DynCorp
<p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fail on train afghan police</font></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rev door mil logistic bd, hallib charged govt for meals never provided; <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">did intial study bush 41 </span>that said pvt cheaper but real # 2x more $</font></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/study-says-nearly-half-of-defense-spending-for-9-11-wars-went-to-private-contractors" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/study-says-nearly-half-of-defense-spending-for-9-11-wars-went-to-private-contractors</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> Sep 13, 2021 5:58 PM EDT</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors, </b>a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the post-9/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like [dyncorp]training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Within weeks, and before the U.S. military had even completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban easily routed an Afghan government and military that Americans had spent 20 years and billions of dollars to stand up. President Joe Biden placed blame squarely on the Afghans themselves. “We gave them every chance,” he said last month. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>But William Hartung, the author of Monday’s study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy, </b>and others say it’s essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9/11 wars. In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few but U.S. contractors knew how to maintain.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">“If it were only the money, that would be outrageous enough,” Hartung, the director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said of instances where the Pentagon’s reliance on contractors backfired. “But the fact it undermined the mission and put troops at risk is even more outrageous.</span>”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">At the start of this year, before Biden began the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were far more contractors in Afghanistan and also in Iraq than U.S. troops.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9/11 conflicts, and nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates.[total pvt out# mil 150k?]</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Professional Services Council, an organization representing businesses contracting with the government, cited a lower figure from the U.S. Department of Labor saying nearly 4,000 federal contractors have been killed since 2001.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A spokeswoman pointed to a statement last month from the organization’s president, David J. Berteau: “For almost two decades, government contractors have provided broad and essential support for U.S. and allied forces, for the Afghan military and other elements of the Afghan government, and for humanitarian and economic development assistance.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks embraced private contractors as an essential part of the U.S. military response.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, [nope bush 41 hallib study to pvtize]the former CEO of Halliburton</b>. Halliburton received more than $30 billion to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says. Cheney and defense contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer U.S. military, and be more efficient and cost effective.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By 2010, Pentagon spending had surged by more than one-third, as the U.S. fought dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a post-9/11 American, politicians vied to show support for the military in a country grown far more security conscious.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“Any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November,” the study notes Harry Stonecipher, then the vice president of Boeing, telling The Wall Street Journal the month after the attacks.[up 3-5% /yr soon to hill trillion; reconciliation 3.5 trill over 10 years so this is 2x?!]</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And up to a third of the Pentagon contracts went to just five weapons suppliers. Last fiscal year, for example, the money Lockheed Martin alone got from Pentagon contracts was one and a half times the entire budgets of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the study.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>For example, a Florida Republican Party official made millions on what lawmakers charged were excess profits when the U.S. granted a one-of-a-kind contract for fuel convoys from Jordan to Iraq,</b> the study notes. The electrocution of at least 18 service members by bad wiring in bases in Iraq, some of it blamed on major contractor <b>Kellogg, Brown and Root,</b> was another of many instances where government investigations pointed to shoddy logistics and reconstruction work.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The stunning Taliban victory last month in Afghanistan is drawing attention now to even graver consequences: the extent to which the U.S. reliance on contractors may have heightened the difficulties of the Afghan security forces.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Jodi Vittori, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel and scholar of corruption and fragile states at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was not involved in the study, points to the U.S. insistence that the Afghan air force use U.S.-made helicopters. <b>Afghans preferred Russian helicopters, which were easier to fly, could be maintained by Afghans, and were suited to rugged Afghanistan.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>When U.S. contractors pulled out with U.S. troops this spring and summer, taking their knowledge of how to maintain U.S.-provided aircraft with them, top Afghan leaders bitterly complained to the U.S. that it had deprived them of one essential advantage over the Taliban.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Hartung, like others, also points to the corruption engendered by the billions of loosely monitored dollars that the U.S. poured into Afghanistan as one central reason that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government lost popular support, and Afghan fighters lost morale.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state under President Barack Obama, accused defense contractors at risk in war zones of resorting to payoffs to armed groups, making protection money one of the biggest sources of funding for the Taliban.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The United States also relied, in part, on defense contractors to carry out one of the tasks most central to its hopes of success in Afghanistan — helping to set up and train an Afghan military and other security forces that could stand up to extremist groups and to insurgents, including the Taliban.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tellingly, Vittori said, it was Afghan commandos who had consistent training by U.S. special operations forces and others who did most of the fighting against the Taliban last month.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Relying less on private contractors, and more on the U.S. military as in past wars, might have given the U.S. better chances of victory in Afghanistan, Vittori noted. She said that would have meant U.S. presidents accepting the political risks of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and getting more body bags of U.S. troops back.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Using contractors allowed America to fight a war that a lot of Americans forgot we were fighting,” Vittori said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-14-2021/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-14-2021/</a></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hmmn see refs </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/lawsuit-military-contractor-enslaved-american-employees-sewage-flooded-barracks-tent-cities/250994/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mintpressnews.com/lawsuit-military-contractor-enslaved-american-employees-sewage-flooded-barracks-tent-cities/250994/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="article-author" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px;"><time class="entry-time" itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2018-10-24T11:32:56-05:00" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">october 24th, 2018</font></time></p></div><div data-js="social-icons-bar-reload" data-post_id="250994" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="drop-cap" style="font-weight: 700; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; line-height: 50px; padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 6px;">
</span>wASHINGTON</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"> —<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">A recently unsealed lawsuit has accused two U.S. military contractors of treating American citizens working as military translators in the Middle East like “slaves.” The two contractors — DynCorp and its subcontractor, Global Linguist Solutions (GLS) — are alleged to have housed American translators in Kuwait within a poorly maintained tent city and to have threatened the workers with prison time if they tried to escape. The suit is the </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/lawsuit-pentagon-contractor-treated-workers-like-slaves" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">second lawsuit</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> to be made public this year that accuses a prominent military contractor of treating its employees as slaves.</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The 2016 federal lawsuit, </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-defense-contractor-accused-of-enslaving-us-citizen-linguists" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">first reported on</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> by the </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Beast</i></b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b> after it was unsealed earlier this month, revolves around a contract signed between DynCorp and the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) to provide the U.S. military with English-Arabic translators. </b>DynCorp then subcontracted GLS to recruit the translators and bring them to Kuwait where, upon arrival, GLS staff confiscated their passports, originally claiming that the seizure was essential to securing work visas for the translators. However, GLS secured only tourist visas for the translators, making their work technically illegal and placing them at risk of arrest. Yet, this was only the beginning of their troubles.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Translators were subsequently housed in dangerous conditions once in Kuwait, with many of them living in tent cities, such as Camp Ali al-Salem, that had originally been designed to shield American soldiers from the desert sun for a few hours before travel. While the tents may have been bearable for a few hours, they were never intended for long-term living and translators routinely found themselves battered by the elements, particularly dust storms, and scorched by the desert heat owing to a lack of infrastructure, including air conditioning. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Other tent cities, such as Camp Arifjan and Camp Buehring, became infested with rodents, lice and bedbugs as a result of the unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, while others still were regularly flooded with raw sewage</b>. Meanwhile, GLS staff managers “lived in luxury seaside apartments just outside of Kuwait City,” according to the lawsuit.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Given that their passports had been seized, preventing them from leaving Kuwait legally – and because they couldn’t go to the Kuwaiti authorities for assistance owing to the lack of a work visa — translators were essentially held against their will.</b> When one translator tried to complain about the living situation to a GLS manager, the manager told him that “linguists are slaves.” Even the president of GLS, Ken Tolleson, told translators who had complained of their treatment that they “would all be fired and returned to the U.S. to ‘deliver pizzas.’”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After translators had complained, the suit alleges that GLS intentionally placed a number of plaintiffs in situations “where GLS knew that they were likely to be arrested.” The plaintiffs’ then alleged that “GLS did this to make a public example of linguists who strayed off the base and as a means of frightening other linguists to not attempt to leave their bases.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eventually, many of the translators did leave despite the risks. However, they soon learned that the Kuwaiti government had issued arrest warrants for working illegally, forcing them to confess to crimes they had never intended to commit. These translators were banned from entering Kuwait and other Gulf nations, greatly impairing their ability to work as translators in the region in the future.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, the plaintiffs have claimed that their treatment by GLS and DynCorp was worse than anything they experienced serving alongside the U.S. military on the battlefield. According to the suit, the translators “experienced deprivation on the battlefield of Iraq; however, nothing compared to the decrepit, overcrowded, open-bay housing of Arifjan.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While GLS has not publicly commented on the allegations, DynCorp has fiercely denied them, calling them “wholly without merit” and “baseless.” DynCorp spokeswoman Mary Lawrence also </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-defense-contractor-accused-of-enslaving-us-citizen-linguists" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">told the </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Daily Beast</span></i></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> that DynCorp “<b>will vigorously defend against these baseless allegations brought by plaintiffs seeking a payday.”</b></span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp: A sordid track record of crime and impunity</font></span></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">This troubling lawsuit is hardly the first controversy for the U.S. military contractor. Indeed, DynCorp is </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">one of the most controversial</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> military contractors, given its past scandals, many of which involved the company facilitating human trafficking and child prostitution. For instance, in the late 1990s, DynCorp employees </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">were accused</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of raping children in Bosnia as well as buying and selling girls as young as 12 for use as sex slaves. They also assisted the illegal transport of women into Bosnia for human trafficking purposes.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In the years since, DynCorp </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/the-dyncorp-see-no-evil-m_b_1267479.