin said in March.
If you like Paravant, you’ll love International Development Solutions. Very few people seem to be familiar with it. Hill sources didn’t know what it was. Both critics of and advocates for the private-security industry were just as baffled. “I’ve never heard of IDS,” confesses Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations for the Project on Government Oversight, in a typical comment.
All of a sudden, though, International Development Solutions is a major player in the private-security field. Last week, Danger Room broke the story of the State Department including it in an eight-company consortium of merc firms, including industry giants like DynCorp, that will hold its elite contract for protecting diplomats and embassies: the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The official announcement of the award gives absolutely no indication that International Development Solutions is tied to Blackwater; State only disclosed that fact after Danger Room pressed it.
Diligent work by the Senate Armed Services Committee determined a web of names under which Blackwater — renamed Xe last year — did business to avoid such baggage. Among them (deep breath): Total Intelligence Solutions; Technical Defense Inc.; Apex Management Solutions LLC; Aviation Worldwide Services LLC; Air Quest Inc.; Presidential Airways Inc.; EP Aviation LLC; Backup Training LLC; Terrorism Research Center, Inc. All in all, the committee found 33 aliases. International Development Solutions appears to be number 34.
Those other spinoffs are generally up front about the services they offer. Aviation Worldwide Services, for instance, is now part of AAR Corp, which provides cargo services and “specialized aircraft modifications” to the military. Total Intelligence Solutions does threat analysis for corporate clients doing business in dicey parts of the world. Its subsidiary, Terrorism Research Center Inc., offers clients classes in DIY counterterrorism and threat prevention. (A forthcoming module: “How to Identify a Terrorist Cell in Your Jurisdiction.”) By contrast, International Development Solutions doesn’t have much of an online profile.
The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein provided a clue as to how the newcomer might have gotten a foot into the door for the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The board of Kaseman, Blackwater’s partner on the venture, is filled with former State Department, CIA and military notables: State’s one-time anti-terrorism chief Henry Crumpton; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; and retired General Anthony Zinni, to name a few. (The CIA and Blackwater have a looooong history.)
Blackwater has a lot it might reasonably wish to obscure. To wit: High-profile shootings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; murder trials; allegations of steroid and cocaine abuse; improper removal of weapons from U.S. weapons depots using the name of a South Park character.
The big question is why the State Department is continuing to do business with this oh-so-classy-group. In the past, government contracting officials have explained that they can’t stop any company that hasn’t been de-certified from federal bidding from seeking contracts. Blackwater, despite everything, somehow has retained its certification.
But that doesn’t explain why State awarded the contract to the Blackwater-tied company. State has always taken notice of the fact that Blackwater has never lost a single diplomat it’s protected. But that sends the implicit message that State considers foreign lives less valuable than American ones — a problematic one for a diplomatic entity to send. The new Worldwide Protective Services contract was, among other things, an opportunity for State to break from the company that caused an international debacle when its guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. State stood by Blackwater — or at least a company that didn’t want the public to know it was Blackwater.
For years, numerous internal reviews and external watchdogs have criticized State for weak oversight over its security contractors — or worse. In March, the New York Times reported that the department’s oversight officials “sought to block any serious investigation” of Nisour Square. After discovering that State failed to correct years’ worth of security violations from the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Project on Government Oversight’s executive director, Danielle Brian, testified last year that the department is “incapable of properly handling a contract.” A former State security official told Mother Jones that a “bigtime revolving door” between the department and the contractors accounts for State’s blase attitude.
“The State Department has supported the Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of this case every step of the way,” reads an official answer the State Department provided when Danger Room asked why it did. “We fully respect the independence and integrity of the U.S. judicial system, and we support holding legally accountable any contractor personnel who have committed crimes.”
But that’s not a substantive answer. What experience does International Development Solutions have with providing security for diplomats in war zones? What makes this unknown company more qualified than at least four other established firms that didn’t win part of Worldwide Protective Services? What sort of due diligence did State perform to ensure that International Development Solutions isn’t another Paravant? State has yet to address any of those questions.
The Privatization of War: Is Blackwater Heading for the Holy Land?
