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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 9:12:36 GMT -5
DECEMBER 22, 2004 The Pentagon's "Major Modernizer" L-3 Communications CEO Frank Lanza talks about the process of military "transformation" and lessons from the ongoing turmoil in Iraq When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld latched onto the concept of military "transformation," few people were in a better position to profit from the move than Frank Lanza, chief executive of L-3 Communications Holdings. L-3 (LLL ) is one of the major advocates of transformation and provides many of the key technologies that are helping create a networked military. Since its founding in 1997, the New York-based outfit has evolved under Lanza into a nearly $7 billion conglomerate, with expected 2004 net income of $380 million.
Lanza, who has rolled up dozens of technology startups at L-3, learned the art of consolidation while spending 15 years as president of Loral under legendary dealmaker Bernard Schwartz. Now, Lanza is busy creating a defense giant of the future, selling a wide range of products and services, including communications systems, sensor technologies, flight simulators, and training programs for U.S. and foreign militaries. And with pressure growing to cut government spending, many analysts think L-3's strategy of modernizing old systems is a smart play.
BusinessWeek Computers Editor Spencer E. Ante recently spoke with Lanza about the challenges and lessons of the Iraq War and the future of the network-centric warfare. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation: Q: Military might helped the U.S. to quickly take over Iraq. But now the war isn't going so well, despite America's technological prowess. What mistakes has the U.S. made?
A: The war was won in two weeks. What we forgot is what we do post-war. And what do we do in a country that's not like Europe, where the people wanted peace? In the Germanys and the Frances of the world, they were not fragmented. We thought Iraq would be the same thing. We would raise the flag and everybody would celebrate and take the candy from us. We didn't recognize that...you had three or four countries within the country, and they themselves couldn't get along. We didn't put in the kind of disciplines and capabilities post-war to solve the problem. And maybe we learned you can have mobility and speed, but that's not good in certain areas. Maybe we should go in and conquer and restructure, and then move on -- as opposed to winning the battle and leaving the ruins [of several territories] which you have to reconsolidate all at once. There are certain situations when maybe you don't want to have an overwhelming victory and you want to take it step by step. Q: What are some of the big projects you're working on?
A: We were fortunate enough to be in the market for ISR: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. That has become one of the sweet spots of the transformation. So we've expanded that dramatically by making acquisitions in that area.
L-3 is a major provider of all the secure communications that connect all of the intelligence assets we have in the battlefield. We have a program where we're the major subcontractor to Deep Water, the Coast Guard's answer to homeland defense. It's the total transformation of the Coast Guard, from catching contraband to probably the most important nonmilitary mission, protecting our ports and harbors. We're responsible for all of the communications.
Q: Is L-3 doing any training in Iraq?
A: We've been over there for two years now. We have people over there supporting the training of the Iraq militia. We're also training U.S. forces [which] have never been in combat [in] how to fight urban warfare. We're also providing convoy training. We've never had to worry about protecting a convoy!
Q: One idea being floated is that the U.S. should be outsourcing the training of Iraqi militia to other countries, such as Egypt and Germany, which have supposedly offered to help. What do you think of that?
A: I think it's good. The U.N. was supposed to participate in that, and they've been very hesitant. It makes a lot of sense for the Muslim world to train the Muslim world. You know the people, you know the culture, the language. We can train the trainers. In some cases, we're better off training the trainers, which is what we're doing.
Q: Are any other changes being made to improve training?
A: The problem we have is how do you provide security to the trainees? They're being intimidated. How do you have the intelligence to know which ones are on your side? The focus...now is to try to be more selective in the recruits, try to do more background checking.
We were training from the bottom up when we started. A lot of people didn't recognize that you can't just train an infantry man without leadership. Because what happens is the minute the first sound [of gunfire hits], everybody runs or they look to the leader. We're now focused on doing more leadership training of Iraqis themselves.
Q: What's going on with the transformation program?
A: We said you don't need a lot of new platforms [or major weapons systems, such as jet fighters, bombers, sea destroyers, and missile systems]. We can't afford new platforms either, by the way. We believe we need to take the platforms we have and modernize them.
We're now a major modernizer of the E2Cs that land on carriers, [the planes] that have that flying saucer [radar dish] on them for ship defense. We have a major program of billions of dollars to modernize the radar systems, to be able to use the radar over longer range, over land, over sea. And we're doing that with all of our major aircraft, which is a budget that even the most negative analyst will tell you is increasing.
Q: What did you take away from the recently passed 2005 defense budget?
A: The big story is going to be in 2006. We thought the transformation budget would start getting impacted on the platform side in 2005. But the Iraq War came, and it has been diverted. The Quadrennial Review will be completed next year. The military will decide what the structure is going to be, how much does the Army need in people, do we have a uniform budget for all three services?
Q: What kinds of technology changes is the military making to the transformation program?
A: The Army's new chief took the only major Army system it has...the Army's Future Combat System (FCS), and said that's a ridiculous program. He said, "I can't take, by 2008 or 2009, every vehicle and platform in the Army overnight and change it into something new. It's impractical."
Two, he said, "I am responsible for readiness. So I've got to take what I've got and modernize it. With the developments that come out of the FCS, I've got to put those new capabilities into the Abrams tanks." He wanted FCS, but it's too high-risk. He took $25 billion out of the budget and reallocated it to the modernization of the current Army.
Q: On a more basic note, there's a lot of discussion about the lack of armor in Iraq. What do you make of the controversy?
A: We forgot about low technology. We forgot what we are going to do [about] all these shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades that have been around for 45 years. We found out that we were trying to go away from all the heavy weapons for the Army and phase out the tank corps and go to lightweight mobile Stryker-type vehicles. We found out that having a heavy vehicle with a 120mm gun instead of 105mm, which is all they can carry on FCS, has a place. You can't just be all light or all heavy. There's a balance. That's what the new chief is doing.
Q: Can transformation be stopped?
A: The chiefs have bought off on it. The important thing is the chiefs of the services, all three of them, have bought on that they must transform to meet the new environment. No matter who becomes Defense Secretary, the culture has started, the change has started. A different Defense Secretary may choose one weapon vs. another -- they're always going to modulate it -- but the battle wave has started to move.