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">has continued</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> to find itself accused of enslaving minors as well as its contracted employees, just as the recently unsealed lawsuit alleged. For instance, evidence came out in 2004 showing DynCorp employees sexually assaulting underage girls in Colombia, followed by a separate incident in 2009 where company employees </span><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">provided</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Afghan police with drugs and child prostitutes in Afghanistan.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Despite those years of scandals, DynCorp nonetheless </span><a href="http://www.jimrigby.org/even-after-years-of-scandal-us-hires-dyncorp-again/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">continues to receive</a></b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b> lucrative U.S. military contracts.</b> Yet, as the newly public lawsuit shows, DynCorp’s old habits of treating human beings as commodities remain as ingrained as ever, largely thanks to the fact that the company has never been held accountable for its crimes against its workers as well as countless children.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top Photo | In this Dec. 16, 2011 photo, abandoned vehicles stand in a lot behind a barbed wire fence inside Camp Adder on the Iraq, Kuwait border. Lucas Jackson | AP</font></p><div class="author-featured" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 712px; clear: both; margin: 50px 0px 0px;"><div class="author-description" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="description" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Whitney Webb</span> is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the<b> Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire,</b> among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on <b>RT and Sputnik.</b> She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.</font></span></p></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Isenberg</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Author, ‘Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It’s Déjà Vu for DynCorp All Over Again</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12/06/2010 08:47 am ET Updated <b>May 25, 2011</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For an example of how just one transgression can lead to endless bad publicity consider the movie titled The Whistleblower that was released earlier this year. To summarize the plot, in Bosnia in 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.S. policewoman served as a U.N. peacekeeper. Her post was with the International Police Task Force which was arranged by <b>DynCorp Aerospace. </b>She was assigned to run the IPTF office that investigates sex trafficking, domestic abuse and sexual assault. She ultimately alleges that peacekeepers, U.N. workers and international police are visiting brothels and facilitating sex trafficking by forging documents and aiding the illegal transport of woman into Bosnia. DynCorp responds by firing Bolkovac, who returns to the U.S. and files a wrongful termination case. She wins the suit but says she’s still blacklisted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Put bluntly, DynCorp was involved in a sex slavery scandal in Bosnia in 1999, with its employees accused of rape and the buying and selling of girls as young as 12. Dyncorp, hired to perform police duties for the UN and aircraft maintenance for the US Army, were implicated in prostituting the children, whereas the company’s Bosnia site supervisor filmed himself raping two women. A number of employees were transferred out of the country, but with no legal consequences for them. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This was one of two cases involving DynCorp and sexual scandal in Bosnia. The other, involved air plane mechanic Ben Johnston who sued DynCorp, alleging he was sacked because he had uncovered evidence that Dyncorp employees were involved in ‘sexual slavery.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The negative impact of just those two cases cannot be overstated. Indeed, search online for “dyncorp AND sex scandal” as I just did and you get nearly nine thousand hits. DynCorp spent many years trying to move past the bad publicity resulting from these cases. And indeed, one can look forward to more on the subject when Ms. Bolkovac’s book on the incident is released this coming January.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One could also note that, in a much less noticed case, in October 2004 it was revealed that DynCorp contract workers operating at Tolemaida Air Base in Colombia distributed a video in which they could be observed sexually violating underage girls from the town of Melgar</b>. This video was even sold on the main streets of Bogotá. Nonetheless, the Lawyers’ Collective of Colombia has not learned of any criminal investigation undertaken in relation to these acts involving minors. According to follow-up work carried out by the Lawyers’ Collective it was discovered that one of the minors involved in the videos committed suicide some time after the publication of them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Now, courtesy of Wikileaks, DynCorp can look forward to a new round of ridicule and denunciations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As first reported by the British Guardian newspaper, on June 24, 2009 the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan sent a cable to Washington, under the signature of Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, regarding a meeting between Assistant Chief of Mission Joseph Mussomeli and Afghan Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar. Among the issues discussed was what diplomats delicately called the “Kunduz DynCorp Problem.” Kunduz is a northern province of Afghanistan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The problem was this:</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. In a May 2009 meeting interior minister Hanif Atmar expresses deep</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> concerns that if lives could be in danger if news leaked that foreign police trainers working for US commercial contractor DynCorp hired “dancing boys” to perform for them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the ever zealous Ms. Sparky has already noted: </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The tradition of Bacha Bazi “boy play” is alive and well in Afghanistan. Young boys are bought and sold, dressed up like women and forced to dance, at men only parties. Many times they are then raped or killed.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Wikipedia:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bacha Bazi (translated from Persian: literally “playing with children”), also known as bacchá ‘ (from the Persian bacheh “child, young man, calf”) is a practice recognized as sexual slavery and child prostitution in which prepubescent children and adolescents are sold to wealthy or powerful men for entertainment and sexual activities. This business thrives in southern Afghanistan, where many men keep them as status symbols. Some of the individuals involved report being forced into sex. The authorities are barely attempting to crack down on the practice as “un-Islamic and immoral acts” but many doubt it would be effective since many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For more on dancing boys see this PBS Frontline documentary “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan,” broadcast last year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are the relevant parts of the cable:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. (C) SUMMARY: Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli discussed a range of issues with Minister of Interior (MoI) Hanif Atmar on June 23.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> On the Kunduz Regional Training Center (RTC) <b>DynCorp event of April 11</b> (reftel), Atmar reiterated his insistence that the U.S. try to quash any news article on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it. He continued to predict that publicity would “endanger lives</span>.” <b>He disclosed that he has arrested two Afghan police and nine other Afghans as part of an MoI investigation into Afghans who facilitated this crime of “purchasing a service from a child.”</b> He pressed for CSTC-A [Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan] to be given full control over the police training program, including contractors. Mussomeli counseled that an overreaction by the Afghan goverment (GIRoA) would only increase chances for the greater publicity the MoI is trying to forestall.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KUNDUZ RTC DYNCORP UPDATE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. (C) On June 23, Assistant Ambassador Mussomeli met with MOI Minister Hanif Atmar on a number of issues, beginning with the April 11 Kunduz RTC DynCorp investigation. Amb Mussomeli opened that the incident deeply upset us and we took strong steps in response.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An investigation is on-going, disciplinary actions were taken against DynCorp leaders in Afghanistan, we are also aware of proposals for new procedures, such as stationing a military officer at RTCs, that have been introduced for consideration. (Note: Placing military officers to oversee contractor operations at RTCs is not legally possible under the currentDynCorp contract.) Beyond remedial actions taken, we still hope the matter will not be blown out of proportion, an outcome which would not be good for either the U.S. or Afghanistan. A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. (C) Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video. Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report. Atmar then disclosed the arrest of two Afghan National Police (ANP) and nine other Afghans (including RTC language assistants) as part of an MoI investigation into Afghan “facilitators” of the event. The crime he was pursuing was “purchasing a service from a child,” which in Afghanistan is illegal under both Sharia law and the civil code, and against the ANP Code of Conduct for police officers who might be involved. He said he would use the civil code and that, in this case, the institution of the ANP will be protected, but he worried about the image of foreign mentors. Atmar said that President Karzai had told him that his (Atmar’s) “prestige” was in play in management of the Kunduz DynCorp matter and another recent event in which Blackwater contractors mistakenly killed several Afghan citizens. The President had asked him “Where is the justice?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. (C) Atmar said there was a larger issue to consider. He understood that within DynCorp there were many “wonderful” people working hard, and he was keen to see proper action taken to protect them; but, these contractor companies do not have many friends. He was aware that many questions about them go to SRAP Holbrooke and, in Afghanistan, there is increasing public skepticism about contractors. On the other hand, the conduct of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) is disciplined. Looking at these facts, he said, he wanted CSTC-A in charge. He wanted the ANP to become a model security institution just like the Afghan National Army (ANA) and National Directorate for Security (NDS), and the contractors were not producing what was desired. He suggested that the U.S. establish and independent commission to review the mentor situation, an idea he said Ambassador Eikenberry had first raised. Atmar added that he also wanted tighter control over Afghan employees. He was convinced that the Kunduz incident, and other events where mentors had obtained drugs, could not have happened without Afghan participation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EIKENBERRY</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Putting aside the fact that the primary concern of the U.S. official was that publicity about possible criminal behavior might lead to an “overreaction by the Afghan government” there are other points to consider. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evidently the episode sparked Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. But the US embassy was legally incapable of honoring Atmar’s request that the US military should assume authority over training centers managed by DynCorp.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is possible that the involvement of foreigners could have turned into a major public scandal. Atmar warned about public anger towards contractors, who he said “do not have many friends” and said they needed far greater oversight.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He insisted that a journalist looking into the incident should be told that the story would endanger lives, and that the US should try to quash the story. But US diplomats cautioned against an “overreaction” and said that approaching the journalist involved would only make the story worse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The strategy appeared to work when an article was published in July by the Washington Post about the incident, which made little of the affair, saying it was an incident of “questionable management oversight” in which foreign DynCorp workers “hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given this incident it is easier to understand why earlier this year Karzai issued a decree calling for the dissolution of all private security companies by the end of the year, an edict that has since been slightly watered down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While nobody has accused the DynCorp contractors of any improper conduct with the “dancing boys” themselves one has to wonder where their common sense was. Anyone with half a brain should be able to realize that buying drugs and hired dancing boys for the entertainment of Afghan police you are helping to train is not something you want to do. One should be able to figure that out without having to contact headquarters for guidance. Generally, that is what people call a no-brainer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This also makes you wonder how serious DynCorp is about its ethics. For example one might think the section in its Code of Ethics and Business Conduct about protecting the company’s image might clue an employee in to the reality that hiring dancing boys is not a good idea. But no, it turns out that it just means “We must ensure that all public statements, including flings with Government agencies, are accurate, complete and clear, and communicated only by authorized Company spokespersons.” Perhaps they thought that as long as the U.S. government did not object they had no problem. It does, however, make you wonder if there is a line items for “dancing boys” in one of the invoices DynCorp submitted to the government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Actually, there is nothing in the DynCorp code of ethics that is remotely applicable to this situation. Evidently, avoiding behavior that might aid, even if only indirectly, illegal conduct by foreign nationals is not its concern. To be fair, I doubt any other PMC is any different.