By Spencer Ackerman
Jerusalem: a cauldron of nationalistic and religious acrimony, a persistent flashpoint for global crisis. Exactly where you want to put the world’s most notorious private security firm.
International Development Solutions, a recent joint venture between Blackwater-spinoff U.S. Training Center and a different security company, just received a task order under the State Department’s $10 billion Worldwide Protective Services contract to protect Jerusalem-stationed U.S. diplos. Jeff Stein reports that the bid is as much as $84 million. Israeli drivers, watch out.
But that’s not all. According to Stein, Blackwater — ahem, sorry, Xe Services – isn’t actually part of International Development Solutions anymore. Xe, recently purchased by a surprisingly crunchy group of investors, apparently offloaded U.S. Training Center — although it’s likely that its personnel will continue to train on the same Moyock, North Carolina facilities as Blackwater, and “many of its operatives” are Blackwater people, Stein writes.
If so, it would suggest that Blackwater’s new owners, known as USTC Holdings, meant it when they played down Blackwater’s security tasks. “USTC Holdings, LLC will acquire the Xe companies that provide domestic and international training, as well as security services,” it said in a statement last month. Message: we’re a training company, not a mercenary firm infamous for shooting Iraqi civilians and taking guns intended for Afghan cops.
We’re waiting to hear from USTC Holdings spokespeople precisely what relationship pertains between Xe and International Development Solutions now. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as Jeff’s reporting indicates, there’s still some arrangement between the two — that’s how Blackwater rolls.
On the other hand, if the new owners have really divested themselves of the diplo-guarding business, then it may be the end of an era: Blackwater won’t have any other contracts with State; and it just lost a big police-training contract in Afghanistan to DynCorp. We’ll update when we know more.
Jerusalem: a cauldron of nationalistic and religious acrimony, a persistent flashpoint for global crisis. Exactly where you want to put the world’s most notorious private security firm.
International Development Solutions, a recent joint venture between Blackwater-spinoff U.S. Training Center and a different security company, just received a task order under the State Department’s $10 billion Worldwide Protective Services contract to protect Jerusalem-stationed U.S. diplos. Jeff Stein reports that the bid is as much as $84 million. Israeli drivers, watch out.
But that’s not all. According to Stein, Blackwater — ahem, sorry, Xe Services – isn’t actually part of International Development Solutions anymore. Xe, recently purchased by a surprisingly crunchy group of investors, apparently offloaded U.S. Training Center — although it’s likely that its personnel will continue to train on the same Moyock, North Carolina facilities as Blackwater, and “many of its operatives” are Blackwater people, Stein writes.
If so, it would suggest that Blackwater’s new owners, known as USTC Holdings, meant it when they played down Blackwater’s security tasks. “USTC Holdings, LLC will acquire the Xe companies that provide domestic and international training, as well as security services,” it said in a statement last month. Message: we’re a training company, not a mercenary firm infamous for shooting Iraqi civilians and taking guns intended for Afghan cops.
We’re waiting to hear from USTC Holdings spokespeople precisely what relationship pertains between Xe and International Development Solutions now. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as Jeff’s reporting indicates, there’s still some arrangement between the two — that’s how Blackwater rolls.
On the other hand, if the new owners have really divested themselves of the diplo-guarding business, then it may be the end of an era: Blackwater won’t have any other contracts with State; and it just lost a big police-training contract in Afghanistan to DynCorp. We’ll update when we know more.
Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws
By Cordula Meyer
A subsidiary of the US private security firm Blackwater flouted German arms export law, the US diplomatic cables have revealed. The company, Presidential Airways, didn't want to wait to get the proper export permit, so it simply transported the aircraft to Afghanistan via third countries.
The controversial US private security firm Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services, has mainly been criticized in the past over the use of excessive force in Iraq. Confidential American diplomatic dispatches now show that another company belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince exported German military helicopters to Afghanistan with scant regard for German law.
Presidential Airways purchased three SA-330 J "Puma" helicopters in Germany for use in providing logistical support to US forces in Afghanistan. But because it was taking too long to get the necessary German export permit, and its employees didn't want to wait, they simply took the helicopters out of the country in October 2008, first to Britain, and then on to Turkey.