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 9:58:31 GMT -5
mondediplo.com/2004/11/08iraq Business of war Privatised violence
The chaos in Iraq reveals the unprecedented scale at which the United States government has outsourced functions to private military companies. They make it easier to project force abroad, extend the technological influence of the great powers, elude the control of elected assemblies, increase the deniability of dirty tricks and replace shrinking standing armies. In developing countries their use reflects diminishing state power because of slashed budgets.By Sami Makki JUST a few months after the fall of Saddam Hussein there were some 20,000 people working in private security in Iraq. Their presence is mostly the result of United States troops’ inability to maintain law and order, but they also cater for a rising demand from international organisations and US investors. As security has deteriorated private military companies (PMC) from western countries have proliferated. In Security Companies Doing Business in Iraq, published in May, the US State Department lists more than 25 firms, mainly from Britain or the United States. They are in practice the acceptable aspect of a murkier world. Outsourcing by US armed forces has expanded since the end of the cold war, driven by an increasingly global market in arms and military services, and by troop cuts and defence budget rationalisation. Outsourcing is just an advanced form of subcontracting. In exchange for large sums of money, states share some of the risks of conflict with industry. In loftier terms military outsourcing is yet another application of the new public management methods that have been dictated by neo-liberal policy (1). Such public-private partnerships (PPP) are supposedly a response to budget restrictions, releasing funds to modernise armed forces and to develop and purchase new weapon systems. In 2002 the US Defence Department claimed that outsourcing would save $11bn between 1997 and 2005. However, its main concern was to distract attention from the consequences of the changes in defence organisation and funding caused by cutting the number of federal employees and shifting responsibility to the private sector. There was sharp criticism of the US Army decision in October 2002 to outsource more than 200,000 jobs as part of its third privatisation phase. Many experts are convinced that such radical measures will not bring a corresponding gain in efficiency (2). According to Bobby Harnage, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees: "The contractor workforce now [early 2003] outnumbers the civilian workforce by four times. So this is not about saving money. It’s about moving money to the private sector. It’s not about eliminating jobs, it’s about eliminating accountability" (3). As part of the drive to outsource army departments to external bodies, successive administrations have signed more than 3,000 contracts with PMCs such as DynCorp, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), and Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) over the past 10 years. Their emergence has led to a gradual increase in private-sector personnel operating alongside US armed forces on the battlefield, with responsibility for logistics, maintenance, engineering and weapon-system support tasks. During the Gulf war in 1991 the average ratio was about one private employee to 100 soldiers. By 2003 it had risen to one in 10. In the current military deployment in Iraq, PMC staff are the second-largest contingent, equivalent to 20% of US forces. In economic terms, and despite budget savings of $4.5bn-6bn forecast by the Pentagon’s Defence Science Board, the plan has failed to deliver. In several cases the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has shown that the real cost exceeded estimates by several million dollars and that abuses led to serious overcharging for certain services (4). In 2003 Halliburton (the multinational directed by Vice-President Dick Cheney until 2000) and its subsidiary KBR won contracts worth more than $1bn. Halliburton is suspected of involvement in malpractice that affected the award of contracts, suggesting there have been conflicts of interest between the Bush administration and US defence procurement firms (5). A major strategic rethink is under way, reaching far beyond issues of budget rationalisation and the ideological pros and cons of outsourcing. The US is involved in a long-term, low-intensity war on terrorism. At the same time it must prepare its forces for major conflicts. It cannot afford to weaken its leadership by completely withdrawing from strategically less important theatres and must delegate certain tasks, leaving its armed forces free to concentrate on duties vital to national security. Another aim of recent programmes has been to optimise the flexibility and speed with which forces can be deployed by eliminating time-consuming administrative checks and red tape. This also gives foreign policy greater leeway, bypassing Congress, which must approve overseas assignments for ground troops and clandestine operations. There is also scope for operations that are not consistent with official strategy. The Clinton administration made a show of its neutrality on Bosnia and became involved in peacekeeping operations with the Implementation Force. But behind the scenes it let MPRI facilitate arms trafficking, in violation of the UN embargo, and train the Croatian-Muslim federation’s army in preparation for the decisive 1994 invasion of Krajina (6). During the 1990s US firms ( Vinnell Corp, MPRI, Cubic or Logicon) trained forces from more than 40 countries under military cooperation programmes (7). The resulting networks have been an ideal vector for building alliances, as circumstance dictates, and disseminating US military standards in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. In Africa PMCs take charge of US military logistics and manage experts supporting emergency operations. They have not neglected emerging markets in Europe and developing countries. PMCs now play a vital role in US defence, particularly in support of expeditionary forces (8). Several firms have lobbied hard in recent years to establish themselves as reliable partners for the management of peace operations. In so doing they have blurred the already hazy distinction between development aid, humanitarian assistance and military operations. The past five years have also seen major restructuring in the US defence industry, with many mergers and acquisitions (9). Drawing on their service activities, multinational firms promoting information and communications technology as the way to dominate tomorrow’s battlefields have penetrated this lucrative market. When L-3 Communications took over MPRI in 2000, CEO Frank Lanza said: "MPRI is a growth company with good profit margins and competitive advantages that no other training business can match and its services are complementary to our products. MPRI is also active on the international front, as changing political climates have led to increased demand for certain services. These programmes tend to expand and to lead to other opportunities" (10). However a GAO report has highlighted the lack of control over PMCs, since there is no centralised system capable of keeping track of the innumerable outsourcing contracts passed by US agencies (11). International law is unequal to the task of combating abuses by private armies. In the US, though sales of military services are subject to controls, government agencies may exploit loopholes, particularly for the needs of intelligence and special operations (12). The Bush administration sees these loopholes as a way of responding effectively to terrorism. But by depriving Congress of a say in military spending, outsourcing opens the way for the use of mercenaries. The budget-conscious, free-market front to this trend may conceal serious abuses (13). The growing use of civilian resources to support drawn-out military interventions, making the greatest possible use of reserve forces and private firms, threatens the stability of the professional US army that was introduced after the Vietnam war. This year the employees of two US PMCs, CACI and Titan Corporation, were involved in the scandal surrounding the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. In an interview on 30 April Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said: "If the Pentagon seeks to use private contractors in military or intelligence roles, it must ensure that they are subject to legal restraints. Allowing private contractors to operate in a legal vacuum is an invitation to abuse." In 2000 a report by the National Defence University in Washington had acknowledged that privatisation was perhaps less expensive than military intervention but that the quality of results and respect for human rights might be compromised (14).
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 10:00:29 GMT -5
A distinction is usually made between outsourcing army support services and operational battlefield functions. But since the 9/11 attacks the dividing line has grown fuzzier. As a result of political and strategic decisions in Iraq, outsourcing and the use of mercenaries are merging into new operational doctrines, with private workers being involved in combat on several occasions.
After the defeat of the Iraqi army the US military quickly entrusted the security of sensitive sites in the country to private firms, although it lacked any real means of controlling their work. In September 2003 the US government announced that Erinys Iraq Ltd would be taking charge of training thousands of Iraqis to guard the facilities on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which were often under attack. Many former elite police officers left South Africa for Iraq to take up executive positions and train recruits for Erinys (see Africa: the frighteners, page 10).
Western military and security organisations are being seriously affected by this trend. Drawn by the promise of a tenfold increase in pay, members of the special forces resign to join the private sector (15). In the long term the drain on highly qualified human resources may lead to the loss of specialist skills (maintenance of sophisticated weapon systems, training of pilots) to the private sector.
An increasing number of US officers are concerned about the absence of any unity of command or control and the lack of standardised procedures for recruiting PMC personnel. Kidnapping and murder of corporate personnel are increasingly common and the military is in no position to protect these civilians; the four men lynched and burned by a mob in Falluja in March were employees of Blackwater Security.