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But wait, what about that recently signed International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers that was signed in Geneva last month to much fanfare. For a day you could barely hear anything over the din produced by private military and security contractor officials patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves over this supposed achievement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And, yes, it does have some relevance. Paragraph 38 clearly states:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Signatory Companies will not benefit from, nor allow their Personnel to engage in or benefit from, sexual exploitation (including, for these purposes, prostitution) and abuse or gender-based violence or crimes, either within the Company or externally, including rape, sexual harassment, or any other form of sexual abuse or violence. Signatory Companies will, and will require their Personnel to, remain vigilant for all instances of sexual or gender-based violence and, where discovered, report such instances to competent authorities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp is one of the signatories to this. Of course this incident happened before the ICOC was signed, so it is irrelevant in this case.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, there is the recently renamed PMC trade group, International Stability Operations Association, which has long had DynCorp as a member. ISOA’s Code of Conduct clearly states “Signatories shall respect the dignity of all human beings and strictly adhere to all applicable international humanitarian and human rights laws.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ISOA’s code also says, “Signatories will be guided by all pertinent rules of international humanitarian and human rights laws including as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Funny they should mention that as the Declaration has some provisions relevant to dancing boys:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Article 4.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Article 5.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It will be interesting to see if ISOA will at least bother to check with DynCorp to get the details of what happened. But if it doesn’t ISOA does have a grievance procedure where anyone can make a complaint about one of its member companies.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="http://www.jimrigby.org/even-after-years-of-scandal-us-hires-dyncorp-again/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.jimrigby.org/even-after-years-of-scandal-us-hires-dyncorp-again/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">blog?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h2 class="title" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px 185px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: url(" images="images" bg_post_border.png="bg_post_border.png" background-position="background-position" left="left" bottom="bottom" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Even after years of scandal, US hires DynCorp again</font></h2><div class="postcontent" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 185px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 575px; overflow: hidden;"><div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="http://www.jimrigby.org/even-after-years-of-scandal-us-hires-dyncorp-again/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have a short memory here in the old US of A. Not long ago DynCorp was accused of providing Afghan police with drugs and child prostitutes. For the most part, the story was ignored in the US but, after being leaked by Wikileaks, it was reported by the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">UK Guardian in 2010:</span></font></p><blockquote style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young “dancing boys” to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and “quash” the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is a long tradition of young boys dressing up as girls and dancing for men in Afghanistan, an activity that sometimes crosses the line into child abuse with Afghans keeping boys as possessions.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">“The story had been held back after the warning that it would “endanger lives.” The Afghan government asked the US to military to maintain oversight over its mercenary forces only to find that that would violate their contract.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corpwatch has long been critical of DynCorp:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">“The </span><b>world’s premier rent-a-cop business runs the security show in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US-Mexico border.</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> They also run the coca crop-dusting business in Colombia, and occasional sex trafficking sorties in Bosnia. But what can you expect from a bunch of mercenaries?”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">“Indeed a group of</span><span style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Ecuadoran peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children</span><span style="font-weight: inherit;">. </span><b>Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed “a grave risk to US national security and foreign policy objectives.”</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">“What’s more, Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that </span><b>Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking.</b><span style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.”</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">“Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson “learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts.” –Corpwatch, 2005</span></font></p></blockquote><p style="font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">I am providing all this history to contextualize the news that the </span><b>Obama administration has hired Dyncorp at a tax payer price of 48 million dollars to train 110 advisors and to “provide logistics” support to the Haitian Police</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">. The Center for Economic and Policy Research provides the following warning:</span></font></p><blockquote style="font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;"><p style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">But the awarding of the contract to DynCorp is also problematic given the company’s terrible track record in the same exact program areas where they will now operate in Haiti.</font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Bosnia in the late ‘90s, DynCorp was contracted by the State Department to provide “peacekeepers” for the U.N. police there, just as in Haiti now. One employee, Kathryn Bolkovac, was eventually fired after blowing the whistle to her superiors at DynCorp on the participation of her colleagues in sex trafficking, among other abuses. The case was the basis for the 2011 Hollywood movie, The Whistleblower.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b>Additionally, DynCorp has a history of waste, fraud and abuse, including under U.S. government contracts to provide police training in Afghanistan and Iraq, similar to their program in Haiti.</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> In 2010, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued a report which found that the State Department and DynCorp could not account for $1 billion dollars spent training the Iraq police. At the time, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said “[INL has]been managing this contract in Iraq since 2004 and, according to this report, they have no idea where any of the money went… What’s even worse is that these are the same people responsible for police training in Afghanistan, so I don’t have any confidence that they’re doing a better job there.”</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Sure enough, in 2011 DynCorp was slammed by a joint audit from the State Department and Department of Defense over their work training the Afghan police. It wasn’t the first time. Also In 2011, according to the Project on Government Oversight’s Contractor Misconduct Database, DynCorp paid $7.7 million to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit after a whistleblower alleged that the company had inflated claims under a “contract with the State Department to provide civilian police training in Iraq.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back in the days of earlier scandals, US Rep. Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat asked a question that I think answers itself:</font></p><blockquote style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 18px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">“Is the US military privatizing its missions to avoid public controversy or to avoid embarrassment – to hide body bags from the media and shield the military from public opinion?”</font></p></blockquote><p style="font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/despite-track-record-us-hires-contractor-to-provide-troops-to-un-haiti-mission" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/despite-track-record-us-hires-contractor-to-provide-troops-to-un-haiti-mission</font></a></p><p style="font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=18" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=18</font></a></p><p style="font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">http://yyyguardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys</font></a></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-dyncorp-see-no-evil-m_b_1267479"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-dyncorp-see-no-evil-m_b_1267479</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><header class="entryheader yr-entry-header" data-yaft-module="huffpost-entry-header" id="entry-header" data-rapid-parsed="sec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; font-family: ProximaNova, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" roboto="Roboto" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif"><div class="byline yr-byline" data-rapid-subsec="byline" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 12px 0px; padding: 0px; display: flex; list-style: none;"><div class="bylineauthors" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; max-width: 630px; width: 630px; flex: 1 0 50%;"><div class="author-card author-card--byline author-card--contributor yr-author-card" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: flex; align-items: center; line-height: 1.125rem;"><div class="author-carddetails" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: flex; flex-flow: row wrap;"><div class="author-cardname" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: bold; white-space: pre-wrap; display: flex;"><a class="author-cardlink yr-author-name" aria-label="By David Isenberg" href="https://www.huffpost.com/author/david-isenberg" data-ylk="subsec:byline;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">David Isenberg</font></span></a><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">, </font></span><span aria-hidden="true" class="author-cardauthor-type" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contributor</font></span></div><div class="author-cardmicrobio" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; flex: 0 0 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Author, ‘Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq’</font></div></div></div></div></div><div class="headline js-headline" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><h1 class="headlinetitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: ProximaNovaCond-Extrabld, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" roboto="Roboto" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" rem="rem" font-weight="font-weight" normal="normal" visibility="visibility" visible="visible" font-size="font-size" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word" max-width="max-width" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The DynCorp “See No Evil” Monkey</font></h1></div><div class="timestamp timestamp--contributor timestamp--has-modified-date" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375rem; display: inline-block; height: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span aria-label="Published on February 10, 2012 10:56 AM ET" class="timestampdate--published" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: inherit;">02/10/2012 10:56 am ET</span> </span><span aria-label="Updated on April 11, 2012 05:12 AM ET" class="timestampdate--modified" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;">Updated</strong> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Apr 11, 2012</span></span></font></div></header><div class="entrycontent js-entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: flex; font-family: ProximaNova, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" roboto="Roboto" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif"><div class="entrybody js-entry-body" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 3px 65px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; width: 705px; line-height: 1.75rem; max-width: 705px;"><div class="entrytext js-entry-text yr-entry-text" data-yaft-module="huffpost-entry-text" id="entry-text" data-rapid-parsed="sec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="1" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 30 I wrote a <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pmc-sexual-violence-its-s_b_1240751" rel="nofollow" target="hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">post</a> regarding sexual violence by private contractors. Though the most flagrant instances have occurred in the past, it is still a problem.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="2" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although I was not singling out any company in particular I did mention DynCorp because it served as the inspiration for the movie <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Whistleblower</em> that came out last year. This relates to the infamous cases of sex trafficking and slavery in Bosnia back in the Balkan wars of the nineties.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="3" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Okay, stuff happens. Although other things have happened with DynCorp, more specifically the DynCorp International division, over the years, it is a big company and employs lots of people. One should not tar every company with the sins of a past employee.</font></p></div><div class="teads-entry-placement js-teads-entry-placement" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teads-entrycontent" id="teads-entry-desktop" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="4" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As big corporations go DynCorp, in my limited experience, is very decent. Full disclosure: years ago, I worked three years for one of its arms control units, not DynCorp International, and found the people there highly professional and very ethical.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="5" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, my past post evidently did not go down well at DynCorp HQ. I was emailed a response by one of their vice presidents taking me to task for my presumed sins. At the request of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London, which had listed my post in their <a href="http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/1010856" rel="nofollow" target="hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:5;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="2" data-v9y="0" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">weekly update</a>, they emailed a similar <a href="http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/1010859/jump" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:5;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="3" data-v9y="0" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">response</a> to them.