American contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/30/1085855436368.html

When Iraqi police raided the Baghdad home and offices of politician Ahmed Chalabi on May 20, US officials hurried to distance themselves from the operation, saying it was an Iraqi affair and that no US Government employees were involved.

But eight armed American contractors paid by a US State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi policemen who, witnesses say, ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.

Some of the Americans helped themselves to baklava, apples and diet soda from Mr Chalabi's refrigerator, sitting in a garden outside to enjoy their looted snacks, according to members of Mr Chalabi's staff.

The contractors work for DynCorp, a subsidiary of Computer Sciences Corporation and the company in charge of training and advising the Iraqi police on a State Department contract. A State Department official confirmed the DynCorp workers' presence during the raid.

[daleo]

1. What were they doing there?

Contractors, but no U.S. government presence? Sounds like the corporation wanted to find some evidence and destroy it - like Chalabi had the goods on someone (Halliburton? Cheney? even more damning torture photos that would implicate the corporation?) and could blackmail them. Just a hunch, but it makes as much sense as anything else.

[saigon68]

2. the DynCorp workers = MERCENARIES

Hard to feel sorry for the $1000.00 per day hoodlums when they get invited to the BARBECUE.

Especially when they are invited as the main course.

They even get "dragged" around town too.

LOL

[EdGy]

11. DynCorps also sold 12 year old girls in Bosnia

They were responsible for some really awful human rights abuses in Bosnia, where they sold women and girls, ran brothels, etc. etc. etc.

ALL of this was known when Bush handed them a contract in Iraq.

It is also the largest U.S. contractor involved in the U.S. antinarcotics effort in Colombia.


Outside the law
By Robert Capps

June 26, 2002 | Ben Johnston recoiled in horror when he heard one
of his fellow helicopter mechanics at a U.S. Army base near Tuzla,
Bosnia, brag one day in early 2000: "My girl's not a day over 12."

The man who uttered the statement -- a man in his 60s, by Johnston's
estimate -- was not talking fondly about his granddaughter or
daughter or another relative. He was bragging about the preteen he
had purchased from a local brothel. Johnston, who'd gone to work as a
civilian contractor mechanic for DynCorp Inc. after a six-year stint
in the Army, had worked on helicopters for years, and he'd heard a
lot of hangar talk. But never anything like this.

More and more often in those months, the talk among his co-workers
had turned to boasts about owning prostitutes -- how young they were,
how good they were in bed, how much they cost. And it wasn't just
boasting: Johnston often saw co-workers out on the streets of
Dubrave, the closest town to the base, with the young female consorts
that inspired their braggadocio. They'd bring them to company
functions, and on one occasion, Johnston says, over to his house for
dinner. Occasionally he'd see the young girls riding bikes and
playing with other children, with their "owners" standing by,
watching.

<snip>

So Johnston says he complained to managers at DynCorp, the Reston,
Va.-based company that had hired him to be a mechanic at the U.S.
Army's Camp Comanche in Bosnia, and to the Army Criminal
Investigation Command (known by the acronym CID). In the end, two
DynCorp employees would be fired for the activities Johnston
complained about -- including site supervisor John Hirtz -- but not
before Johnston himself lost his job. And nobody would face criminal charges of any kind for their involvement with the young prostitutes.
<more>
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/26/bosnia / *****

*****
Crime without punishment

Investigators knew employees for U.S. military contractors in Bosnia
bought women as sex slaves. But because of legal loopholes and
bureaucratic confusion, no one was prosecuted.

By Robert Capps

June 27, 2002 | In early 2000, the U.S. Army received information
that private contractors working at a base near Tuzla, Bosnia, were
purchasing women from local brothels. Some of the women may have been
as young as 12, and some were being held as sex slaves, the sources
alleged.

Investigations by the Bosnian police and the U.S. Army confirmed the
gist of those reports, turning up significant evidence of wrongdoing
by at least seven men -- including at least one supervisor --
employed by Reston, Va.-based DynCorp. Despite those findings,no one ever faced criminal charges or prosecution in either Bosnia or the United States.

The investigation at Camp Comanche in Bosnia is at the heart of a
lawsuit filed by former DynCorp mechanic Ben Johnston, who says
DynCorp wrongfully fired him for assisting the Army Criminal
Investigation Command in its probe of the camp. The investigation and
its results, along with allegations made in a similar whistleblower
lawsuit against DynCorp in the U.K., have brought to light a critical loophole in efforts to police the shadowy world of private military firms, a booming industry that's now worth almost $100 billion a year.

Thanks to a combination of factors -- the jurisdictional conflicts of
American law, the immunity provided to these contractors by international treaties, and the underdeveloped police agencies in
host countries -- many crimes committed by private military personnel
while based overseas will likely go unpunished, just as they did in
Bosnia.
<more>
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/27/military /

[Disturbed]

3. Will Chalabi skate?

It will be interesting to learn if he is ever prosecuted.