The plan to disarm and demobilise former Iraqi soldiers was ill-conceived and disastrously implemented, creating a security vacuum. At the end of 2003 the Pentagon nevertheless announced that it had signed a $48m contract with Vinnell Corp to create and train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army. Other firms, such as MPRI, are involved in the programme as subcontractors. In April 2003 the State Department had awarded a similar contract to DynCorp Aerospace Operations to train the Iraqi police force.
With the increasing number of local militia groups and the intensification of what the US describes as an insurrection, Iraq is in a spiral of violence in which interventions by private security operatives are worsening instability. Iraq’s security has become an extremely lucrative market, with individual salaries as much as $1,000 a day. Several thousand former soldiers are working under security contracts for western civilian agencies. Kroll and Control Risks are respectively responsible for protecting the staff of the US Agency for International Development and British diplomats and aid workers.
The crisis in Iraq shows that these private firms, involved in key phases of the conflict and its aftermath, are fulfilling a vital role in the US exercise of force. The proliferation of western PMCs in Iraq is the result of a deliberate policy to experiment with new types of intervention. But the policy has ignored the scale of the difficulties involved. In a tacit admission of failure the US Defence Department awarded a $293m contract to Aegis Defence Service in May (a PMC incorporated in 2003 and directed by a former British Guards officer, Tim Spicer). Its mission is to coordinate all the security operations of more than 50 firms and protect contractors working on reconstruction.
Many US and British diplomats are still unconcerned by rampant privatisation. At a conference in Paris in May a high-ranking civilian coalition official, speaking anonymously, claimed that the proliferation of PMCs was perfectly healthy and could be repeated elsewhere if it proved successful in Iraq. The privatisation of peacekeeping continues rapidly, constantly widening the limits of military outsourcing.
When Paul Bremer, the former civilian administrator of Iraq, framed the country’s new legal system he deprived it of any control over private security firms. In the US the boom in private civilian and military service providers may serve the nation’s strategic interests (and considering the volume of federal contracts, PMCs must display some loyalty to the government). But in countries such as Iraq it is a recipe for chaos and continuing conflict. Privatising violence jeopardises Iraq’s future sovereignty.
It also highlights the impossibility of reconciling US economic aims with the political reality on the ground. PMCs offer specific solutions, from consultancy services to deployment in the field (which has been made necessary by the increasing concentration of expertise and the dual nature of computerised weapons systems). But their overall approach to conflict inevitably stresses technical factors and altogether disregards political considerations.
PMCs upset the balance of power between legislative and executive bodies, between politicians and the civil and military authorities, both in countries in crisis and in the West. Blurring the distinction between civil and military, private and public, these hybrid organisations often operate through informal networks that foster corruption and crime. The US strategic system of global intervention, in which PMCs play an increasingly pivotal role, generates instability, even chaos. It is insidiously legitimising the unilateral exercise of US power, globally and specifically in unsettled areas of the South where the CIA, US special forces and PMCs are waging low-intensity wars.
PMCs have emerged in response to a new form of conflict and a corresponding decline in the international influence of states. Although they cater for the needs of government policy, they foreshadow the spread of conflicts on the fringes of the global market. Privatisation of violence will play a decisive part in this process. For the leaders of the coalition the Iraqi experiment has provided an opportunity to test large-scale outsourcing of military functions. The next step is to make it a systematic process.
(1) Frank Camm, Expanding Private Production to Defence Services, Rand Report MR734, Santa Monica, 1996.
(2) John Deal and James Ward, "Second Thoughts on Outsourcing for the Army", Army Magazine, Association of US Army, Arlington (VA), May 2001 and Michael O’Hanlon, "Breaking the Army", Washington Post, 3 July 2003.
(3) Quoted by Maya Kulycky, "How Far Can a War be Outsourced?", MSNBC News, 14 January 2003.
(4) US GAO, "Contingency Operations: Army Should Do More to Control Contract Cost in the Balkans",
NSDIAD-00-225, Washington DC, October 2000.
(5) Walter Roche Jr and Ken Silverstein, "Iraq: Advocates of War Now Profit From Iraq’s Reconstruction", Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2004.
(6) See Sami Makki, Sarah Meek, "Private Military Companies and the Proliferation of Arms," Biting the Bullet Briefing 11, International Alert, London, June 2001.
(7) Deborah Avant, "Privatising Military Training", Foreign Policy in Focus, vol 7, n° 6, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington DC, May 2002.
(8) See Stephen Perris and David Keithly, "Outsourcing the sinews of war: contractor logistics", Military Review, US Army Command, Fort Leavenworth, October 2001.
(9) See Murray Weidenbaum, "The Changing Structure of the US Defense Industry", Orbis (Foreign Policy Research Institute), Philadelphia, Autumn 2003.
(10) "L-3 Com Announces Acquisition of MPRI", Business Wire, 18 July 2000, quoted by Peter Singer, Corporate Warriors: the Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003.
(11) US GAO, "Military Operations: Contractors Provide Vital Services to Deployed Forces but Are Not Adequately Addressed in DoD Plans", Report GAO-03-695, June 2003.
(12) See Eugene Smith, "The new condottieri and US policy", Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Carlisle (PA), winter 2002-3.
(13) Thomas Adams, "The new mercenaries and the privatization of conflict", Parameters, US Army War
College Quarterly, summer 1999.
(14) National Defence University, Strategic Assessment 1999, Washington DC, 2000.
(15) See Courrier International, 10-16 June 2004.