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="6" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I fully understand that DynCorp wants to put the best possible face on this issue but I feel its response is a little too self-serving so let me just do some parsing of some of its statement.</font></p></div><div class="pg-placeholder" id="public-good-placeholder" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="7" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With regard to the movie it writes,</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="8" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">‘The Whistleblower’ centers on allegations of human trafficking, a serious crime and global problem. Although the Company was never contacted by the filmmakers to obtain even a basic description of past work in Bosnia, to fact-check allegations or to obtain our position on these issues, when the Company reached out to the representatives for the filmmakers to gain more information about the movie, we were informed that the film, in the distributor’s words, ‘is a fictionalized, dramatic presentation.</font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="9" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I realize that in times long past it was popular to kill the messenger but that is supposedly out of fashion nowadays. DynCorp seems to think the filmmaker, who is Larysa Kondracki, had an obligation to contact them to get their spin. She did not. The company in the movie was named Democra Security, not DynCorp. The fact that events in the movie were loosely based on what some DynCorp contactors did in Bosnia does not impose any more obligation on Kondracki than the producers of the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Law & Order</em> television series have when they produce an episode which is “ripped from the headlines.” Life in conflict zones is real enough without DynCorp confusing fiction with fact.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="10" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp wrote:</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="11" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The allegations raised by an employee of a predecessor company more than 10 years ago were thoroughly investigated, and were aggressively and responsibly addressed. At that time and in the years that followed, Army Criminal Investigative Command (CID) authorities, the Inspectors General of the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of State, and the Company all investigated allegations related to human trafficking. According to a statement made by a CID Special Agent, ‘neither DynCorp nor its employees were involved’ in human trafficking, and the investigator found the Company to be ‘extremely cooperative and helpful’ throughout his investigation.<i>
</i></font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="12" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Well, talk is easy, facts are something else. As for “thoroughly investigated” and “neither DynCorp nor its employees were involved’ in human trafficking,” in<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 2005 Sarah E. Mendelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, published a 76-page report <span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/0502_barracksbrothels.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:12;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="5" data-v9y="0" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">Barracks and Brothels: Peacekeepers and Human Trafficking in the Balkans</a></span></span>. She wrote, starting on page 36:</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="13" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The misperception that trafficking victims were voluntary prostitutes was shared not only by contractors but also by the DOD/IG investigators auditing contractor involvement in trafficking. Following the publication of the article “<a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11119" rel="nofollow" target="hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:13;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="6" data-v9y="0" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">DynCorp Disgrace</a>“ in <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Insight Magazine</span>, a team inside the Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office was assigned from March 2002 through July 2002 to audit DynCorp’s “suitability and capability to perform and its procedures for selecting and screening personnel.”78 </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The Insight article described DynCorp employees “buying young girls and women as sex slaves.” This article was not about prostitution but about a <b>former DynCorp employee filing a lawsuit in which he described being fired after he informed the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Army (CID) of contractor involvement with human trafficking.</b> The employee described a pornographic videotape in which the manager of the contract appeared to rape a female. The manager of the contract also arranged for other DynCorp employees to purchase females.79 <i>
</i></font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="14" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Note the language here. Even after publication of the article the DOD IG was not investigating DynCorp for involvement in sex trafficking or slavery but for its “suitability and capability to perform and its procedures for selecting and screening personnel.”</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="15" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mendelson also noted that:</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="16" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The DOD audit was published in September 2002 and concluded that “DynCorp International has reasonable procedures for selecting and screening its personnel.” The report also concluded that “contracting officials did not, and, as a general rule, do not, address the moral character of a contractor’s employees.”81 The body of the report makes no reference to several salient facts, including that:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">• the CID had investigated DynCorp employees’ purchasing of women as chattel,<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
which is illegal both internationally and in Republika Srpska, a province within the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina;<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
• human trafficking undermined the SFOR mission while it financially benefited<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
organized crime;<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
• <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DynCorp in Bosnia fired another whistleblower who was reporting that additional<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
DynCorp employees were allegedly engaged in trafficking-related crimes;<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
and<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /></span>
• CID investigators “uncovered evidence of direct contractor involvement in trafficking.”82</span>
By referencing the “moral character” of employees, the audit team appeared unaware of the seriousness of the crimes the CID had investigated. The conclusion also trivialized the experiences of the trafficked women and girls bought by DynCorp employees in Bosnia. That the audit team never went to Bosnia but based their report on a review of “computer-processed data” and interviews inside the Department of Defense and at DynCorp Headquarters, the U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency, the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, and the DynCorp International office in Fort Worth, Texas, may have affected the assessment. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Only in Appendix B is there reference to trafficking and to the fact that the U.S. Army CID had investigated DynCorp. It notes that “based upon the evidence obtained from the CID investigation, DynCorp fired two individuals.”83 Appendix C shows a letter of agreement that employees are required to sign that prohibits “any unauthorized involvement in trafficking of persons.” There was no evidence that DOD/IG investigated how codes of conduct had been enforced or would be enforced in the future.</font></p><p style="text-align: left; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">In other words, the DOD audit was formulaic.</font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="19" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its response DynCorp wrote:</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="20" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">In addition to cooperating fully with the CID investigation, the Company conducted its own investigation. The investigation did not find any evidence of human trafficking involving the Company, but did find areas where improvements could be made.</font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="21" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Dyncorp saw no evidence of human trafficking it is only because it was doing a world class imitation of the “See No Evil” monkey.”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The British legal system was able to see where DynCorp dared not gaze. On August 1, 2002, a British employment tribunal found that DynCorp had unfairly dismissed employee, Kathy Bolkovac, an employee who had blown the whistle on the trafficking and was fired for her efforts. DynCorp appealed and then eventually paid £110,221 to her.</span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="22" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2002 Human Rights Watch report [<a href="http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2002/bosnia/Bosnia1102.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:22;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="12" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">PDF</a>] noted that, “In 1999, DynCorp repatriated five employees from SFOR installations after allegations emerged that they had purchased women. <b>A DynCorp manager stated that the contractors were “buying girls out from... slavery with the intention of marriage.”</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="23" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But Ben Johnston, a former employee at DynCorp, reported a completely different interpretation of the facts</span>. According to the testimony given by Johnston in his deposition, a fellow employee, Richard Ward, told him that Ward could purchase a woman for him.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Johnston stated, “He says he’ll get me one for — you can have one for 100 marks [€51/U.S.$46] a night or buy them for two or three thousand marks [€1,026 to €1,538/U.S.$925 to U.S.$1,388]. They can be yours, and they can be your ‘hoes’.” Johnson stated under oath that DynCorp turned a blind eye to the involvement of DynCorp personnel in these activities.</span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="24" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In all, Johnston named eight DynCorp staff members who allegedly admitted to him that they had purchased women and girls in 1999 and 2000.</b> And although five employees went home after the U.S. Army CID intervened in 1999, Johnston alleged that DynCorp employees continued to purchase women.<b> Johnston stated that although some employees faced repatriation, “There was nothing said at work about ‘you couldn’t do it’... so it just continues. It continued and continued.”</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="25" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dyncorp wrote:</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="26" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 5px 0px 25px; padding: 15px 15px 15px 30px; border: none; line-height: 1.5em;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Since these allegations were raised more than a decade ago, the Company has changed ownership and leadership; developed a strict Code of Ethics and Business Conduct, which includes a zero tolerance policy on human trafficking; created the position of Chief Compliance Officer; introduced global training programs; and has taken a number of steps to ensure a compliant, ethical, successful workplace.</font></p></blockquote></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="27" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is both good and commendable that DynCorp has taken steps since those days to ensure such things never happen again. But one can’t help but wonder, just how strict is its code of ethics? While this is commendable, and perhaps someday even useful, it’s hardly sufficient at the present time. Their mechanisms for enforcement are largely theoretical and not resourced, and there are no people or money put behind them. Right now such codes operate on the Joe Isuzu principle, which is to trust us. I’d prefer that companies heed the words of Ronald Reagan and trust but verify. </font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="28" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Are employees told, for example, that engaging in such behavior is grounds for immediate termination without pay? Or that they will be handed over to local authorities if they want to prosecute and not shipped back home? How many trips out into the field where DynCorp employees work does the Chief Compliance officer make? What kind of budget does he have and how much staff does he have? </font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="29" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If DynCorp subcontracts a contract it works on does it do regular audits to ensure the subcontractor is complying with the anti-trafficking regulations, such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which require that contractors insert an anti- human trafficking clause into all solicitations and contracts?</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="30" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To conclude, the issue is not DynCorp; trafficking in and exploitation of people, whether for labor or sexual services, is the problem. There are plenty of companies to point fingers at. I believe DynCorp when it says has taken steps to improve the situation so what happened in Bosnia does not happen again.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="31" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; width: 705px; max-width: 720px; min-width: initial;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.75rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But to say that this old news and to dispute that “not nearly enough has changed,” as a DynCorp official emailed me, is public relations puffery, not dealing with reality. At a hearing last November 2 of the Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations & Procurement Reform Subcommittee of the House Oversight Government Reform Committee it was estimated that the number of third-country national subjected to labor trafficking and abusive employment conditions ranged from tens to hundreds of thousands of people. To paraphrase Barrack Obama, that is not change we can believe in.