In so doing, Presidential ignored advice from both the German Economics Ministry and the US Office of Defense Cooperation that their actions were illegal under German law. A concerned William Timken, the then US ambassador to Germany, warned the State Department that "the issue could become public in Germany and would take on proportions well beyond the significance of a few helicopters given the widespread public skepticism about Germany's engagement in Afghanistan." He therefore called for the relevant US government agencies "to examine this matter immediately" and to "encourage" Presidential to keep the helicopters in Turkey for the time being.
But Presidential ignored all the warnings and transported the military hardware to Afghanistan via Georgia and Azerbaijan while the German Foreign Ministry was apparently still trying to get cabinet approval for the export of the helicopters. Imagine what would happen, US diplomats in Berlin wrote to Washington, if German companies were to sell American weapons to Iran. Under that scenario, they wrote, "we expect that US authorities would react strongly." They warned of "negative reactions" in the German media.
Presidential Airways was also suspected of conducting secret "extraordinary rendition" flights on behalf of the CIA, taking terror suspects to third countries to be interrogated.
Fingers in Many Pies
The embassy cables show Blackwater has its fingers in many different pies around the globe. Its security experts trained special forces and police units in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Azerbaijan as well as in Afghanistan, where they worked alongside German police trainers. In Chile, Blackwater apparently subcontracted a company called Red Tactica to recruit former Chilean police officers and soldiers, which it then sent to Iraq as mercenaries.
When the Iraqi government withdrew Blackwater's license following the Nisoor Square massacre in 2007, many of the company's employees simply went to other firms. In January 2010, the US Embassy in Baghdad reported that it "understands" that Triple Canopy, a contractor working for the US government, "currently employs several hundred former Blackwater employees," while DynCorp, another private security firm, also employed "dozens of ex-Blackwater employees".
In November 2009, suspicions arose that Blackwater had spent about a million dollars bribing Iraqi officials to ensure that it could remain in the country. At the time, a State Department spokesman claimed he knew nothing about the bribes.
The leaked diplomatic dispatches now reveal, however, that American representatives in Baghdad knew full well about Blackwater's shady dealings, and had attempted to distance themselves from the company a year earlier. The deputy US ambassador in Baghdad even stressed that "under no circumstances could the Embassy approve of or in any way be part of a bribery effort."
A subsidiary of the US private security firm Blackwater flouted German arms export law, the US diplomatic cables have revealed. The company, Presidential Airways, didn't want to wait to get the proper export permit, so it simply transported the aircraft to Afghanistan via third countries.
The controversial US private security firm Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services, has mainly been criticized in the past over the use of excessive force in Iraq. Confidential American diplomatic dispatches now show that another company belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince exported German military helicopters to Afghanistan with scant regard for German law.
Presidential Airways purchased three SA-330 J "Puma" helicopters in Germany for use in providing logistical support to US forces in Afghanistan. But because it was taking too long to get the necessary German export permit, and its employees didn't want to wait, they simply took the helicopters out of the country in October 2008, first to Britain, and then on to Turkey.
In so doing, Presidential ignored advice from both the German Economics Ministry and the US Office of Defense Cooperation that their actions were illegal under German law. A concerned William Timken, the then US ambassador to Germany, warned the State Department that "the issue could become public in Germany and would take on proportions well beyond the significance of a few helicopters given the widespread public skepticism about Germany's engagement in Afghanistan." He therefore called for the relevant US government agencies "to examine this matter immediately" and to "encourage" Presidential to keep the helicopters in Turkey for the time being.
But Presidential ignored all the warnings and transported the military hardware to Afghanistan via Georgia and Azerbaijan while the German Foreign Ministry was apparently still trying to get cabinet approval for the export of the helicopters. Imagine what would happen, US diplomats in Berlin wrote to Washington, if German companies were to sell American weapons to Iran. Under that scenario, they wrote, "we expect that US authorities would react strongly." They warned of "negative reactions" in the German media.
Presidential Airways was also suspected of conducting secret "extraordinary rendition" flights on behalf of the CIA, taking terror suspects to third countries to be interrogated.