I seriously doubt that he will.

[maddezmom]

8. I'll bet he gets a "get out of jail free card"

he is the holder of too many secrets.

[UpInArms]

4. whoever thinks that any Iraqi agency acts "independently"

is a freakin' fool.

The Chalabi raid is merely a double-fake by this mal-administration to make Chalabi look "palatable" to the Iraqis.

Lots of bennies come with that "sell" - Chalabi gets into the Iraqi goverment - then we can blame Iran and Chalabi for continuing discontent - final solution: keep military there indefinitely and eventually invade Iran for their oil....

[shockingelk]

5. original article

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.contractors30may30,0,6411461.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

[UpInArms]

6. from your link:

excerpt:

But eight armed American contractors paid by a U.S. State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi police officers who eyewitnesses say ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.

<snip>

A State Department official confirmed the DynCorp workers' presence during the raid. A DynCorp spokesman declined to comment.

The participation of gun-toting American contractors paid by U.S. taxpayers in a raid that the U.S. government has insisted it did not order is only the latest instance of problems posed by the estimated 20,000 contract security workers serving with more than 60 companies in Iraq.

...more...

I certainly wish that the last part of the bolded sentence had read:

...calls into question the credibility of all spokespersons for this administration.

[The Shadow]

7. Mercenaries Representing The U.S.

Eight armed American contractors paid by the US State Department says it all.
These so-called "contractors" represent the interests of the U.S. Government, and act in behalf of our government, whether they or Bushhole think so or not.
I resent the way that the White House always attempts to absolve themselves of any responsibility, because after all, they were "contractors" and "we have no control over their actions".
The media is only too eager to help propagate this baloney. Just like the "civilian interrogators" at Abu Ghraib.

[seemslikeadream]

15. We've got foreign mercs on the payrole

Rove's White House 'Murder, Inc.'

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

May 21, 2004—On September 15, 2001, just four days after the 9-11 attacks, CIA Director George Tenet provided President Bush with a Top Secret "Worldwide Attack Matrix"—a virtual license to kill targets deemed to be a threat to the United States in some 80 countries around the world. The Tenet plan, which was subsequently approved by Bush, essentially reversed the executive orders of four previous U.S. administrations that expressly prohibited political assassinations.

According to high level European intelligence officials, Bush's counselor, Karl Rove, used the new presidential authority to silence a popular Lebanese Christian politician who was planning to offer irrefutable evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorized the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. In addition, Sharon provided the Lebanese forces who carried out the grisly task. At the time of the massacres, Elie Hobeika was intelligence chief of Lebanese Christian forces in Lebanon who were battling Palestinians and other Muslim groups in a bloody civil war. He was also the chief liaison to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel in Lebanon. An official Israeli inquiry into the massacre at the camps, the Kahan Commission, merely found Sharon "indirectly" responsible for the slaughter and fingered Hobeika as the chief instigator.

The Kahan Commission never called on Hobeika to offer testimony in his defense. However, in response to charges brought against Sharon before a special war crimes court in Belgium, Hobeika was urged to testify against Sharon, according to well-informed Lebanese sources. Hobeika was prepared to offer a different version of events than what was contained in the Kahan report. A 1993 Belgian law permitting human rights prosecutions was unusual in that non-Belgians could be tried for violations against other non-Belgians in a Belgian court. Under pressure from the Bush administration, the law was severely amended and the extraterritoriality provisions were curtailed.

Hobeika headed the Lebanese forces intelligence agency since the mid- 1970s and he soon developed close ties to the CIA. He was a frequent visitor to the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. After the Syrian invasion of Lebanon in 1990, Hobeika held a number of cabinet positions in the Lebanese government, a proxy for the Syrian occupation authorities. He also served in the parliament. In July 2001, Hobeika called a press conference and announced he was prepared to testify against Sharon in Belgium and revealed that he had evidence of what actually occurred in Sabra and Shatilla. Hobeika also indicated that Israel had flown members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) into Beirut International Airport in an Israeli Air Force C130 transport plane. In full view of dozens of witnesses, including members of the Lebanese army and others, SLA troops under the command of Major Saad Haddad were slipped into the camps to commit the massacres. The SLA troops were under the direct command of Ariel Sharon and an Israeli Mossad agent provocateur named Rafi Eitan. Hobeika offered evidence that a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon was aware of the Israeli plot. In addition, the IDF had placed a camera in a strategic position to film the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. Hobeika was going to ask that the footage be released as part of the investigation of Sharon.

CONTINUED...

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052104Madsen/052104madsen ...


What Might Sharon Know About CACI?