<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/kushner-and-bannon-team-up-to-privatize-the-war-in-afghanistan">https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/kushner-and-bannon-team-up-to-privatize-the-war-in-afghanistan</a>/</font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Kushner and Bannon Team Up to Privatize the War in Afghanistan</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blackwater’s Erik Prince was a shoo-in for the plan. But who is Stephen Feinberg?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Tim Shorrock</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JULY 14, 2017</font></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Kushner has been busy, and not only with the Russians. This week, amid the hoopla surrounding his meeting with a Moscow lawyer about the 2016 election, the The New York Times published an intriguing story about his role in a plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last Saturday, Trump adviser in chief Stephen Bannon, with Kushner’s backing, went to the Pentagon to arrange a discussion between Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and “two businessmen who profited from military contracting,” the Times reported. These weren’t ordinary contractors: They were Erik Prince, the notorious founder of Blackwater, the all-purpose mercenary army, and <b>Stephen Feinberg, a New York financier who owns and controls DynCorp International, the largest US contractor in Afghanistan.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the meeting (which neither Prince and Feinberg would confirm), they urged the Pentagon to turn the war over to what they call “private military units” who would fight for profit as an alternative to the Pentagon’s recent proposal to send thousands more US military troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. To their apparent disappointment, Mattis, the Times reported, “listened politely” to their audacious proposal, but “declined to include the outside strategies” in a review of Afghanistan policy that is being led in the White House by Trump’s national-security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Times story screamed conflict of interest. Prince, as most Americans know, cut his mercenary teeth sending his private army into Afghanistan with the CIA shortly after 9/11. He then became persona non grata in the US government after contractors under his command killed dozens of civilians in Iraq. But after selling his company and moving on to organize a private army for the United Arab Emirates, he became a key adviser to Trump on military issues. In an interview with Bannon’s Brietbart News a day after his Pentagon meeting, he spelled out his proposals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To be sure, the war in Afghanistan, particularly logistics and surveillance operations, is already heavily contracted, as I’ve documented here over the years. But under Prince’s approach, the actual fighting would be done by mercenaries, presumably in his employ. The United States “would see CIA, special operators, and contractors working with Afghan forces to target terrorists,” he told Breitbart.<b> “I say go back to the model that worked, for a couple hundred years in the region, by the East India company, </b>which used professional Western soldiers who were contracted and lived with trained with and when necessary fought with their local counterparts.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On Thursday, Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s deputy assistant for national-security affairs, seemed to endorse the proposals when he was asked about the Mattis meeting in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“It’s not about bilking the government,” he said. “It’s about the opposite. It’s about saving taxpayer money. It’s about creating indigenous capacity.</b>” Turning to Prince himself, Gorka had the highest praise. “This is man who hires former operators [from] a first-tier Special Operations Force, retired individuals.” They will go to Afghanistan “not to go and fight instead of somebody else, but to help the Afghans, to help local indigenous forces to protect their own territories,” he said. “So this is a cost-cutting venture. We’ve opened the door here at the White House for outside ideas because the last 16 years have been disastrous.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>Feinberg’s expertise is much broader: He helps provide the capital that feeds the military-contracting industry. Through Cerberus Capital Management LP, the $30 billion private-equity firm he co-founded in 1992, Feinberg has acquired dozens of companies engaged in military and intelligence operations.</b> As Bloomberg News reported in a detailed profile last February, “Feinberg has bought companies that refuel spy planes, train Green Berets, make sniper rifles and watch America’s foes from space.<b> He’s handed out jobs, lobbying contracts and campaign cash to some of the most powerful people in the nation’s capital.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlike Prince, however, he, is virtually unknown to the American public, and likes to keep it that way. For those who have never heard of him, here’s a snapshot of who he is, the significance of his private-equity industry, and how he and other national-security investors could benefit in the event that Mattis changes his mind and decides to send Blackwater—or its latest incarnation—back into Afghanistan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Feinberg first came to public attention last February, after Cerberus informed investors that he might be appointed to a high-level position in the Trump administration that would require him to provide “voluminous information” about conflict-of-interest issues.<b> Trump, it turned out, wanted Feinberg to lead a “broad review” of US intelligence agencies, and was also considering him for top spots at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Feinberg got in the door in part because he is a close friend of Bannon’s, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">who is notorious for his proposals to destroy “the administrative state” by privatizing or eliminating essential public services. During the 2016 campaign, Feinberg was part of a group of private-equity and venture-capital investors who advised Trump and became his “staunchest defenders” during the race, according to a Wall Street Journal report last November. Among them were Wilbur Ross, the chairman of WL Ross & Co., who is now secretary of commerce, and billionaire Peter Thiel, the co-founder of intelligence contractor Palantir Technologies Inc.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But after Feinberg’s name was floated to lead his review of intelligence, Trump got pushback from US officials who feared his involvement would “could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview,”</b> the Times reported. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, lawmakers got nervous; at a Senate hearing in late February, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), said she was concerned that “an individual who runs a private equity firm” was being considered to review intelligence for Trump.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>So Feinberg’s name quickly disappeared—until last week. Now, it appears that Trump has given the financier the green light to operate on his own, with help from Bannon and Kushner. It’s a two-front press, with Prince selling his mercenary interests and Feinberg his visions for his private-equity industry.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As US military and intelligence operations have been privatized over the past 15 years, the companies that work for the government have becoming increasingly reliant on deep-pocketed investors with strong ties to the Pentagon and the 16 agencies that make up the “intelligence community,” or IC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Enter private equity. With their extensive connections to current and past national-security officials, and with access to huge pools of private capital that invest in their funds, private-equity firms have become de facto managers of the contracting industry. Their power is magnified by the huge number of mergers and acquisitions in recent years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the world of spying and surveillance, these deals have led to an incredible concentration in the industry, with five corporations now employing about 80 percent of all intelligence contractors. Many of these were reshaped, and owe their current market power, to private-equity funds such as the granddaddy of national-security investing, the Washington-based <b>Carlyle Group.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carlyle was led for many years by Frank Carlucci, a former deputy director of the CIA, who was a pioneer in the early years of privatized intelligence. Over a period of about 10 years, it bought (and then sold) many top contractors. Until recently, it owned a majority share of Booz Allen Hamilton, a key NSA contractor and a key adviser to the IC with extensive contracts in most major agencies in civilian and defense intelligence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Another fund, Veritas Capital, sold DynCorp to Cerberus in 2010 and has relied for its advice on retired generals Barry R. McCaffrey and Anthony C. Zinni as well as Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the Bush administratio</b>n. More recently, DC Capital Partners, an offshoot of Veritas, has become a key investor in intelligence with the purchase of military-intelligence contractor Michael Baker International. Its advisers include former NSA Director Michael V. Hayden.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Feinberg’s Cerberus is best known for its Republican executives, such as former vice president Dan Quayle and John Snow, who was George W. Bush’s treasury secretary. Quayle got his start as a top Cerberus executive during the 1990s buying and selling “distressed assets”—also known as bankrupt companies—in Asia. More recently, Quayle and Snow have been managing Cerberus’s investments in European property debt</span>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the arena of national security, Feinberg’s firm has cultivated ties with some of the most established names in intelligence. One of them, according to the Bloomberg profile mentioned earlier, is <b>Leon Panetta, who was President Obama’s CIA director </b>and “an adviser to Cerberus on security and intelligence matters.” Another is Michael Morell, the CIA’s deputy director under Obama who worked for Feinberg for a time after he retired in 2013, also according to Bloomberg.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So it’s not surprising that Feinberg’s pitch to Mattis this month was broader than Prince’s. His plan, reported the Times, “would give the C.I.A. control over operations in Afghanistan, which would be carried out by paramilitary units and hence subject to less oversight than the military, according to a person briefed on it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">And then there’s <b style="">DynCorp</b>, the centerpiece of Cerberus’s huge investments in national security; </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">few companies are as well positioned for the Trump presidency. DynCorp is heavily involved in all aspects of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for years has been engaged in military and intelligence operations, including flying planes for the drug wars in Central America, operating surveillance aircraft for the Afghan military, and training US-backed armies in Iraq and Liberia. It’s also much bigger than Blackwater ever was: In 2015, it was awarded a $100 million contract by the US Army to provide “advisory, training and mentoring services” to Afghanistan’s national army and police (Trump’s cutbacks at the State Department, however, have cut into its earnings in recent months).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Providing private warriors would not be the only function for Feinberg’s companies, however. Trump, for example, has said he is pushing the Pentagon to create “safe zones” in Syria,</b> where US military forces and civilians from the US Agency for International Development would “protect” Syrians fleeing from the war. This plan has yet to come to fruition, but could be rolled out after the US and Russia organize their cooperative relationship in Syria announced by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after Trump’s recent meeting in Germany with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is exactly the kind of operation DynCorp is experienced in—and why it’s a major player in the International Stability Operations Association, the lobbying arm of the private-security industry. “DynCorp is a highly successful provider of critical support to military and civilian government institutions, and also have important commercial business in aviation, infrastructure development, security and logistics,” the company’s description claims on the ISOA website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Feinberg, if he is successful in pressing Mattis, would be in a perfect position to take advantage of these actions, which were once called “nation-building” but after the Iraq War were renamed “stability operations.” But whether Mattis goes along is another question. As the Times noted, “while Mr. Mattis believes that Mr. Prince’s concept of relying on private armies in Afghanistan goes too far, he supported using contractors for limited, specific tasks when he was the four-star commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, even with business as usual, Feinberg could find an angle.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tim ShorrockTWITTERTim Shorrock, who has been reporting on Korea for The Nation since 1983, is a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.</font></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-mineral-deposits.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-mineral-deposits.html</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Trump, searching for a reason to keep the United States in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, has latched on to a prospect that tantalized previous administrations: Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, which his advisers and Afghan officials have told him could be profitably extracted by Western companies.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Trump has discussed the country’s mineral deposits with President Ashraf Ghani, who promoted mining as an economic opportunity in one of their first conversations. Mr. Trump, who is deeply skeptical about sending more American troops to Afghanistan, has suggested that this could be one justification for the United States to stay engaged in the country.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To explore the possibilities, the White House is considering sending an envoy to Afghanistan to meet with mining officials. Last week, as the White House fell into an increasingly fractious debate over Afghanistan policy, three of Mr. Trump’s senior aides met with a chemical executive, Michael N. Silver, to discuss the potential for extracting rare-earth minerals. Mr. Silver’s firm, American Elements, specializes in these minerals, which are used in a range of high-tech products.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire financier who is informally advising Mr. Trump on Afghanistan, is also looking into ways to exploit the country’s minerals, according to a person who has briefed him. Mr. Feinberg owns a large military contracting firm, DynCorp International, which could play a role in guarding mines — a major concern, given that some of Afghanistan’s richest deposits are in areas controlled by the Taliban.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, American officials estimated that Afghanistan had untapped mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion, an estimate that was widely disputed at the time and has certainly fallen since, given the eroding price of commodities. But the $1 trillion figure is circulating again inside the White House, according to officials, who said it had caught the attention of Mr. Trump...</font></p><p style=""><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p style=""><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/steve-bannon-war-afghanistan">http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/steve-bannon-war-afghanistan</a></font></span></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">S</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">o according to Donald Trump Jr.’s own emails it looks like he, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort knowingly met with a woman said to be representing the Russian government who was peddling derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. Whether that constitutes a crime is still unknown, but it proves that the Trump campaign was at best dumb as rocks, and at worst willing to collude with a foreign government to win an election in return for God knows what.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That story has sent an electric shock through Washington with tales of a White House in chaos and a Shakespearean family drama unfolding before our eyes. The president has uncharacteristically withdrawn from public sight as his son and son-in-law become the central players in the scandal with speculation running rampant about who is leaking the information and why.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ever since President Trump’s inauguration there has been a tremendous amount of palace intrigue with factions loyal to Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon fighting for influence alongside whichever policy advisers and cabinet officials happen to be relevant that particular week. The Russia scandal has implicated Kushner in ways that make him especially vulnerable, however, and Bannon appears to be filling the vacuum.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/steve-bannon-is-out-of-trump-doghouse-leading-charge-against-robert-mueller.html?utm_campaign%3Ddi%26utm_medium%3Ds1%26utm_source%3Dtw&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNGJRdl5eRMXZ2UYUW7UeG4u73nTgw" href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/steve-bannon-is-out-of-trump-doghouse-leading-charge-against-robert-mueller.html?utm_campaign=di&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">According New York Magazine’s Joshua Green</a>, who has been following Bannon for years and has a new book coming out on the subject called “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency,” Bannon is fully back in the fold after a few shaky months and he’s advising Trump to fight and win by any means necessary. Green reports that the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the recent moves on immigration and Trump’s Warsaw speech are all signs that Bannon’s influence is once again on the rise. He notes that Bannon, so far, is personally untouched by the Russia scan</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">dal:</span></font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bannon’s feud with Kushner has quieted down. And so far, while at least ten White House officials and former aides, including Kushner, have retained lawyers in the special counsel’s probe, distancing themselves from Trump, Bannon is not among them.