Fingers in Many Pies
The embassy cables show Blackwater has its fingers in many different pies around the globe. Its security experts trained special forces and police units in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Azerbaijan as well as in Afghanistan, where they worked alongside German police trainers. In Chile, Blackwater apparently subcontracted a company called Red Tactica to recruit former Chilean police officers and soldiers, which it then sent to Iraq as mercenaries.
When the Iraqi government withdrew Blackwater's license following the Nisoor Square massacre in 2007, many of the company's employees simply went to other firms. In January 2010, the US Embassy in Baghdad reported that it "understands" that Triple Canopy, a contractor working for the US government, "currently employs several hundred former Blackwater employees," while DynCorp, another private security firm, also employed "dozens of ex-Blackwater employees".
In November 2009, suspicions arose that Blackwater had spent about a million dollars bribing Iraqi officials to ensure that it could remain in the country. At the time, a State Department spokesman claimed he knew nothing about the bribes.
The leaked diplomatic dispatches now reveal, however, that American representatives in Baghdad knew full well about Blackwater's shady dealings, and had attempted to distance themselves from the company a year earlier. The deputy US ambassador in Baghdad even stressed that "under no circumstances could the Embassy approve of or in any way be part of a bribery effort."
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/5-blackwater-xe-the-secret-us-war-in-pakistan/
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
Student Researchers:
Andrew Hobbs, Kelsea Arnold, and Brittney Gates (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluators:
Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)
Captain John Kirby, the spokesperson for Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” Meanwhile a defense official specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and are not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”
Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in an interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Jeremy Scahill’s military intelligence source said that the previously unreported program is distinct from the CIA assassination program, which the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the US has not declared war—knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the US and Pakistan. In 2006, the two countries struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the US is not supposed to have any active military operations in that country.
Blackwater, which also goes by the names Xe Services and US Training Center, has denied that the company operates in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the US government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to the Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in “counterterrorism” operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces that now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan.
The covert program in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007. The current head of JSOC is Vice Admiral William McRaven, who took over the post from General Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said Scahill’s military source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he adds, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.”
Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
According to Scahill’s source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said.
In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone-bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, 2009, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The number of strike orders by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.
The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone-bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”
In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps, and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan.
Blackwater’s ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA, and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals.
Sources:
Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” Nation, November 23, 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill.
Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan,” Antiwar.com, January 20, 2010, http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2010/01/19/blackwater-wants-to-surge.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane, “Ex-employees Claim Blackwater Pimped Out Young Iraqi Girls,” Raw Story, August 7, 2009.
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
Student Researchers:
Andrew Hobbs, Kelsea Arnold, and Brittney Gates (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluators:
Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)
Captain John Kirby, the spokesperson for Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” Meanwhile a defense official specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and are not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”
Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in an interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Jeremy Scahill’s military intelligence source said that the previously unreported program is distinct from the CIA assassination program, which the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the US has not declared war—knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the US and Pakistan. In 2006, the two countries struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the US is not supposed to have any active military operations in that country.
Blackwater, which also goes by the names Xe Services and US Training Center, has denied that the company operates in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the US government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to the Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in “counterterrorism” operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces that now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan.
The covert program in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007. The current head of JSOC is Vice Admiral William McRaven, who took over the post from General Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said Scahill’s military source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he adds, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.”
Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
According to Scahill’s source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said.
In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone-bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, 2009, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The number of strike orders by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.
The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone-bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”
In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps, and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan.
Blackwater’s ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA, and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals.
Sources:
Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” Nation, November 23, 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill.
Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan,” Antiwar.com, January 20, 2010, http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2010/01/19/blackwater-wants-to-surge.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane, “Ex-employees Claim Blackwater Pimped Out Young Iraqi Girls,” Raw Story, August 7, 2009.
WikiLeaks cables: Iraq security firms operate 'mafia' to inflate prices
The Rumala oil field, south of Basra: the cables reveal tensions between oil companies, security firms and Baghdad. Photograph: Atef Hassan/Reuters
Halliburton's senior executive in Iraq accused private security companies of operating a "mafia" to artifically inflate their "outrageous prices", according to a US cable.