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 10:09:29 GMT -5
2001 Saw a Resurgence Of Mergers, Acquisitions
Firms Focused on Capabilities, Formed AlliancesBy GOPAL RATNAMAfter a yearlong slowdown in global defense industry merger and acquisition activity in 2000, there was a flurry of aggressive deal-making in 2001. The decline in U.S. defense spending that began with the end of the Cold War forced major defense firms to buy their competitors and suppliers. This type of deal-making was winding down by 2000, but 2001 saw more than 200 defense deals worth a total of about $23 billion concluded worldwide, according to data presented in “Defense Mergers & Acquisitions,” a review published in January 2002 by InfoBase Publishers, Centreville, Va. The Big Deals The two headline-grabbing deals during the year were both by Northrop Grumman Corp., Los Angeles, ranked No. 5 in the Top 100 list. Northrop Grumman bought nuclear shipbuilder Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va., in a $2.6 billion deal in December. This deal came on the heels of Northrop’s purchase earlier in the year of one of the U.S. Navy’s largest shipbuilders, Litton Industries Inc., Woodland Hills, Calif., for $5.1 billion. The Litton deal also enlarged Northrop Grumman’s footprint in the fast-growing information technology sector. In 2002, Northrop Grumman stepped up the pace of its acquisitions, successfully outbidding General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, Va., for Cleveland-based TRW Inc. Despite this setback, General Dynamics, No. 6 on the Top 100 list, still logged a successful year of acquisitions in 2001. It was the second largest buyer of defense firms that year, completing about $1.68 billion worth deals, the data in the report showed. General Dynamics’ largest deal in 2001 was the $825 million purchase of Motorola Inc.’s Integrated Information Systems unit in Scotsdale, Ariz. The year 2001 also saw a major defense deal fail to win approval from European anti-trust officials after winning the approval of U.S. regulators. The European Union’s anti-trust officials, fearing it would squelch competition in Europe, blocked the $45 billion offer by General Electric Co., Fairfield, Conn., to buy Honeywell Inc., Morristown, N.J. But for the deal falling through, 2001 would have been a banner year for defense mergers and acquisitions, Stuart McCutchan, editor of “Defense Mergers & Acquisitions,” said in an interview. If the deal had passed, the total value of deals in 2001 would have surpassed the high mark of $56 billion set in 1999, McCutchan said. Mid-Range Deals While the megadeals face close scrutiny by regulators in the United States and Europe, mergers and acquisitions among midtier firms in the United States continued apace in 2001. L-3 Communications Corp., New York, No. 21 on the Top 100 list, and Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Edina, Minn., No.24, were aggressive buyers in 2001. L-3 purchased nearly a half-billion dollars’ worth of businesses, while Alliant Techsystems spent close to $1 billion on acquisitions. The mid-level U.S. defense firms, numbering about a dozen now, will continue to consolidate, said Frank Lanza, chairman and chief executive of L-3. “In a year or so, there will be seven or eight [firms] left in the midtier,” he said. ATK, a spin-off of Honeywell’s defense and marine systems business, strengthened its propulsion business with the purchase of Brigham City, Utah-based Thiokol Propulsion from Alcoa Inc., Pittsburgh. ATK’s munitions business was expanded with the purchase of Blount International Inc., Montgomery, Ala. Toronto-based CAE Inc., No. 70 on the Top 100 list, continued to expand, buying $530 million worth simulation and training businesses during 2001. Acitivity in Europe European defense giants continued to realign themselves and created two new companies. London-based European missile house MBDA was crafted out of Matra BAE Dynamics, EADS-Aerospatiale Matra Missiles and the missile business of Alenia Marconi Systems. Helicopter-maker AgustaWestland, Yeovil, England, was formed by Finmeccanica SpA, Rome, London-based GKN plc. The new European firms were put together to compete more effectively against U.S. defense firms, McCutchan said. In the United Kingdom, where No. 3 BAE SYSTEMS plc, London, is pushing to expand its business activities in the United States, another notable change included the consolidation of the country’s armored vehicle manufacturers to a single company, with the purchase of Vickers Defence Systems Ltd., Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by London-based Alvis plc. With the French government of President Jacques Chirac on course for the start of a series of privatizations amongst state owned companies, there is the prospect of considerable ownership changes over the next few years across a swath of defense related companies in which it has shares, including engine-maker Snecma (No. 32), land systems builder GIAT Industries (No. 50), Thales (No. 7) and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. NV (EADS), Amsterdam (No. 8). Finmeccania, No. 15 in this year’s Top 100 list, is expected to continue its acquisition spree into 2003. The company has purchased defense communications company Marconi Mobile and satellite service provider Telespazio, and a deal to buy Italian jet trainer maker Aermacchi is pending. Andrew Chuter in London and Tom Kington in Rome contributed to this report.
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 11:07:30 GMT -5
INCORPORATED MERCENARIES .... The most influential of these American mercenary groups is the Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) which, to quote its website homepage "is a professional services company engaged in defense related contracting in the USA and international markets". A brief resume of some of the more high-profile board members since its incorporation in 1988....: President/CEO: General Carl E. Vuono (US Army Chief of Staff '87 to '92 - and, as such, oversaw both the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War)
Snr.Vice-Pres.: General Crosbie 'Butch' Saint (Commander US Army Europe '88 to '92)
Executive Vice-Pres.: General Richard H. Griffith (Asst. US Army Commander Intelligence in Europe '89 to '91)
Vice-Pres Operations: General Ed Soyster (Asst. US Commander Europe '82; later Head of Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA] - retired '88) ....(a) In 1994, a contract - titled Democracy Transition Assistance Program (DTAP) - was agreed between the Croat defense minister and the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Deutch (who subsequently became Director of CIA from '95 until he was forced to resign the following year beacause he had improperly stored classified information on his personal computer disc!). The contract was awarded to MPRI who would train and equip the Croatian army under the command of retired General Richard Griffith (see above). This resulted in the Croatian attack on the Serbs in West Krajina, in which more than 150,000 Serbs fled the region. The efficiency of this attack was largely due to a tactic known as 'Airland Battle 2000', the brainchild of General Crosbie 'Butch' Saint (see above) at the special training center, TRADOC, under the command of Gen'l Vuono (see above). It is worthy of note that DTAP, in effect, violated the 1991 UN Security Council embargo on Yugoslavia which made 'direct military assistance illegal'. (b) In May '96, in the aftermath of the Drayton Peace Accord, MPRI was awarded a 3-year contract (subsequently renewed) to 'train & equip' the Bosnian Muslim/Croat army - again under the command of General Griffith. This was financed by the Pentagon and five Muslim countries, the Pentagon supplying a significant amount of its surplus weaponry (including 45 tanks, 80 armoured personnel carriers, et al.). MPRI was also given a contract by the State Department to monitor the Serbia/Bosnia border to ensure that the former did not supply the Bosnian Serbs with weapons. (c) In the aftermath of NATO's bombing of Kosovo in 1999, the KLA (once rightly considered by the Western Powers as 'terrorists') was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) and the MPRI was awarded the contract to 'train & equip' same - again under the command of General Griffith. Intriguingly, the commander of this newly-formed KPC was one Brigadier General Agim Ceku, an Albanian Kosovan who had been serving in the Croatian army when: (1) according to Jane's Defence Weekly of 10th June '99, he had "masterminded the successful HV (Croatian army) offensive at Medak in September '93"; and (2) he had played an important role in the Croat's routing of the Serbs in Western Krajina (covered above). He was thus well-acquainted with General Griffith. (d) As confirmed by Major General Metodi Stamboliski of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia (ARM) General Staff in the magazine 'Defence' of April 2000, "Our work has been significantly assisted by the contribution made by the US team known as the MPRI team, headed by the retired general of the US Army, General Richard Griffith"..adding.."Among other things, the MPRI team has also developed a G-3 assistance program". G-3 was the title of the ARM training program. In his article 'Proxy War in Macedonia' Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian professor, reveals another pertinent fact: namely, that the Chief of Staff of ARM, General Jovan Andrejevski had