</font></p></blockquote><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, he’s back in the bunker alongside a boss who is often angry, always under fire, and, on the matter of Russia, increasingly isolated from all but a handful of advisers and family members.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Green calls Bannon “Trump’s indispensable henchman, the man he turns to when everything’s going to hell,” and says he is in charge of Trump’s “war room.” That has largely been concentrated on assassinating the character of Robert Mueller, which Bannon evidently sees as the fight’s most important priority.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a startling story that got overlooked this week amid all the Don Jr. email excitement, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-policy-erik-prince-stephen-feinberg.html&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNGeIgeIs3qbXL3-C2BgrFDrybs6nQ" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-policy-erik-prince-stephen-feinberg.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the New York Times reported</a> that Bannon and Kushner have been dabbling in real war planning as well:</font></p><blockquote style=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Erik D. Prince, a founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, and Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire financier who owns the giant military contractor DynCorp International, have developed proposals to rely on contractors instead of American troops in Afghanistan at the behest of Stephen K. Bannon, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law, </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">according to people briefed on the conversations. On Saturday morning, Mr. Bannon sought out Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon to try to get a hearing for their ideas, an American official said.</span></font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.salon.com/2017/04/19/how-much-do-we-know-about-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-and-his-secretive-role-in-shaping-trumps-foreign-policy/&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNHmqzmHWtsvBvm-A0C5pL1xBZuHlA" href="http://www.salon.com/2017/04/19/how-much-do-we-know-about-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-and-his-secretive-role-in-shaping-trumps-foreign-policy/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">I wrote about</a> Prince’s relationship with Trump a few months ago. They’re close enough that Prince was with Trump and the family on election night. Prince has also been implicated in the Russian scandal, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term%3D.2b89c59d3f92&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNFFoH_63wjyDGQENKBe47I4TpSWuQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.2b89c59d3f92" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to the Washington Post</a>, having arranged a secret meeting in the Seychelles Islands with an emissary from Vladimir Putin to set up a back channel between the two presidents. Prince is also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNH0nX_Pk0kTifMIukCdazIKF2U3pQ" href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">currently under investigation by the Justice Department</a> and other federal agencies for money laundering and attempts to broker military services to foreign governments.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> His history of running a criminal operation in Iraq is well known, but he seems to have landed on his feet. It’s easy to see why Trump has such a high regard for him. He’s almost like family.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-macarthur-model-for-afghanistan-1496269058&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNELau1vPOBwR6aQM1mK0KZvn0kDSA" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-macarthur-model-for-afghanistan-1496269058" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Prince wrote about his plan in the Wall Street Journal in May,</a> suggesting that the president appoint a “viceroy” for Afghanistan, using the colonial model of the East India Company to illustrate his idea. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.salon.com/2017/06/03/erik-princes-dark-plan-for-afghanistan-military-occupation-for-profit-not-security/&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNEcZ1XM5SXvBTaxH8_tC8UxwIPzUA" href="http://www.salon.com/2017/06/03/erik-princes-dark-plan-for-afghanistan-military-occupation-for-profit-not-security/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Salon’s Matthew Pulver explained</a> how Prince planned to bring this idea up to date:</font></p><blockquote style=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The British East India Company</b> was not simply a mercenary army like his Blackwater but an armed corporation that colonized like a state power. It was not merely a government contractor like Blackwater but an autonomous military and administrative entity sharing the worst aspects of both the corporation and the imperial state. So, Prince’s first innovation is to do away with civilian-military control administered by the Department of Defense and overseen by civilian, elected leadership, as is currently in place, and replace that apparatus with an armed corporation.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The second innovation will be to use cheap local labor paid for by resource extraction.</b> Pulver wrote:</font></p><blockquote style=""><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s a trillion dollars in value in the ground: mining, minerals, and another trillion in oil and gas,” Prince says of Afghanistan. This would provide the revenue stream to replace government contracts. Prince’s firm would be self-funded, self-reliant, and thus autonomous to a degree more similar to a nation-state than a military contractor like Blackwater serving under a defense department.</font></p></blockquote></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have long believed that the notion Trump is an isolationist is a grave misunderstanding. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://youtu.be/Za3MNtJ9ABg&source=gmail&ust=1499943943242000&usg=AFQjCNEc55TuhcYIA_nrTvp96GTzWO7pwg" href="https://youtu.be/Za3MNtJ9ABg" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">He’s a crude imperialist</a>, who believes we should “take the oil” because “to the victors belong the spoils.” Lately, it’s become less clear that Bannon’s “nationalism” is aligned with America rather than some vague (<a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/07/08/trumps-alt-right-poland-speech-time-to-call-his-white-nationalist-rhetoric-what-it-is/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">and racist</a>) notion of “<a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/07/08/donald-trump-and-the-decline-of-the-west-ten-thousand-years-of-civilization-and-we-end-up-with-this-guy/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the West</a>.” It looks more and more as if Trump’s loyalties lie wherever the Trump Organization has a real estate or licensing deal. Prince’s plan sounds like it’s a perfect fit for both of them.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thankfully, according to the New York Times, Secretary Mattis “listened politely” but told Bannon that he had no intention of including this daft idea into the review of Afghanistan policy that he and national security adviser H.R. McMaster are leading. Let’s just hope that Bannon and Trump are now so immersed in their Russia scandal “war” plans that they lose interest in privatizing a real one.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">digby</font></p><p style=""><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></p><p style=""><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dn</font></b></p><div id="story-summary" itemprop="description" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new investigation by Al Jazeera America looks at the human trafficking system that brings tens of thousands of foreign laborers to work on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. "America’s War Workers" examines how these laborers regularly end up deceived and indebted, victims of local recruiters who charge thousands of dollars and offer false promises of high-paying jobs. They are easy prey for labor traffickers who profit from military contracts. We are joined by Al Jazeera America correspondent Anjali Kamat and producer Sam Black, whose investigation spanned five months and several countries.</font></p></div><div id="story-body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="story-transcript-check-back-later" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Please check back later for full transcript.</font></p></div><p style=""><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></b></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <b>Logistics Civil Augmentation Program</b> (<b>LOGCAP</b>) is a program administered by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Army" title="US Army" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">US Army</a> to provide contingency support to augment the Army force structure. The first three contracts (and all task orders under them) were awarded to a single bidder in each round of competition (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBR(company)" title="KBR (company)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">KBR</a> for the first and third contracts and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp" title="DynCorp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">DynCorp</a> for the second contract). The fourth and current (as of 2013) contract was split between three companies (KBR, DynCorp, and<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluor_Corporation" title="Fluor Corporation" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Fluor Corporation</a>) with each company having the opportunity to compete for task orders.</font></p><h2 style="background-image: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LOGCAP&action=edit§ion=1" title="Edit section: History" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1985, LOGCAP was established primarily to preplan for contingencies and to leverage the existing civilian resources. However, it was not until three years later before it was first used. In support of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Central" title="United States Army Central" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States Third Army</a> mission, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Corps_of_Engineers" title="United States Army Corps of Engineers" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States Army Corps of Engineers</a> (USACE) used LOGCAP to contract for the construction and maintenance of two petroleum pipelines systems in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Asia" title="Southwest Asia" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Southwest Asia</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The current task order contract concept of LOGCAP began in August 1992 when USACE awarded the first contract (LOGCAP I) to Brown and Root Services (now KBR) in August 1992 as a cost-plus-award-fee contract, which was used in December that year to support the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United Nations</a> forces in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia" title="Somalia" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Somalia</a>. This contract was also used to support forces in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnia" title="Bosnia" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Bosnia</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo" title="Kosovo" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Kosovo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia(country)" title="Macedonia (country)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Macedonia</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary" title="Hungary" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Hungary</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia" title="Saudi Arabia" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Saudi Arabia</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti" title="Haiti" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Haiti</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy" title="Italy" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Italy</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda" title="Rwanda" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Rwanda</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The LOGCAP contract was recompeted in late 1996, with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Materiel_Command" title="Army Materiel Command" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Army Materiel Command</a> (AMC) taking over management of the program from USACE (although USACE has retained the support requirements for the Balkans Peninsula continuously since that date). The second contract (LOGCAP II) was awarded to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp" title="DynCorp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">DynCorp</a> in January 1997. From 1997 to 2001, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp" title="DynCorp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">DynCorp</a> supported US forces in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines" title="Philippines" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Philippines</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala" title="Guatemala" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Guatemala</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia" title="Colombia" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Colombia</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuador" title="Ecuador" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Ecuador</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor" title="East Timor" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">East Timor</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama" title="Panama" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Panama</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMC awarded LOGCAP III, the third contract, to KBR in 2001. LOGCAP III primarily supported the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_War_on_Terrorism" title="Global War on Terrorism" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Global War on Terrorism</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq" title="Iraq" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Iraq</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan" title="Afghanistan" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait" title="Kuwait" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Kuwait</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djibouti" title="Djibouti" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Djibouti</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia(country)" title="Georgia (country)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Georgia</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, as a result of the criticisms leveled against KBR for contract performance, AMC ended the LOGCAP III contract in 2007. The current contract (LOGCAP IV) differed greatly from its three predecessors, in that multiple contracts were awarded (to KBR, DynCorp, and Fluor), whereupon the three could compete for future task orders.</font></p><p style=""><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></b></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DynCorp</b> is a Virginia-based military contractor that describes itself as a "highly successful provider of critical support to military and civilian government institutions," with "commercial business in aviation, infrastructure development, security, and logistics, including international projects to build and manage regional air facilities," according to its website. <a href="http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=13" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=13" rel="nofollow">[1]</a></font></p>
<table id="toc" class="toc" summary="Contents" style=""><tbody><tr><td>
<div id="toctitle">
<h2><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></h2>
<span class="toctoggle"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</font></span></div>
<ul>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#History"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">History</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Contracts"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Contracts</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Controversies"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Controversies</span></a>
</font><ul>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Coca_Eradication"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">3.1</span> <span class="toctext">Coca Eradication</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Sex_Trafficking"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">3.2</span> <span class="toctext">Sex Trafficking</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Iraq_Fraud"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">3.3</span> <span class="toctext">Iraq Fraud</span></font></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Lobbying_Expenditures"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Lobbying Expenditures</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Contact_Information"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">Contact Information</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Resources"><span class="tocnumber">6</span> <span class="toctext">Resources</span></a>
</font><ul>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#Related_SourceWatch_articles"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">6.1</span> <span class="toctext">Related SourceWatch articles</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#References"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">6.2</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></font></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#External_articles"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="tocnumber">6.3</span> <span class="toctext">External articles</span></font></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style=""><a name="History" id="History"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History</font></span></h2>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp began in 1946 as a project of a small group of returning World War II pilots seeking to use their military contacts to make a living in the air cargo business. Named California Eastern Airways, the original company was soon airlifting supplies to Asia used in the Korean War. By 2002 Dyncorp, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was the nation's 13th largest military contractor with $2.3 billion in revenue until it merged with Computer Sciences Corporation, an El Segundo, California-based technology services company, in an acquisition worth nearly $1 billion.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the now-defunct website <i>dyncorp-sucks.com</i>,</font></p>
