2008/06/18

Under US law, the private security firms are to conduct draconian interrogations of suspects which could be branded as torture in Germany.

The German government on Tuesday confirmed a report in the daily Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper which said that private US security firms, under contract by the US military, are operating in Germany without a bilaterally negotiated legal status.

18.6.2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A civilian Pentagon official in charge of the largest US military contract in Iraq was removed from his job in 2004 after refusing to pay one billion dollars to KBR Inc. because the company was unable to credibly justify its expenses, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Business Daily (Nairobi) - by Miano Kihu - 17 June 2008

 

The Somalia government is planning to establish its own coast guard following the signing of a security agreement between President Abdullahi Yusuf and a French private company, Secopex CSA.
The French media reported that the international security firm proposed and got the consent of the Somali government "to support maritime security in Somalia and create a coastal intelligence unit."

June 17th, 2008

 

Those wacky government contractors.  Will we ever tire of of their sportive tricks?
I’ll never understand why more Republicans in Congress — who worry obsessively about taxes and who used to get teary-eyed about the troops whenever a Dem used the phrase ‘withdrawal deadline’ or ‘exit strategy’ — aren’t apoplectic over the amounts of tax dollars being flushed down the latrine in Iraq, not to mention the rampant war profiteering at the expense of our American soldiers.

By Patrick Cockburn in Washington - 18 June 2008

The US has accepted that foreign contractors in Iraq will no longer have immunity from Iraqi law under a new security agreement now under negotiation, says the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari.

Mr Zebari, speaking to The Independent in Washington, said that if there was a further incident like the one in which 17 Iraqis were killed by workers from the Blackwater security company in Baghdad last September, the Iraqis would arrest and punish the contractors held responsible.

18.06.2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A civilian Pentagon official in charge of the largest US military contract in Iraq was removed from his job in 2004 after refusing to pay one billion dollars to KBR Inc. because the company was unable to credibly justify its expenses, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

KBR is an engineering, construction and services company that until April 2007 was a subsidiary of the Houston-based energy firm Halliburton, which was formerly led by Vice President Dick Cheney.