Suspicion surrounds missing Bay Area man

[TeeYiYi]

Suspicion surrounds missing Bay Area man

His fellow military contract worker pointed to kickback schemes -- and then was killed

Colin Freeman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Tikrit, Iraq -- In the midafternoon of Oct. 9, 2003, Kirk von Ackermann, an American contract worker from the Bay Area, used a satellite phone to call a colleague from a lonely desert road between Tikrit and Kirkuk in northern Iraq. He told his colleague he had a flat tire and needed a jack.

About 45 minutes later, the colleague found von Ackermann's car, abandoned. There was no sign of von Ackermann, who had been alone when he called. No hint of struggle, not even a footprint. All that remained was his satellite phone, his laptop computer, and, on the car's backseat a briefcase holding $40,000 in $100 bills.

"It was as if he had been abducted by aliens," Ryan Manelick told The Chronicle shortly after von Ackermann disappeared. Manelick was one of von Ackermann's colleagues at Ultra Services, a civilian contracting company they both worked for in Iraq, supplying U.S. military bases with tents, mobile homes, toilets, computers and Internet access.

Just over two months later, on the morning of Dec. 14, Manelick was shot dead near Camp Anaconda, a U.S. military base about 50 miles north of Baghdad, and about 50 miles south of where von Ackermann had disappeared.

More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/13/MNGSGBAGRH1.DTL

TYY

[indigobusiness]

1. The money, etc, left behind

is an odd twist.

Curious.

?

[No Exit]

2. Related: Check "Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble" PART 6

In that article (available at onlinejournal.com, and no, I'm not affiliated with that site at all, just like to read it) the author speaks of yet another contractor who was killed in Iraq. Very, very interesting. He says THAT contractor (darn it, I can't recall his name at the moment) was part of an operation which flew millions of dollars from Bosnia to AFGHANISTAN, on SEPTEMBER 12, 2001!!! Author postulates that he was killed b/c he knew too much.

[Tinoire]

3. There's more to this story than they're admitting

:hi: Good to see you posting again and I LOVE your avatar of a new Liberated Iraq flag ;) Thank you for letting me use it :)

From your link:

Security, however, was one area in which Ultra Services had its own in- house expert -- von Ackermann, who had served as a Department of Defense adviser on counterterrorism and espionage and had high-level security clearance. According to his wife, Megan, von Ackermann eventually quit the military because he was "tired of having to think like a terrorist all the time."

(snio)

"Kirk went to Iraq because he didn't get much challenge in his computing job and felt that with his experiences in Kosovo, he had a lot to offer," she said.

(snip)

Since May, the investigations into the von Ackermann disappearance, Manelick's death and the bribery allegations have been led by the Criminal Investigation Command's Major Procurement Fraud Unit.

(snip)
What of Ryan Manelick's suspicions, voiced before he died, that someone connected with Ultra Services killed von Ackermann before he could blow the whistle? Former friends and associates in Iraq are skeptical. They believe the fear engendered by von Ackermann's disappearance might have been getting to Manelick, making him paranoid.

Besides, they say, killing a whistle-blower would only have brought more attention to people connected with Ultra Services.

(snip)

===================

Meanwhile in the US...

(snip)

The Moss Beach resident said it was something people wondered about and, occasionally, even gossiped about - that von Ackermann, when he wasn't at home in Moss Beach tending to his beloved family or coaching his son's 10-and-under soccer team, he was some sort of government spy or perhaps even a secret agent.

(snip)

"You heard rumors that he had some sort of connection ... somehow to the war or to counterintelligence," said Farbstein, who remembers von Ackermann as a friendly and charismatic family man, someone full of smiles who doted on his wife and three children.


(snip)

http://www.halfmoonbayreview.com/articles/2003/11/24/news/local_news/story03.txt


As opposed to what happens with a U.S. soldier, the military is under no compulsion to launch a full-scale search when a contractor goes missing. For instance, the U.S. military has spent 13 years searching for Navy Capt. Scott Speicher, whose plane crashed during the 1991 Gulf War. But when Kirk von Ackermann, a former Air Force captain working for Istanbul-based Ultra Services, disappeared outside Tikrit in November, the response was not a frantic mobilization or house-to-house hunt. Instead, von Ackerman's photo was given to local Iraqi police, and little has been heard of the incident since. Indeed, the difference carries all the way to when PMFs employees are killed; the firms are responsible for notifying the families, deciding what level of grief counseling to provide, and shipping the bodies home. A PMF executive I spoke with grumbled that when one of his employees was killed in western Iraq, the only support he got from the U.S. military unit in his sector "was a free body bag."

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/singer20040416.htm

[TeeYiYi]

4. That is curious . . .

. . . very curious indeed. Secret agent von Ackermann. What could it all mean? :think:

Meanwhile --->> HOW YOU DOIN TIN? :D :hi:

My posting has been spotty as best lately but I'm usually lurking beyond the bandwidth at some point each day. I have you to thank for the avatar. :hi:

The military industrial complex in concert with Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR and the Carlyle Group offers potent fodder for waste, inefficiency and good old fashioned corruption and misplaced power. Is it any surprise that soldiers and contractors are ending up dead behind that level of filthy lucre? I'm sure some of those guys have no idea of the true nature of the evil they're dealing with.

TYY

[Tinoire]

5. Did you know that Halliburton was involved in WWII and Vietnam?

I had no idea about WWII. But I guess when you're speaking of good old fashioned corruption and misplaced power with a profit to be made, it all makes sense.

I'm doing ok! Posting a lot less than before because of certain obligations and a malaise about the direction our party was going but that's clearing up with the bright ray of sun now that Dean is DNC chair because he pays attention to his supporters. Have you visited the NEW DNC site? Here's the first thing that greets you now that DFA has a powerful seat at the table:




((Enter))

A message from Chairman Dean

Today your representatives elected new Party leadership. But more importantly they endorsed the idea that our Party must always be led by the people — because your participation makes the Democratic Party a powerful force for change.

Our success depends on every single one of us taking responsibility for our Party's future. We have to commit to an active role in the political process. And we have to grow the Democratic Party in every single state so we can protect the values that bring our Party — and the vast majority of Americans — together.

We have new leadership and new energy. And thanks to your hard work and Terry McAuliffe's solid leadership we have enormous opportunities.

Please read my plan for our Party — and send me a note about yours. Together our work will make our Party stronger. Thank you.


Chairman Howard Dean


Oh Lord, I am loving it! It's not quite the revolution we need but it is a damn good start and a damn good alternative to the revolution that was coming if they didn't give people a seat at the table!

[EFerrari]

6. So, why is this poor guy out driving without a jack? B. S.

He seems to have been taken by someone he knew, one. And two, the implication is that someone inside Ultra was taking kickbacks, not some entity connected to Ultra. Yeah, right.

Isn't this just a little too neat? It reeks. They give Ackerman's photo to the IRAQI POLICE? The same guys who couldn't find Nick Berg, no doubt.

And where is State? Aren't they entrusted with these investigations?

Nice story.