<dl style="">
<dd>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"On March 7, 2003, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Computer_Sciences_Corporation" title="Computer Sciences Corporation">Computer Sciences Corporation</a> acquired DynCorp. Today, the combined companies stand apart as one of the largest and most successful information technology and outsourcing firms in the world. The combined companies have some 90,000 employees around the globe who are dedicated to responding to customers' needs. CSC reported revenue of $11.3 billion for the 12 months ending December 27, 2002. U.S. Federal government customers include the Department of Defense, State, Energy and Justice. Commercial clients include <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BAE_Systems" title="BAE Systems">BAE Systems</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DuPont" title="DuPont">DuPont</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=General_Dynamics" title="General Dynamics">General Dynamics</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Raytheon" title="Raytheon">Raytheon</a>."<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a></sup></font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p>
</dd>
</dl>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp is a member of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Peace_Operations_Association" title="International Peace Operations Association">International Peace Operations Association</a> and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Private_Security_Company_Association_of_Iraq" title="Private Security Company Association of Iraq">Private Security Company Association of Iraq</a>.</font>
<a name="Contracts" id="Contracts"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contracts</font></span></h2>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp was awarded a multimillion-dollar contract by the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Department_of_State" title="U.S. Department of State">U.S. Department of State</a> to advise the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iraq" title="Iraq">Iraqi</a> government on setting up effective law enforcement, judicial and correctional agencies, CorpWatch <a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=18" class="external text" title="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=18" rel="nofollow">reported</a>:</font></p>
<dl style="">
<dd><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp will arrange for up to 1,000 U.S. civilian law enforcement experts to travel to Iraq to help locals "assess threats to public order" and mentor personnel at the municipal, provincial and national levels. The company will also provide any logistical or technical support necessary for this peacekeeping project. DynCorp estimates it could recoup up to $50 million for the first year of the contract.</font></dd>
</dl>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Armed DynCorp employees make up the core of the police force in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bosnia" title="Bosnia" class="mw-redirect">Bosnia</a>. DynCorp troops protect <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Afghanistan" title="Afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> president <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hamid_Karzai" title="Hamid Karzai">Hamid Karzai</a>, while DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Colombia" title="Colombia">Colombia</a>. Back home in the United States, Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon" title="Pentagon">Pentagon</a>'s weapons-testing ranges and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. The company also reviews security clearance applications of military and civilian personnel for the Navy.</font>
<a name="Controversies" id="Controversies"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Controversies</font></span></h2>
<p style=""><a name="Coca_Eradication" id="Coca_Eradication"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coca Eradication</font></span></h3>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Plan_Colombia" title="Plan Colombia">Plan Colombia</a> contract, the company has 88 aircraft and 307 employees - 139 of them American - flying missions to eradicate coca fields in Colombia. Soldier of Fortune magazine once ran a cover story on DynCorp, proclaiming it "Colombia's Coke-Bustin' Broncos."</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Janice_Schakowsky" title="Janice Schakowsky" class="mw-redirect">Janice Schakowsky</a>, an Illinois Democrat, told Wired magazine that hiring a private company to fly what amounts to combat missions is asking for trouble. DynCorp's employees have a history of behaving like cowboys," Schakowsky noted. "Is the US military privatizing its missions to avoid public controversy or to avoid embarrassment - to hide body bags from the media and shield the military from public opinion?" she asked.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed a group of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ecuador" title="Ecuador">Ecuadoran</a> peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed "a grave risk to US <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_security" title="National security">national security</a> and foreign policy objectives."</font>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In this regard, concerning the company's activities and alleged abuses in Colombia, an extensive accusation was presented against DynCorp at the Hearing on Biodiversity of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, session on Colombia, which took place at the Cacarica Humanitarian Zone from February 24 to 27, 2007.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_note-1" title="">[2]</a></sup> <sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_note-2" title="">[3]</a></sup></font>
<a name="Sex_Trafficking" id="Sex_Trafficking"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sex Trafficking</font></span></h3>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What's more, Kathryn Bolkovac, a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=United_Nations" title="United Nations">United Nations</a> International Police Force monitor, filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson "learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts."</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The suit charges that "Johnston witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased." "DynCorp is just as immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can break they do," Johnston told Insight magazine. He charged that the company also billed the Army for unnecessary repairs and padded the payroll. "What they say in Bosnia is that DynCorp just needs a warm body -- that's the DynCorp slogan. Even if you don't do an eight-hour day, they'll sign you in for it because that's how they bill the government. It's a total fraud."</font>
<a name="Iraq_Fraud" id="Iraq_Fraud"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Iraq Fraud</font></span></h3>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January 2007, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stuart_W._Bowen_Jr.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Stuart W. Bowen Jr. (page does not exist)">Stuart W. Bowen Jr.</a>, reported that "he had identified tens of millions of dollars worth of accounting discrepancies, missing weapons and unauthorized billings" by DynCorp. Bowen accused DynCorp of "lax accounting and monitoring procedures." <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" rel="nofollow">[2]</a></font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At issue is a $43.8 million <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Department" title="State Department" class="mw-redirect">State Department</a> contract "for a camp that was never used by police trainers," including $4.2 million that DynCorp billed for "unauthorized work." Another $36.4 million expenditure, intended "for weapons and equipment, including armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment ... cannot be accounted for," reported the <i>Dallas Morning News</i>. <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" rel="nofollow">[3]</a></font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after Bowen announced that his office would investigate DynCorp for fraud in its Iraq work, the company hired the PR firm <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Qorvis_Communications" title="Qorvis Communications">Qorvis Communications</a> for "messaging and image work," reported <i>O'Dwyer's PR Daily</i>. <a href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0212dyncorp_qorvis.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0212dyncorp_qorvis.htm" rel="nofollow">[4]</a></font>
<a name="Lobbying_Expenditures" id="Lobbying_Expenditures"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lobbying Expenditures</font></span></h2>
<table border="1" style=""><tbody><tr><th><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Year</font></th><th><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Subsidiary (lobbied for)</font></th><th><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amount</font></th><th><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firm</font></th></tr><tr><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1999</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp Technical Services</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$20,000</font></td><td><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Colex%26_Associates&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Colex & Associates (page does not exist)"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colex & Associates</font></a></td></tr><tr><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp Technical Services</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$40,000</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colex & Associates ($40K); <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Van_Scoyoc_Associates,Inc." title="Van Scoyoc Associates, Inc.">Van Scoyoc Associates, Inc.</a></font></td></tr><tr><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2002</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp Technical Services</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$110,000</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Van Scoyoc Associates, Inc. ($60K); Colex & Associates ($50K)</font></td></tr><tr><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp Aerospace Technology</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$20,000</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colex & Associates</font></td></tr><tr><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2004</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp Aerospace Technology</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$60,000</font></td><td><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colex & Associates</font></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?year=2004&txtname=DynCorp" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?year=2004&txtname=DynCorp" rel="nofollow">[5]</a> <a name="Contact_Information" id="Contact_Information"> </a></font></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact Information</font></span></h2>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Website: <a href="http://www.dyncorp.com" class="external free" title="http://www.dyncorp.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.dyncorp.com</a>
</font>
<a name="Resources" id="Resources"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h2 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resources</font></span></h2>
<p style=""><a name="Related_SourceWatch_articles" id="Related_SourceWatch_articles"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related SourceWatch articles</font></span></h3>
<ul style="">
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Arias,et_al.v_DynCorp,_et_al." title="Arias, et al. v DynCorp, et al."><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arias, et al. v DynCorp, et al.</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Company_police_agencies" title="Company police agencies"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">company police agencies</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Council_of_Defense_and_Space_Industries_Associations" title="Council of Defense and Space Industries Associations"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Council of Defense and Space Industries Associations</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Defense_contractors" title="Defense contractors"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">defense contractors</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federal_contractors" title="Federal contractors"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">federal contractors</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Military-industrial_complex" title="Military-industrial complex"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">military-industrial complex</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Private_Military_Corporations" title="Private Military Corporations"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Private Military Corporations</font></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Private_security_consultants" title="Private security consultants"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Private security consultants</font></a></li>
</ul>
<p style=""><a name="References" id="References"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></span></h3>
<ol class="references" style="">
<li id="cite_note-0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_ref-0" title="">↑</a> "<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030622094528/http://www.dyncorp-sucks.com/dyncorp_news.htm" class="external text" title="http://web.archive.org/web/20030622094528/http://www.dyncorp-sucks.com/dyncorp_news.htm" rel="nofollow">Enabling profit through the advanced use of technology</a>", <i>dyncorp-sucks.com</i> via the Internet Archive. Archived June 22, 2003.</font></li>
<li id="cite_note-1"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_ref-1" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article673" class="external text" title="http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article673" rel="nofollow">"Accusation against the Transnational DynCorp,"</a> Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, February 2007.</font></li>
<li id="cite_note-2"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp#cite_ref-2" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1253" class="external text" title="http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/article.php3?id_article=1253" rel="nofollow">"Private Security Transnational Enterprises in Colombia"</a> José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective, February, 2008.</font></li>
</ol>
<p style=""><a name="External_articles" id="External_articles"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></a></p>
<h3 style=""><span class="mw-headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External articles</font></span></h3>
<ul style="">
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Troy Skeels, <a href="http://eatthestate.org/07-02/OutsourcingWar.htm" class="external text" title="http://eatthestate.org/07-02/OutsourcingWar.htm" rel="nofollow">"Outsourcing War,"</a> <i>Eat the State</i>, September 25, 2002.</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.tnh.unh.edu/issues/041803/Opinion/1012446.html" class="external text" title="http://www.tnh.unh.edu/issues/041803/Opinion/1012446.html" rel="nofollow">"Next Iraqi government,"</a> April 18, 2003: "A British court recently awarded a former employee of Dyncorp $110,000 after the company sacked her for informing the media that Dyncorp mercenaries supplementing U.S. forces in Bosnia sold Bosnian refugee women and children as sex slaves. For this, Dyncorp faces a RICO case in the US courts."</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=6328" class="external text" title="http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=6328" rel="nofollow">CorpWatch.org</a> on Iraq Recruiting Services, April 9, 2003.</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://buffalopundit.wnymedia.net/archives/4415" class="external text" title="http://buffalopundit.wnymedia.net/archives/4415" rel="nofollow">"The Outsourcing of Security,"</a> <i>BuffaloPundit</i>, December 4, 2006. re <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Multi-National_Security_Transition_Command-Iraq" title="Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq">Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq</a></font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tod Robberson, "<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" class="external text" title="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/013107dnintdyncorp.1ce0a5f.html" rel="nofollow">DynCorp faulted for Iraq spending: Inspector cites millions in discrepancies; firm defends actions</a> ," <i>Dallas Morning News</i>, January 31, 2007.</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"<a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3391151.html" class="external text" title="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/02/ap3391151.html" rel="nofollow">DynCorp Gets $95.6M Army Deal</a>," Associated Press, February 2, 2007.</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"<a href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0212dyncorp_qorvis.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.odwyerpr.com/members/0212dyncorp_qorvis.htm" rel="nofollow">Qorvis Reps DynCorp</a>," <i>O'Dwyer's PR Daily</i> (sub req'd), February 12, 2007.</font></li>
<li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"<a href="http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article673" class="external text" title="http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article673" rel="nofollow">Accusation against the transnational DynCorp</a>," Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, February 24 to 27, 2007.</font></li>
</ul>
<div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" style="">
<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Category</a>: <span dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Private_military_corporations" title="Category:Private military corporations">Private military corporations</a></span></font></div>
</div>
<p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" class="text" style="line-height: 14px;"><tbody><tr><td><p class="title" style="line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CSC/ DynCorp</font></p></td></tr><tr><td /></tr><tr><td class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="text"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The world's premier rent-a-cop business runs the security show in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US-Mexico border. They also run the coca crop-dusting business in Colombia, and occasional sex trafficking sorties in Bosnia. But what can you expect from a bunch of mercenaries?