attended a military school in the USA, under General Griffith. This government/ private army relationship is generally seen as a case of the former disassociating itself from the actions of the latter (known as 'out-sourcing' in business circles): "We cannot be held responsible for what they do!". This does not stand up to closer scrutiny in the case of MPRI. Here is a company so self-evidently close to the Administration that the two could reasonably be considered one - and inseparable. To quote General Soyster (see above) in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times of 3rd December 2000 regarding MPRI's contract to advise and train Columbia's military and police: "They are using us to carry out American foreign policy. We certainly don't determine foreign policy, but we can be part of the US government executing its foreign policy". This poses no problem in America. As Ken Silverstein reveals in his article 'Privatizing War' in The Nation '97: "Congress reviews and can restrict the dispatch of Pentagon military trainers abroad. It has no authority over private trainers, who need only get a licence from the State Department, a process that happens far from view". Such is the nature, the power of a Corporate Administration - to say nothing of its lack of 'democratic' accountability! : In the same article, Silverstein reveals that, while head of the DIA, General Soyster had dealt out a number of contracts to the well-known German arms dealer, Ernst Werner Glatt, for the procurement of Soviet weapons which were then shipped to the USA "from whence they would be sent to America's proxy troops in Latin America, Asia and Africa. After Soyster retired, he and Glatt became business partners on at least one weapons deal" - adding - " Glatt was the favorite arms merchant of the CIA, which chose him to move arms to the contras in Nicaragua and the mujahedeen in Afghanistan". Silverstein further added that Glatt was supplying weapons to Croatia until "at least late last year" ('96), and had bought "a country estate in Virginia, which he named the 'Black Eagle', a symbol of Nazi Germany." Having ventured into the hazardous realm of finance - even going to the extent of adding the suffix 'Incorporated' to their company's name - these soldiers of fortune were, presumably, not surprised when, on the 18th of July 2000, they were incorporated into L-3 Communications Corp., a company whose main customers were the US Department of Defense and US government Intelligence agencies - and on whose board sat John M. Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton. This is a company specialising in telecommunications and 'simulating training' which had just previously acquired two other firms: SY Technology and Raytheon - both firms engaged in telecommunication and simulation. Intriguingly - and alarmingly - SY Tech. plays a crucial role in the Bush-sponsored Ballistic Missile Defense Organisation - a throw-back to Reagan's 'Star Wars' planned project. L-3 was co-founded in 1997 by Robert LaPenta and Frank Lanza, the latter being its Chairman/CEO. He had previously been Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin.... Not surprisingly, Lockheed owns 34% of L-3's common stock. To quote Forbes magazine of 7th July '02: "Lanza is capitalising on the dramatic change in military strategy over the last decade" (see 'Airland 2000 Battle' above) - to say nothing of the increase in the Defense Department's 2000 budget. 'Forbes' further states that L-3's battlefield simulators & training bring in $400 million in sales each year....and "in the Defense Department's recently released quadrennial review of the military, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld listed battlefield simulation as a priority". Having already noted the clonal relationship between the US Administration and MPRI, it is clearly apparent that this noteworthy merger would not - to put it mildly - have occurred without the former's permission. Having merged with L-3, MPRI, in November 2000, created its own sub-division, the Alexandria Group, which, in its own words "will provide the highest quality education, training & organisational expertise to law enforcement & corporations around the world"..adding that it is staffed by law enforcement professionals headed by retired FBI Assistant Director Joseph R. Wolfinger. This was certainly a broadening of its professed earlier aims which were, understandably, martial in nature - as confirmed by the following quote from MPRI's website: "The company's business focus is on military matters, to increase training, equiping, force design & management, professional development, concepts & doctrine, organisational & operational assistance, quick reaction military contractual support, and democracy transition assistance programs for the military forces of emerging republics". There is no contradiction between these two professed aims - rather, it is confirmation that Corporate America is using this tool of mercenaries to infiltrate into 'under-developed' Latin American and African countries, and newly-emerging ex-communist republics in order to ensure (a) its dominance of markets in its advance globally; and (b) that any resistance to this advance can be suppressed by US-trained military forces of those countries. America is thus ignoring President Eisenhower's warning to the American people in his farewell address when, in his reference to what he termed this 'military-industrial complex', he warned that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists - and will persist". Prophetic words! Conclusion?: The MPRI are mercenaries on a mission - according to the Word of Mammon!
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 11:33:34 GMT -5
Mercenary, Inc.? If You Ran a Third World Country and Your Military Needed Help, Who Would You Call? The U.S. Army? The UN? Try MPRI, an Alexandria, VA-Based Firm in the Vanguard of the Military Service Provider Movement. It's Big Business - And It Just May Be at the Cutting Edge of U.S. Foreign Policy. by Ken Silverstein - Ed Soyster is a retired three-star general and the former director of the super-secret Defense Intelligence Agency, but in his conservative brown business suit, he looks more like Willy Loman than James Bond. It's a chilly Tuesday morning in February, and Soyster has just greeted me at the door of Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a rapidly growing firm based in Alexandria, VA, for which he is the spokesperson. MPRI's headquarters - located in a five-story office building next to a Best Western motel off the George Washington Parkway - appears as nondescript as Soyster. The reception-area coffee table is covered with old issues of Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveler, Food & Wine and other standard fare. The firm's name and corporate logo, a golden sword, are embossed on the front door. Aside from the vaguely martial insignia, nothing otherwise distinguishes MPRI from the thousands of beltway bandit firms that ring Greater Washington. Given the nature of its business, MPRI's low profile probably is not a coincidence. Despite this bland façade, MPRI has emerged as the leading player in a controversial field that critics call "Mercenary, Inc." Defenders prefer the more innocuous "military service provider," arguing that these 21st-century exporters of war strategy are a far cry from the soldiers of fortune of the past. The firm's mission is to discreetly train foreign armies - often ones with atrocious human rights records - that are allied with the United States. The industry, though still in its infancy, is booming. So much so that last year MPRI was bought, on undisclosed terms, by L-3 Communications [ticker: LLL], a nearly $3-billion per year New York-based company that manufactures high-tech goods, primarily for the Pentagon. MPRI's corporate ranks are filled with dozens of retired officers. In fact, outside of the Pentagon, which is conveniently located just 10 minutes away, there are few places where you'll find such a gathering of high-powered military men. As we head back to his office, Soyster points out the office of MPRI's president, retired General Carl Vuono, U.S. Army chief of staff during the Gulf War, and introduces me to another retired general, Ron Griffiths, an executive vice president and a former Army vice chief of staff. Though he's not in on the day I arrive, Vuono's reputation precedes him: He's a meat-and-potatoes military man and former combat arms officer who commanded two battalions in Vietnam. To hear it from Soyster, MPRI sells a product that's utterly conventional. In fact, he jokes during my brief tour of the office, the parent firm L-3 is a publicly traded corporation, "so anyone with a 401(k) retirement plan is probably an investor in our company." Of course, most companies don't go looking for business in countries rife with war and conflict. During the past few years, MPRI has worked with a group of countries that sounds like a casting call for next year's edition of Fielding's The World's Most Dangerous Places: Bosnia, Colombia, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. The incentive to join up with MPRI, industry watchers say, is money. Though the firm does not disclose the pay of its top officers, analysts say they expect all ranks make more than their U.S. military equivalents. But Soyster resists the notion that MPRI employees are rolling in cash - he says a colonel actually makes less if he teaches an