Security firm's $293m deal under scrutiny

[Snazzy]

Security firm's $293m deal under scrutiny
By Charles M. Sennott, (Boston) Globe Staff | June 22, 2004

LONDON -- A private British firm that won a $293 million contract from the Pentagon for coordinating security in Iraq is headed by a retired British commando with a reputation for illicit arms deals in Africa and for commanding a murderous military unit in Northern Ireland, human rights activists and security analysts said yesterday.

The contract -- the largest single piece of the private-security pie in Iraq so far handed out by Washington -- was awarded to the London-based Aegis Defense Services.

The CEO of the company, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former commando turned warrior-for-hire, has been linked to an arms sale to Sierra Leone that violated a 1998 United Nations embargo, and he served as commanding officer over two British soldiers convicted of murdering an unarmed Catholic teenager in North Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1992.

...

Under the terms of the three-year ''cost-plus" contract, Aegis is responsible for serving as the coordinator of 50 other private security companies and providing up to 75 ''close protection teams" to guard employees of the US Project Management Office in Iraq. The cost-plus formula, which guarantees profits for a firm even if costs escalate, has been sharply criticized by government watchdog groups as wasteful and prone to corruption, particularly in relation to the larger multibillion dollar contracts held by firms such as Halliburton.

....

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2004/06/22/security_firms_293m_deal_under_scrutiny/

The Brookings Institute is quoted: "The Army never even bothered to Google this guy...."

[Don_G]

1. $290 Million Must Be The Cut-Off Point

For "cost plus" contracts before the Pentagon starts to check the backgrounds of foreign-based contractors working in Iran.

They sure haven't been checking Halliburton or the other US companies.