Two former Mobile police officers working in Iraq

New York Times reports that one, Kenneth Powell, screened prisoners for private company at Abu Ghraib prison
Thursday, May 27, 2004
By RON COLQUITT
Staff Reporter
Former Mobile police Lt. Kenneth Powell is one of the civilian contractors who has worked screening prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, the facility that is the subject of an international prisoner abuse scandal, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Times report focused on the experience and security clearance status of civilian contractors working at the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad. It cites Powell's name as having been mentioned in military documents obtained by the Times.

Powell, the Times reported, "recently retired after 24 years with the Mobile, Ala., police force, where presumably he picked up the skills, and the security clearance, to screen Iraqi prisoners."

There is no mention that Powell had any knowledge of, or participation in, any of the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib, outraging many in the Arab and Western worlds.

more
http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/10856494505 ...

What Might Sharon Know About CACI?

Right now, Americans are so mesmerized by those photos, which daily increase in number and luridness, that the facts of who did what and who knew what, and just what the “hey” and worse went on in those prisons, are just dribbling out, like water from a leaky faucet.

What might Sharon know? He might know whether the four “contract” interrogators identified as the foremost abusers — John Israel, Steven Stephanowicz, Torin Nelson, and Adel Nakha — were trained in their “craft” in Israel, or by Israelis.

Initial news reports indicate that two companies, Titan of San Diego, California, and California Analysis Center Incorporated (CACI, pronounced “khaki”) of Arlington, Virginia, employed these now-notorious “contractors.” But Titan and CACI themselves reportedly deny being their “direct” employers. And Titan and CACI refuse to identify who is.

What might Sharon know? Well, surely he knows that CACI was founded in the 1960s by Herbert Kerr and Harry Markowitz, a Chicago Jew, who worked together at The Rand Corporation in the 1950s. Markowitz, a mathematics genius with a Ph.d. from the University of Chicago, received the 1990 Nobel prize in economics (shared) for his theory of “portfolio choice,” which allows market investors to analyze risk as well as their expected return. But Markowtiz and Kerr’s work at Rand was in computer matrix codes with industrial and defense applications. This is the work that CACI still does now. With creative innovations, apparently.

What might Sharon know?

Sharon certainly knows that in February 2004, the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha Torah, a Zionist “worldwide foundation” specializing in “educational outreach,” according to CACI’s own press release, gave CACI its Albert Einstein award “for promoting peace in the Middle East.” CACI’s CEO, Jack London, was presented the award by Israel’s Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in a glittering, elaborate ceremony at the Jerusalem City Hall. The ceremony was billed as part of the “First Annual Defense Aerospace Homeland Security Mission of Peace to Israel and Jordan.”

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7 §ion=0&article=44927&d=14&m=5&y=200...

Tinoire

About these 3rd party nationals

<snip>

Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often the case with "plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.

In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."

The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.

<snip>

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions that they gave to the guards?" When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan, have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.

Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon.

<snip>

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

[DemonFighterLives]

9. Kick

It would be interesting to see who is pulling what strings here.

[seemslikeadream]

14. I think the "enemy" knows

[Just Me]

10. Hmmm,...this just gets increasingly interesting.

Infighting. Power struggle. No-rules game-playing.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. The mercs have gone off the reservation!

Uh huh. :eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

13. Funny you should use the word reservation - How appropriate!

Now Hiring: Park rangers, interrogators
Commentary: The wacky world of government contracts

By Michael Collins, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 1:07 PM ET May 28, 2004

ARLINGTON, VA (CBS.MW) -- We learned this week that civilian interrogators used by the Army at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were hired under a Department of the Interior contract for information technology.

Yes, the Interior Department, best known for running the national parks, apparently has a side business administering contracts for other government agencies. And under what is known as a "blanket purchase agreement" for the government to buy technology services from CACI International of Arlington (CAI: news, chart, profile), the Army was able to order up prison interrogators.

Welcome to the wild, wacky world of government contracting.

It's strange enough that Iraq intelligence gathering is contracted out to the private sector, and even stranger that Baghdad prison interrogators are working under an Interior Department technology contract. But what really bothers me is this type of thing is not that uncommon, and it's seen as "efficiency" in the federal government.

It's hard for an outsider to see what's efficient about the complex web of government contracting. I'm sure it made sense, to someone, for the Army to ask a technology company to hire interrogators -- but to me it seems like going to a lumber yard to buy a computer.

Now that the deal is public, the government has ordered investigations.

Interior Department spokesman Frank Quimby said Tuesday the department's inspector general wants to find out if it was proper to hire interrogators under an information technology contract. He was speaking on a conference call, so we don't know if he was able to keep a straight face.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BF8607265-F5F6-4E14-B...

[Barrett808]

16. Pug Winokur, late of the Enron Board

Still cashing in on BFEE war profiteering.