ROTC course for MPRI than he made before retiring, but could make more than his U.S. Army counterparts if he is posted overseas for the firm. In any case, Soyster says, there's not much incentive for servicemen and women to quit and join MPRI, since the bump in pay is not dramatic, and because, like any contracting business, the work can be uncertain. The Pentagon and the CIA have long used private contractors for a variety of tasks, from building base infrastructure to assisting with covert operations. But today's scenario differs greatly from past practice. MPRI and other private military companies (PMCs) are not CIA cutouts but huge corporations with diverse interests. Their work is implemented not by CIA-trained foreign locals, but by high-ranking U.S. military officers fresh out of the armed forces. Driving the proliferation of PMCs are the huge cutbacks in the number of U.S. armed forces personnel following the end of the Cold War. Between 1985 - the height of the Reagan-era military buildup - and 1999, troop levels have fallen by an average of 30 percent, thereby stretching the Pentagon's ability to carry out certain tasks. "Private companies augment our ability to provide foreign training," explains retired Lieutenant General Larry Skibbie, now at the National Defense Industrial Association. "We'll see more and more of this as we continue to cut back on our uniformed forces." Indeed, PMCs are effectively an arm of foreign policy. Before offering military assistance to foreign governments, PMCs must apply for a license from the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls, which oversees the emerging field. "License requests are very carefully reviewed," says an official at SAIC, a San Diego-based firm (with 14,000 employees in Greater Washington and 41,000 worldwide) that dabbles in PMC work. "Even when you're just at the talking stage, there is a very high level of scrutiny." SAIC, by the way, also spawned a historically significant technology company: Network Solutions, the firm that once held exclusive rights to Internet domain name registration. Critics charge that the use of private military contractors allows the United States to pursue its geopolitical interests without deploying its own army, this being especially useful in cases where training is provided to regimes with dubious human rights records. And if a contractor's employee gets killed overseas, it doesn't provoke nearly as much political uproar as does the death of an American soldier. "It's foreign policy by proxy," Dan Nelson, a professor at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, and a former visiting scholar at the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense, says of the use of PMCs. "Corporate entities are used to perform tasks that the government, for budgetary reasons or political sensitivities, cannot carry out." Multinational corporations, particularly those operating in countries where governments exert little control over their territory, are also turning to private contractors for help. In Africa, a number of U.S. and European PMCs stand guard at mining sites, oil fields and other economic installations. (Unlike some PMCs, MPRI does not perform guard duty for corporate clients, but only works for governments). "Companies need to protect their assets and shareholder value," says Michael Grunberg, an official with Sandline, a prominent British PMC. "It's like posting a guard at the bank." There are just a few dozen American PMCs, and few of those dominate the business. In Saudi Arabia, a subsidiary of TRW called Vinnell trains the National Guard, which is deemed to be more reliable than the army and protects the royal family and strategic facilities such as oil installations. Vinnell has about 1,000 employees in Saudi Arabia - many of them U.S. Army Special Forces veterans - who are based at five National Guard sites. During the Gulf War, Vinnell employees were deployed along with Saudi units and got bonus pay for hazardous duty. (continued)
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 11:35:04 GMT -5
AirScan, a firm based in Titusville, FL, works for the Pentagon, the Air Force and a variety of multinational corporations. The company's promotional literature says that its "experienced crews, effective systems, and complete integration with ground forces" allow AirScan to "accurately direct ground personnel to the threat [and provide] observation and communication required for successful security operations." AirScan has worked for Chevron in Angola, where it served with the local military in seeking to protect the oil company's operations against a guerrilla threat. More recently, AirScan surfaced in Colombia, where it helps the army and Occidental Petroleum protect pipelines from leftist guerrillas who have been fighting the government there for nearly four decades. DynCorp, a company based in Reston, VA, with annual revenues that top $1 billion, does business with a host of government agencies and has interests that range from environmental cleanup and information technology to the more murky areas of national security. In Colombia, the company works under contract with the State Department in providing pilots, trainers and maintenance workers for the Colombian government's vast aerial eradication program to destroy drug crops. PMCs aren't supposed to be engaged in combat - but in late February, several DynCorp workers flew into the middle of a firefight, landing their helicopter to rescue the crew of a police chopper brought down by leftist guerrillas. DynCorp is also involved on the frontlines of various other Latin American drug wars. In the early 1990s, the State Department hired the company for the ostensible purpose of maintaining helicopters then on loan to Peruvian police. In 1992, three DynCorp employees died when one of those helicopters was hit by fire from Shining Path guerrillas while flying over a major coca-growing region. Two of the casualties turned out to be former covert-ops specialists, including Robert Hitchman, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot who worked for Air America (the CIA's airline and covert operations front in Indochina during the 1960s). Another of DynCorp's near- casualties, though in a far different context, was CEO Dan Bannister. He was scheduled to be on the 1996 military flight in the Balkans that crashed and killed all aboard, including then- Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, but decided at the last minute to skip it. "I am the luckiest man alive," Bannister said in press accounts after the crash. "There's no point in training the QUEEN'S Islanders. To control human rights violations you need a well-trained, efficient ARMY." MPRI'S ED SOYSTER In business terms, MPRI has shot up through the ranks. When retired General Vernon Lewis founded the firm in 1988, MPRI had just three full-time employees. Its payroll climbed to 40 in 1992 and 850 today, plus a database of some 12,000 retired military personnel who can be called upon to handle contract work. Revenues have also soared, from $4 million in 1995 to $70 million last year. It was that sort of growth that led L-3 Communications - founded in 1997 as a spin-off of 10 electronics manufacturing divisions of Lockheed Martin - to swoop in and purchase MPRI. L-3 hasn't done so badly, either: Its tripled in size since its founding, and the company's stock price has roughly doubled during the past 12 months. The deal was unusual in that L-3 primarily sells hardware, including flight recorders, control systems for satellites and the controlled momentum gyroscope that keeps the International Space Station in its orbit, whereas MPRI sells services. (Founder Vernon Lewis stepped down as CEO two years ago and became chairman of the board. When L-3 bought the company, the MPRI board was phased out, and Lewis has had no role with the firm since. He was, of course, a shareholder at the time L-3 purchased the company.) Frank Lanza, L-3's chairman and CEO, believes privatization of military services will continue to expand and sees MPRI as a hot property with "competitive advantages" that no other training business can match. "It's a well-managed company with double-digit profit margins," he says in a phone conversation from his New York office. Lanza acknowledges MPRI's military training programs are controversial and says that's made him view its overseas ventures with caution. "They can't go anywhere without government approval, but there could still be negative public opinion," he says. "We're sensitive to that and watching it very closely so we don't get involved in a situation by accident." Lanza's upbeat assessment is shared by industry-watcher Deborah Avant, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University who is working on a book about PMCs. "Technically, MPRI has competitors, but it's got a unique mix of personnel and connections," she says. "They pretty much have a corner on their piece of the market." During its early years, MPRI maintained a cool, if not downright suspicious, relationship with the press. There are still some areas that Soyster prefers not to discuss, but the firm has become increasingly accessible to the media. Indeed, given some of the things I've written about MPRI in the past - "mercenary" is one of the more polite appellations I've used to describe the company - Soyster's very consent to an interview was somewhat unexpected. The company makes every effort to be seen as just another