PRIVATEFORCES.COM @ your fingertips http://www.privateforces.com 2010-09-10T15:34:35+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com http://www.privateforces.com/images/M_images/banner_rss2.jpg text/html 2009-05-05T20:32:13+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2222&Itemid=189 Posted by Michael Cohen Last month, Secretary of Defense Gates announced plans to increase the size of the defense acquisition workforce, converting 11,000 contractors and hiring an additional 9,000 government acquisition professionals by 2015 – beginning with 4,100 in FY10. It's great to see the SecDef focused on the need to improve the acquisition workforce. But as David Isenberg points out this week, reading though the most recent SIGIR (Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction) report there is some reason for concern about whether these numbers can be met: text/html 2009-05-05T20:31:17+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2221&Itemid=189 By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer - May 5, 2009 KBR, the Army's largest contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, is linked to the vast majority of suspected combat-zone fraud cases that have been referred to investigators, as well as a majority of the $13 billion in questioned or unsupported costs, the Pentagon's top auditor said yesterday. In testimony before the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, April G. Stephenson, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, said investigators have sent to the inspector general a total of 32 cases of suspected overbilling, bribery and other violations since 2004. text/html 2009-05-05T20:30:19+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2220&Itemid=189 By RICHARD LARDNER A massive contract to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan received a withering review Monday, as a special panel investigating waste and fraud in wartime spending was told of numerous deficiencies in the arrangement that has paid KBR Inc. nearly $32 billion since 2001. Testifying before the bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission, April Stephenson, head of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, said her agency has referred at least 16 reports since 2004 of suspected fraud or improper conduct stemming from the contract to government investigators. text/html 2009-05-05T20:29:08+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2219&Itemid=189 4 May 2009 Two private military contractorsThe next private military company to take over Blackwater’s contract in Iraq has an interesting history, operates worldwide and provides more than just personal security, Jody Ray Bennett writes for ISN Security Watch.By Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch After the announcement that Xe, the infamous private security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, would lose its US State Department contract to provide security services in Baghdad, there remained a degree of uncertainty as to which company, if any, would take over the job. text/html 2009-05-05T20:27:35+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2218&Itemid=189 By Robin Acton - TRIBUNE-REVIEW - Monday, May 4, 2009 Lt. Col. Dominic Rocky Baragona dreamed of making a million dollars, buying the house next door to his parents and taking care of them when he retired from the Army. Six years after his death, the Ohio soldier's parents are due nearly five times the amount of their son's dream from a federal court decision against the foreign defense contractor found responsible for killing him in a May 19, 2003, traffic accident in Iraq. The 1982 West Point graduate was ejected when his Humvee was struck by a KGL truck driven by an Egyptian employee of the contractor. text/html 2009-05-05T20:26:05+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2217&Itemid=189 April 28th 2009 HE is the Red Adair of the Sydney seas - like the Texan who fought oil-well fires, Captain Brett Devine and his firm have handled some of Australia's largest ship salvage operations. Now he has the pirates who are terrorising shipping lanes off the Somali coast in his sights. text/html 2009-05-05T20:25:20+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2216&Itemid=189 New Focus on Two Retired Military Psychologists Called the 'Architects' of the CIA's Techniques By BRIAN ROSS, MATTHEW COLE, and JOSEPH RHEE April 30, 2009— As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture. text/html 2009-05-05T20:23:18+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2215&Itemid=189 April 24, 2009 Jeremy Scahill has a compelling article up on Alternet about how local law enforcement is embracing the contracting trend. This privatization trend is hardly new, but it is accelerating. While events such as the Nisour Square massacre committed in September 2007 by Blackwater operatives in Baghdad show the lethal danger of unleashing mercenary forces on foreign soil, one area with the potential for extreme abuses resulting from this privatization is in domestic law enforcement in the U.S. text/html 2009-04-15T13:12:14+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2214&Itemid=189 by The Associated Press NPR.org, April 10, 2009 · The CIA has stopped using contractors to interrogate prisoners and has fired private security guards at the CIA's secret overseas prisons, which are in the process of being shut down, agency Director Leon Panetta says. Panetta told agency employees in an e-mail message Thursday that the guards will be replaced with CIA officers at the sites, which President Obama ordered closed on his second day in office. text/html 2009-04-15T13:08:07+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2213&Itemid=189 Feb. 2009 The Eastern North Carolina-based private security company had exemplified the problems of using private soldiers in combat zones. Now, after losing its contract to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq, it is changing its name. Company officials announced Friday that the group of businesses formerly called Blackwater Worldwide will now be known as Xe, pronounced like the letter Z. text/html 2009-04-15T13:07:09+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2212&Itemid=189 Prominent private security firm Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) was recently forced out of Iraq after the company was refused an operating license by the local authorities. Now it looks as if the Afghan government may tighten its oversight of armed security contractors as well. Last week, the Afghan Ministry of Justice introduced a draft law on private security companies; while it's still too early to gauge the impact of the new law, it's clear that the Afghan government will be taking a closer look at the conduct of the guns-for-hire. text/html 2009-04-15T13:04:17+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2210&Itemid=189 By Scott Horton Yesterday CIA Director Leon Panetta emailed thousands of subordinates his hearty greetings for Passover and Easter. Appropriate to the season, perhaps, his message was filled with talk of torture, foreign captivity, and doubtful acts of contrition. “CIA officers do not tolerate, and will continue to promptly report, any inappropriate behavior or allegations of abuse,” he wrote. And this rule was not to be evaded by proxies, either: “That holds true whether a suspect is in the custody of an American partner or a foreign liaison service.” text/html 2009-04-15T13:03:24+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2209&Itemid=189 As the Marines demonstrated long ago, there's only one way to end piracy April 12, 2009 by Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The opening stanza of the Marine Corps hymn is: From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea. The Halls of Montezuma refers to the assault on Chapultepec Castle during the Mexican War, which was led by the small Marine contingent in Gen. Winfield Scott's army. Ninety percent of the officers and NCOs who led the assault were killed. The red stripe on the dress uniform trousers of Marine officers is in commemoration of the blood their predecessors shed that day. (For those who love historical coincidences, the Marines attacked along a route up the mountain that had been picked out by an Army engineer, Major Robert E. Lee. Immediately behind the Marines was a company of soldiers led by Lt. Ulysses S. Grant.) text/html 2009-04-15T13:01:59+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2208&Itemid=189 Jenna Carlesso and Khurram Saeed When pirates attacked a 17,000-ton cargo ship off the Somali Coast three days ago, former Marine Troy Osborne wasn't surprised. But the West Haverstraw resident had to do a double-take at the television when news reports announced that the pirates had attempted to hijack a U.S. vessel, and, subsequently, had taken the ship's American captain hostage. Pirates are looking first and foremost at the flag the ship has. That's going to tell them what kind of resistance they're up against, said Osborne, a former private security contractor who is developing his own company to help combat piracy threats. This was definitely a desperate measure. I was shocked they attacked this ship, knowing full well the heat that's already on them. text/html 2009-04-15T13:01:12+01:00 http://www.privateforces.com index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2207&Itemid=189 Guards employed by Hampshire-based company are accused of opening fire on unarmed civilians and driving off, leaving them with severe injuries Mark Townsend - The Observer, Sunday 11 January 2009 One of Britain's largest private security firms is being sued over allegations that its men opened fire on unarmed civilians and then drove away, leaving an Iraqi brother and sister fighting for their lives.