Written by a senior diplomat in the US's Basra office, the confidential document discloses the tensions between private security firms, oil companies and the Iraqi government as coalition forces withdraw from protecting foreign business interests.
John Naland, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Basra, wrote in January this year that several oil company representatives complained of "unwarranted high prices" given an improving security situation since 2008.
"Halliburton Iraq country manager decried a 'mafia' of these companies and their 'outrageous' prices, and said that they also exaggerate the security threat.
"Apart from the high costs for routine trips, he claimed that Halliburton often receives what he says are 'questionable' reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. He said that he recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil companies]." Naland wrote.
The memo, written nine months after British troops handed over control of their base in Basra to the US army, does not name the Halliburton manager.
According to the cable, it cost around $6,000 (£3,900) to hire a security firm for four hours in Basra in January. A typical trip would include four security agents, drivers, and three or four armoured vehicles. A recent visit by a member of Iraq's government from Baghdad to Basra and back cost about $12,000 (£7,800), the cable claimed.
Tensions between private security companies and the Baghdad government had increased in Iraq following the decision by the US courts in December 2009 not to prosecute anyone for the Blackwater killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007.
The source for this information was a British security company boss, whose name has been redacted.
"According to [the British national] a China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) security team was stopped in Basrah [sic] city by the Iraqi police in a 'clear attempt to disrupt and cause panic to the clients.' [The British national] said that the Iraqi police stopped the convoy and showed a letter from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) stating that as of January 12, personal security teams now faced a more restrictive weapons regime. The situation was eventually resolved, and the convoy was released, but [the British national] said that this episode could presage a more restrictive posture towards security firms 'in retaliation or the Blackwater verdict'," wrote Naland.
The cable also says that security companies are being encouraged by the Iraqi government and the oil companies to employ more Iraqis and less westerners in frontline jobs.
"According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to 'get rid of all the white faces carrying guns' in their streets," it reads.
Afghan authorities last week arrested a British private security company employee and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government's crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies Group consultant Michael Hearn was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly failing to register weapons with the government.
Halliburton's senior executive in Iraq accused private security companies of operating a "mafia" to artifically inflate their "outrageous prices", according to a US cable.
Written by a senior diplomat in the US's Basra office, the confidential document discloses the tensions between private security firms, oil companies and the Iraqi government as coalition forces withdraw from protecting foreign business interests.
John Naland, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Basra, wrote in January this year that several oil company representatives complained of "unwarranted high prices" given an improving security situation since 2008.
"Halliburton Iraq country manager decried a 'mafia' of these companies and their 'outrageous' prices, and said that they also exaggerate the security threat.
"Apart from the high costs for routine trips, he claimed that Halliburton often receives what he says are 'questionable' reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. He said that he recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil companies]." Naland wrote.
The memo, written nine months after British troops handed over control of their base in Basra to the US army, does not name the Halliburton manager.
According to the cable, it cost around $6,000 (£3,900) to hire a security firm for four hours in Basra in January. A typical trip would include four security agents, drivers, and three or four armoured vehicles. A recent visit by a member of Iraq's government from Baghdad to Basra and back cost about $12,000 (£7,800), the cable claimed.
Tensions between private security companies and the Baghdad government had increased in Iraq following the decision by the US courts in December 2009 not to prosecute anyone for the Blackwater killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007.
The source for this information was a British security company boss, whose name has been redacted.
"According to [the British national] a China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) security team was stopped in Basrah [sic] city by the Iraqi police in a 'clear attempt to disrupt and cause panic to the clients.' [The British national] said that the Iraqi police stopped the convoy and showed a letter from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) stating that as of January 12, personal security teams now faced a more restrictive weapons regime. The situation was eventually resolved, and the convoy was released, but [the British national] said that this episode could presage a more restrictive posture towards security firms 'in retaliation or the Blackwater verdict'," wrote Naland.
The cable also says that security companies are being encouraged by the Iraqi government and the oil companies to employ more Iraqis and less westerners in frontline jobs.
"According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to 'get rid of all the white faces carrying guns' in their streets," it reads.
Afghan authorities last week arrested a British private security company employee and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government's crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies Group consultant Michael Hearn was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly failing to register weapons with the government.
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