business entity - its website www.mpri.com is filled with lingo that could be pulled off almost any corporate site. It's just that this site's "job opportunities" section includes headings like: "Kuwait - Infantry." As he explains in his office (Soyster apologizes that he can't give me a full slideshow presentation in the nearby conference room, as it is being used to host the new ambassador to Nigeria, a company client), MPRI has three distinct divisions. The National Group, headed by retired Lieutenant General Jerry Bates, develops curriculum for the Pentagon's War Colleges, tests new military equipment and trains troops to use it, and runs ROTC programs at more than 200 universities. Joe Wolfinger, a former deputy director of the FBI, runs the Alexandria Group, which was introduced last year. It handles training for law enforcement agencies, offers seminars in leader development, and conducts background investigations for government and corporate clients. The International Group, headed by former General Crosbie Saint, who commanded the U.S. Army in Europe between 1988 and 1992, handles foreign training programs. Though it generates just 40 percent of MPRI's revenues, the International Group has attracted by far the most public scrutiny. "You just know that it's not gonna be the HEAD of the group who gets SHOT, but a 21-year-old pregnant woman." MPRI'S ED SOYSTER Soyster vehemently objects to the description of MPRI as a "mercenary" firm, saying that the work of the International Group is restricted to training, education on the military's role in a democracy, leader development and strategic planning. "We've all carried guns and used them, but we don't do so for MPRI," he states emphatically, adding that company employees on assignment overseas dress in business suits, not military uniforms. MPRI has even turned down contracts - for example, guarding overseas embassies - which would require its staff to carry weapons, for fear of bad publicity. "The scenario we're afraid of is that a situation gets out of hand and one of our guys has to shoot someone," he tells me as he fingers the black gemstone on his 1957 class ring from West Point. "You just know that it's not gonna be the head of the group who gets shot, but a 21-year-old pregnant woman. It's not worth the risk." With his straight-shooting bonhomie, Soyster is easy to like. He's great fun to shoot the breeze with - after all, he's led an interesting career and has the stories to back it up. That's probably a key reason why he's the go-to guy to tell the firm's story. Soyster says MPRI got its first big overseas contract in 1994, when Croatia hired the firm to advise its military forces. The company dispatched a team to Zagreb that arrived during a period of particularly intense fighting between Croat and Serb forces. "The Croatians saw their future with the West, not the East," says Soyster, who says MPRI's role was limited to classroom instruction on tactics and did not include training in battlefield tactics. "They wanted to join NATO's Partnership for Peace program, and we helped them achieve that." (continued) |
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Post by Moses on Dec 28, 2004 11:36:03 GMT -5
Yet just months after MPRI's arrival, Croatia's army - which until MPRI came on the scene had been viewed as bumbling and inept - launched a series of bloody and highly successful offensives against Serb forces. Most important was Operation Lightning Storm, the assault on the Krajina region during which Serbian villages were sacked and burned, hundreds of civilians were killed and some 170,000 people were driven from their homes. Soyster says that MPRI, like the U.S. government, knew the attack on the Krajina would take place and that perhaps half a dozen officers who graduated from its training seminars took part in the operation. Otherwise, he insists, the company played no role in the Krajina campaign. "It's impossible, no matter how good you are, to turn around an army in a few months," he says. "But it's a great myth. It's good for our business."
MPRI's contract with Croatia has been renewed several times, and it still has a team in Zagreb today, though its presence there no longer attracts much attention. The firm is also at work in neighboring Bosnia, which picked MPRI to train its new armed forces after winning independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1996. As part of that program - which is overseen by the U.S. government but paid for by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Brunei and Malaysia - MPRI has designed a combat-training center, set up the Ministry of Defense, and helped establish an army that Soyster says is designed to handle defensive tasks. At the program's peak, MPRI had 230 former officers in Bosnia. "We had about 30 colonels over there, five divisions' worth," Soyster boasts. "The U.S. Army can't send those kind of numbers."
MPRI is also expanding in Africa, where it is helping implement the Pentagon's African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), a program designed to strengthen U.S. ties to African nations and create an indigenous "peace- keeping" force on the continent. Seven nations are participating in ACRI - Benin, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mali, Senegal and Uganda - with MPRI's role being to provide leadership training. None of those nations has a stellar human rights record.
Elsewhere in Africa, MPRI has a $7-million contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to instruct the Nigerian military, which ruled the country for almost 15 years before turning power over to civilians in 1999. MPRI is also training the new Coast Guard in Equatorial Guinea, which recently uncovered huge offshore oil deposits. That country is headed by a government that the conservative human rights group Freedom House rates, along with countries like Burma, North Korea and Iraq, as having one of the world's worst records on political and civil liberties. Soyster traveled to Equatorial Guinea last year to kick off MPRI's work and has met on five occasions with the president of the country, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
On other continents, MPRI's clients have ranged from the benign - such as Sweden, where the armed forces were briefed on the Gulf War - to the questionable. In Colombia, for example, MPRI helped the Ministry of Defense, in Soyster's words, "reorganize and orient itself toward counter-drug operations" on a contract paid for by the Pentagon. Soyster concedes that MPRI's clients frequently aren't poster children for political freedom, but he says that's exactly the point of working with them. "There's no point in training the Queen's Islanders," he says. "To control human rights violations you need a well-trained, efficient army. Wringing your hands is not going to solve the problem."
He walks over to a bookshelf and pulls out a three-ring binder with seminar materials that the company has used to instruct African military officers. "Let us all be clear on this point," reads a section of text he points to. "The establishment and maintenance of civilian control and oversight of the military form the foundation upon which the stability of democracy is built." Looking up from the page, Soyster says that he and his colleagues at MPRI have devoted 30 years of their lives to a system in which the military is subordinate to elected leadership. "That guy over there on the wall" - here he points to a picture of former General Douglas McArthur that accompanies a framed newspaper story from the 1950s - "had a problem with President Truman. As you may recall, the president won." But not all of the firm's clients have learned the lesson: In the Ivory Coast, the military seized power less than a week after MPRI concluded its instruction, though no one suggests there was a link between the coursework and the coup.
For better or for worse, PMCs are here to stay. According to Soyster, MPRI has potential deals brewing across the globe, from Poland in Europe to Argentina in South America to Bahrain in the Middle East. "You're probably not gonna hear people say they're going to MPRI-ize their country the way you Hoover your apartment in England," he says while walking me back to the front door and heading out to an appointment, "but we are developing a pretty good brand name."
JOB START DATE: O/A 1 June 2001
POSITION LOCATION: Kuwait
JOB REFERENCE NUMBER: I73
CATEGORY OF POSITION: Trainer/Advisor
TITLE OF POSITION: Special Forces
DESCRIPTION OF POSITION: MPRI has been selected to assist in the design and development of a comprehensive plan to upgrade the military and its administrative and technical systems. MPRI will begin the design and development of a comprehensive plan by employing a combined Host Nation/MPRI team to conduct an assessment and review. This will result in completion of an Action Plan within ninety days of the contract start date. Following approval by the Host Nation, the combined team will immediately begin execution of the Action Plan. The implementation of the Action Plan and the establishment of institutions and processes are planned for a three-year program. The Comprehensive Plan is a cooperative effort and is designed to yield early results and establishment of long-term institutions and sustainment processes.
POSITION CRITERIA: Retired Army LTC or COL (CMF 18A Special Forces) with following command/experience-SF battalion-level command preferred; Delta, Ranger Bn or Regt.