<strong>CEO: Van Honeycutt
Military contracts 2005: $2.8 billion
</strong>
<em>note: CSC sold <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> in January 2005</em>
The U.S. State Department awarded <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> a multimillion-dollar contract to advise the Iraqi government on setting up effective law enforcement, judicial and correctional agencies. <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> will arrange for up to 1,000 U.S. civilian law enforcement experts to travel to Iraq to help locals "assess threats to public order" and mentor personnel at the municipal, provincial and national levels. The company will also provide any logistical or technical support necessary for this peacekeeping project. <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> estimates it could recoup up to $50 million for the first year of the contract.
Already armed <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> employees make up the core of the police force in Bosnia.<a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai, while DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in Colombia. Back home in the United States Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. The company also reviews security clearance applications of military and civilian personnel for the Navy.
DynCorp began in 1946 as a project of a small group of returning World War II pilots seeking to use their military contacts to make a living in the air cargo business. Named California Eastern Airways the original company was soon airlifting supplies to Asia used in the Korean War. By 2002 Dyncorp, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was the nation's 13th largest military contractor with $2.3 billion in revenue until it merged with Computer Sciences Corporation, an El Segundo, California-based technology services company, in an acquisition worth nearly $1 billion.
The company is not short on controversy. Under the Plan Colombia contract, the company has 88 aircraft and 307 employees - 139 of them American - flying missions to eradicate coca fields in Colombia. Soldier of Fortune magazine once ran a cover story on DynCorp, proclaiming it "Colombia's Coke-Bustin' Broncos."</font></p><p class="text"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US Rep. Janice Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, told Wired magazine that hiring a private company to fly what amounts to combat missions is asking for trouble. DynCorp's employees have a history of behaving like cowboys," Schakowsky noted. "Is the US military privatizing its missions to avoid public controversy or to avoid embarrassment - to hide body bags from the media and shield the military from public opinion?" she asked.
Indeed a group of Ecuadoran peasants filed a class action against the company in September 2001. The suit alleges that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were drifting across the border, withering legitimate crops, causing human and livestock illness, and, in several cases, killing children. Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers intervened in the case right away telling the judge the lawsuit posed "a grave risk to US national security and foreign policy objectives."
What's more, Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.
Earlier that year Ben Johnston, a <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson "learned that employees and supervisors from <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a>were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts."
The suit charges that "Johnston witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased." "DynCorp is just as immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can break they do," Johnston told Insight magazine. He charged that the company also billed the Army for unnecessary repairs and padded the payroll. "What they say in Bosnia is that <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> just needs a warm body -- that's the <a href="http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international" style="text-decoration: none;">DynCorp</a> slogan. Even if you don't do an eight-hour day, they'll sign you in for it because that's how they bill the government.
</font></p><p><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Links</font></strong></p><div id="content_header"><table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" class="text" style="line-height: 14px;"><tbody><tr><td class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><ul><li><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><a href="http://www.csc.com/" style="text-decoration: none;">Computer Sciences Corporation</a></strong></font></strong></li><li><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font><a href="http://www.dyncorp.com/" style="text-decoration: none;">Dyncorp</a></font><font><strong /></font></font></strong></li><li><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><a href="http://www.earthrights.org/" style="text-decoration: none;">Earth Rights International</a></strong></font></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="list_image" style="line-height: 14px;" /><td class="list_entry" style="line-height: 14px; width: 580px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15566" class="listtitle" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">US: Senators Call For Changes to Troubled, Costly Afghan Police Training Program</a>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">by Ryan Knutsen</span>, <span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.propublica.org/feature/senators-call-for-changes-to-troubled-costly-afghan-police-training-program" style="text-decoration: none;">ProPublica</a></span>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">April 15th, 2010</span>
</font><span class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State and Defense department officials took a tongue-lashing today, trying to explain to a Senate subcommittee how the government has poured $6 billion since 2002 into building an effective Afghan police force with disastrous results.</font></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="list_image" style="line-height: 14px;" /><td class="list_entry" style="line-height: 14px; width: 580px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15562" class="listtitle" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">AFGHANISTAN: Policing Afghanistan: How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck</a>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">by Pratap Chatterjee</span>, <span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175220/" style="text-decoration: none;">Tom Dispatch</a></span>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">March 21st, 2010</span>
</font><span class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Pentagon faces a tough choice: Should it award a billion-dollar contract for training the Afghan National Police to Xe (formerly Blackwater), a company made infamous when its employees killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007, or to DynCorp, a company made infamous in Bosnia in 1999 when some of its employees were caught trafficking young girls for sex?</font></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="list_image" style="line-height: 14px;" /><td class="list_entry" style="line-height: 14px; width: 580px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15483" class="listtitle" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">US: DynCorp Fires Executive Counsel</a>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">by August Cole</span>, <span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704498804574561961591658796.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews" style="text-decoration: none;">Wall Street Journal</a></span>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="font-weight: bold;">November 28th, 2009</span>
</font><span class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DynCorp International Inc. said it has terminated one of its top lawyers, a move that comes on the heels of the government contractor's disclosure that some of its subcontractors may have broken U.S. law in trying to speed up getting licenses and visas overseas.</font></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="list_image" style="line-height: 14px;" /><td class="list_entry" style="width: 580px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15424" class="listtitle" style="line-height: 14px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;">US: DynCorp Billed U.S. $50 Million Beyond Costs in Defense Contract</a>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="line-height: 14px; font-weight: bold;">by V. Dion Haynes</span><span style="line-height: 14px;">, </span><span class="bodygreystrong" style="line-height: 14px; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/11/AR2009081103461.html?hpid=topnews" style="text-decoration: none;">Washington Post </a></span>
<span class="bodygreystrong" style="line-height: 14px; font-weight: bold;">August 12th, 2009</span>
</font><span class="text" style="line-height: 14px; padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Defense Department auditor, appearing before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, testified Tuesday that DynCorp International billed the government $50 million more than the amount specified in a contract to provide dining facilities and living quarters for military personnel in Kuwait....[older artl]</font></span><span class="text" style="line-height: 14px; padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span><span class="text" style="padding-right: 10px; display: block;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=18</font></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/dyncorp_international</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">blog</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="">TahoeBlue</b>:
"Merchants of Death" ask BO to escalate Afhgan war....
Quote
It can’t hurt DynCorp that Veritas Capital’s “Defense & Aerospace Advisory Council” includes Richard Armitage (former Deputy Secretary of State), Gen. Richard Hawley (former Air Force Commander), Gen. Barry McCaffrey (former Drug Czar and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Southern Command), Gen. Anthony Zinni (former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Central Command and BAE director), and other military luminaries.
Notice in the following Zinni is never referred to as a Lobbiest for DynCorp or BAE or Veritas Capital
he is referred as: "The former U.S. commander in Afghanistan" and "Zinni (who has trained local militias)"
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1009/Zinni_WH_close_to_dithering_on_troop_request.html?showall
Zinni: W.H. close to 'dithering' on troop request - POLITICO Live ...
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/10/04/Zinni-Afghan-decisions-must-be-made-soon/UPI-62191254680026/
Zinni: Afghan decisions must be made soon
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/04/ftn/main5362095.shtml
Zinni: Don't Delay Decision on Afghan War - Face The Nation - CBS News
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/517750.html
Zinni: Don't Delay Decision on Afghan War - 10/4/2009
CBS) The former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Anthony Zinni, warned that the deliberations over whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan - as many as 40,000, as suggested by General Stanley McChrystal - should not go on too much longer, lest the debate be viewed as indecision or weakness.</font></p>
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