SALARY RANGE: Competitive
BENEFITS: Housing, Employee and family health and dental coverage, 401(k) with employer match, liberal holiday, vacation, and sick leave allowance, worker's compensation coverage, disability coverage.
CLEARANCE REQUIREMENTS: No Requirement
POINT OF CONTACT: Arnie Laidig, Recruiting and Staffing Manager
Tel: (800) 779-6940
Email: alaidig@mpri.com
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Post by Moses on Jan 9, 2005 12:46:21 GMT -5
January 9, 2005
German's Claim of Kidnapping Brings Investigation of U.S. Link
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and SOUAD MEKHENNET
MUNICH - On the afternoon of Dec. 31, 2003, Khaled el-Masri was traveling on a tourist bus headed for the Macedonian capital, Skopje, where he was hoping to escape the "holiday pressures" of home life during a weeklong vacation. When the bus reached the Serbia-Macedonia border, Mr. Masri said, he was asked the usual questions: Where are you going? How long will you be staying? Mr. Masri, a German citizen, did not think much of it, until he realized that the border guards had confiscated his passport. The bus moved on, but an increasingly panicked Mr. Masri was ordered to stay behind. A few hours later, Mr. Masri, a 41-year-old unemployed car salesman, said he was taken to a small, windowless room and was accused of being a terrorist by three men who were dressed in civilian clothes but carrying pistols. "They asked a lot of questions - if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood," recalled Mr. Masri, who was born in Lebanon. "I kept saying no, but they did not believe me." It was the first day of what Mr. Masri said would become five months in captivity. In an interview, he said that after being kidnapped by the Macedonian authorities at the border, he was turned over to officials he believed were from the United States. He said they flew him to a prison in Afghanistan, where he said he was shackled, beaten repeatedly, photographed nude, injected with drugs and questioned by interrogators about what they insisted were his ties to Al Qaeda. He was released without ever being charged with a crime. The German police and prosecutors have been investigating Mr. Masri's allegations since he reported the matter to them last June, two weeks after his return to Germany. Martin Hofmann, a senior national prosecutor in Munich who handles terrorism cases and is in charge of the Masri investigation, and another official, a senior organized crime investigator in southern Germany, say they believe Mr. Masri's story. They said investigators interviewed him for 17 hours over two days, that his story was very detailed and that he recounted it consistently. In addition, the officials said they had verified specific elements of the case, including that Mr. Masri was forced off the bus at the border. Still, much of Mr. Masri's story has not been corroborated. His assertion that he was held by Americans in Afghanistan, for example, is solely based on what he said he observed or was told after he was taken off the bus in Macedonia. Mr. Masri said he was confounded by his captors' insistence that he was a Qaeda operative. He attends a mosque in Ulm, Germany, that has been closely watched by the authorities because several suspected terrorists have worshiped there. But those authorities say Mr. Masri has never been a suspect. Mr. Masri's lawyer, Manfred R. Gnjidic, said he suspected that his client was swept into the C.I.A.'s policy of "renditions" - handing custody of a prisoner from United States control to another country for the purposes of interrogation - because he has the same name, with a slightly different spelling, as a man wanted in the Sept. 11 attacks. The policy has come under increasing criticism as other cases have come to light recently. Although the German authorities say they have no specific suspects in the Masri case, they say they are looking into the possible role of the United States and other countries. "It is an unusual case," Mr. Hofmann said. "The political dimension is huge. Under German law, we can charge a person with kidnapping, but not a country. Countries cannot kidnap people." Officials at Germany's national intelligence agency said they are also investigating. They said they asked the F.B.I. for assistance last fall but have received little help. A senior administration official said the Bush administration had been aware of these allegations for some time, but he referred questions to the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. In a series of interviews, neither the C.I.A. nor the F.B.I. would deny or confirm Mr. Masri's allegations. A C.I.A. spokeswoman said the agency would not comment at all. Senior F.B.I. officials in Washington acknowledged that they received a request for help from the Germans last October, and said they were assisting in the investigation. The officials disputed that they had not worked aggressively on the case. "This is a very ongoing thing, and we are working together with the Germans to resolve it," a senior official said. "Our hope is we can get to the bottom of it." The official declined to discuss whether the bureau had had any contact with the C.I.A. or Pentagon about the allegations. Golan Pavlovski, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Macedonia, said he had no information about Mr. Masri's case. When he returned home last June, Mr. Masri said, he felt relief but also rage. Asked whom he blames, Mr. Masri, a burly, soft-spoken man, looked at his hands for a long moment before saying, "Of course, I blame the Americans first." Similar Cases Mr. Masri's allegations bear similarities to the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian born in Syria who was suspected of being a Qaeda operative. Mr. Arar, who was detained in New York in 2002, says he was sent by the United States to Syria, where he says he was repeatedly tortured during 10 months in prison. A second detainee, Mamdouh Habib, an Australian, has asserted in court papers that he was tortured in an Egyptian prison for nearly six months in 2001 before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The allegations were contained in a motion filed with a federal court recently. Mr. Habib's lawyer has asked the federal district court in Washington to block the Bush administration from sending him back to Egypt, asserting that he would be tortured again there. The C.I.A. began the renditions program in the early 1990's, but its use has increased since the Sept. 11 attacks. Human rights organizations, who say the policy is tantamount to government-sponsored kidnapping, estimate that dozens of "high value" detainees are being held in secret locations around the world. C.I.A. officials have acknowledged that the agency conducts renditions, but say they do not condone the use of torture during interrogations. Mr. Masri, who had not gone public with his case, agreed to give an interview last month after being approached by The New York Times. During the interview, he spoke without notes, and in great detail, about his case. He said he was able to recount his time in captivity because he wrote down his experiences right after he was released. The timeline was corroborated by documents, including a bus ticket and a stamp on his passport in Albania on May 29, the date he said he was released. He returned to Germany on June 3. His account also matched details in a report about his case written by Amnesty International, whose officials interviewed Mr. Masri on June 21. "Mr. Masri had been questioned twice for a lot of hours, and he always has said the same things, he never changed details," Mr. Hofmann said in an interview about his country's investigation. "Therefore I don't think it would be possible that someone could invent such a story." Mr. Masri said his ordeal began after he decided to go on a short vacation without his family after arguing with his wife, choosing Skopje because it was inexpensive and friends had recommended it. After being interrogated the first night in Macedonia, Mr. Masri, who speaks German and Arabic, was taken to a motel on the outskirts of Skopje, where he said several men held him for 23 days. "They told me: 'You are not arrested. You aren't handcuffed, are you?' " Mr. Masri recalled. But he said he was not permitted to leave. (rest at link)
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Post by Jasondib on May 17, 2019 20:58:26 GMT -5
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Post by JimmyQuics on Jun 20, 2019 1:16:00 GMT -5
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Post by AngelCed on Jun 24, 2019 20:52:56 GMT -5
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Post by KevinAnifs on Jul 9, 2019 17:01:25 GMT -5
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Post by Jeremyter on Jan 12, 2020 1:36:41 GMT -5
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