Dyncorp and Friends: Securing Private Politics Part V

The new force of Private armies offering a whole host of hi-tec services for the US are increasing in scope though the majority of contracts still go to Dyncorp CSC, and the wonderful world of the Wackenhut Corporation now owned by Group 4. Like Dyncorp, it is forever in the news usually due to one scandal after another where its cover inevitably runs up against a few humanitarian and democratic obstacles. 

According to EyeOnWackenhut.com a website set up by ex-security officers and researchers in the field, they describe the company PR as "high road" rhetoric giving way to a "low-road" reality. It has a track record of dubious hiring practices extremely poor training, a business structure that prevents a quality service and a positively totalitarian and vindictive regime of retaliation against employees who point out the less than satisfactory instances of irregularities. These may include security vulnerabilities, corruption and serious lapses in security protocol that form part of Wackenhut operations world-wide.  
 

After reading some of its citations and awards on wackenhut.com one particular one stood out. A self-congratulatory pat on the back came from its most popular employer, the Department of Defence. The corporation has been enlisted all those years ago precisely because it mirrors the DOD’s own basic standards of corruption, abuse and immorality. 

 

We read about one Palm Beach Gardens: “…David Draghi, Wackenhut’s project manager at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania, and his team as a Patriotic Employer on behalf of the Department of Defense.” More rock bottom than “Peach Bottom.” 

 

Richard Michau, President of Wackenhut’s Nuclear Services Division embarks on a reverie of hand wringing on behalf of a grateful nation no doubt sleeping safely in the ir beds thanks to the security of Wackenhut: “This award recognizes Wackenhut’s employment policies and practices and for its contribution to national security and protection of liberty and freedom by supporting employee participation in America’s National Guard and Reserve. We are particularly pleased because nominations for the Patriotic Employer Award are submitted by Reserve Component members themselves.” ²⁸ Wholly impartial, of course. Obviously, this is a form of patriotism bearing little resemblance to the values of Abraham Lincoln.

We will begin to get an idea just how nauseating this kind of self-congratulatory propaganda is, when we understand the real role that Wackenhut has moulded for itself, and how employees are far from happy with a corporation that was founded on thugs, spooks and government corruption.

 

Private guards at prisons, airports and nuclear power plants: this is the security world of Wackenhut birthed from its ex-FBI creator the fascistic George R. Wackenhut, who, before dying at the age of 85 in February 2005, presided over the most successful private security firm in history. Its contracts include supplying security to US embassies and some of the most sensitive and strategic federal facilities in the country, such as the Alaskan oil pipeline, Aleyska Pipeline Service Company; the Hanford nuclear waste facility; Savannah River plutonium plant and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

 

It is no wonder that Wackenhut has raised the hackles of activists and humanitarians world wide (which it likes to regularly eat for breakfast). The advisory board reads like a virtual who’s who of spooks and Neo-Con big wigs including: Clarence Kelley, former FBI director; Frank Carlucci, former Defence Secretary and former CIA Deputy Director; James J. Rowley, former US Secret Service Director; P. X. Kelley, former Marine Commandant; General Joseph Carroll, former Defence Intelligence Agency director; Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, General Mark Clark and Ralph E. Davis, former CIA Deputy Director and Chairman of President former U.S. President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. The late Former CIA Director William Casey was Wackenhut’s legal counsel before joining the CIA. 

 

Wacknehut’s claim to be like any other successful company with no government agenda is akin to Jabba the Hut putting on some eye shadow and claiming the fifth amendment. Yet this is how it goes in such front companies; getting away with murder is the chosen occupational hazard, though they have nothing to fear from the media in that regard.

A prime example of its habitual silencing of its critics could be seen when the corporation was hired in support of Exxon and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The pitch was to restrict the flow of information from employees to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the House of Representatives. They illegally obtained telephone records, removed rubbish, conducted surveillance, bugging and background checks on many people, some of whom were not involved in anyway with the investigation. The corporation even set up a bogus environmental law firm called “Ecolit,” the real purpose of which was to induce whistle blower Chuck Hamel to reveal the names of his Alyeska sources. ²⁹

 

It went about its task with such arrogance and alacrity that it was finally brought to the attention of the federal judge Stanley Sporkin who heard Hamel’s invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Alyeska. He described the Wackenhut spy operation as “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.”³⁰ Under Wackenhut’s banner of “Complex Corporate Investigations”³¹ we can begin to get an idea what this “complexity” might entail. 

 

Or perhaps you remember in 1999, the negligence and violation of federal laws protecting whistle blowers in the Rocky Flat Nuclear Facility case and which also reoccurred at Callaway Nuclear Power Plant in 2001? Or maybe a spot of discrimination at Salem/Hope Creek Generating Station, Salem, New Jersey? Then there are the cases of unfair dismissal and providing false information and shoddy security work in the case of Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant at Buchanan, New York. This is all in a global day’s work for Wackenhut.

As Wackenhut mops up airports, nuclear facilities and prisons at home and in Europe, dozens of security companies are being snapped up to pimp for the U.S. government in the Middle East. Dyncorp has the lion’s share but many others are jostling to feed. 

 

On the U.S. State Department’s website there is a list of the security companies currently “doing business” in Iraq. The Department states clearly and unequivocally: “The U.S. government assumes no responsibility for the professional ability or integrity of the persons or firms whose names appear on the list.” ³² Most of the companies listed have direct U.S. State Dept. contracts or are linked via USAID or other affiliated services. It is also a curious statement to read when we remember that 50 percent of the $40 billion given annually to the 15 intelligence agencies in the United States is now spent on private contractors.³³

It is rather like the wolf denying culpability while a sheep’s tail wiggles from one corner of its mouth. If one out-sources and sub-contracts in such a sensitive region the onus is entirely on top management to ensure the quality and reliability of those involved. It is more likely that the State Dept. is seeking damage limitation for offences which are on the rise.

What is more disturbing is the effective free-market mercenary world fused with multi-national and geo-political interests that spells disaster for the Iraqi population. The insurgency is growing in force because of these invasion attributes rather than any illusions of coming democracy.

 

Dyncorp CSC as proven bastions of integrity and professional ability were awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to advise the Iraqi government on setting up effective law enforcement and judicial and correctional agencies. CorpWatch reported that: “DynCorp will arrange for up to 1,000 U.S. civilian law enforcement experts to travel to Iraq to help locals ‘assess threats to public order’ and mentor personnel at the municipal, provincial and national levels. The company will also provide any logistical or technical support necessary for this peacekeeping project. DynCorp estimates it could recoup up to $50 million for the first year of the contract.” ^{34, 35}

Agense France Presse described the invasion of Iraq as a “paramilitary Wild West” with: “over 60 foreign firms, with exotic names like Blackwater and Custer Battles, as well as 40 Iraqi firms.”³⁶ This is an invasion and one that echoes past imperialism, becoming updated with the help of the requisite technological weaponry. Whether or not the Joint U.S. and U.K. Government’s Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, and Code of Conduct of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is in operation on many of the websites of private security firms, it can be compared to The Declaration on the Rights of the Child – not worth the paper it's been written on. 

 

As most institutions, agencies and corporations they comprise of decent people trying to do their jobs often under difficult circumstances. Dyncorp is no different in this respect. Not all employees enjoy abusing children; not all workers are engaged in covert operations. Yet the drivers and “bad apples” behind these companies act as extended arms of U.S. government geo-politcal ideology. 

Notes 

28 Wackenhut’s Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant Team Receives ‘Patriotic Employer Award’Press Release, October 10 2005, www.wackenhut.com/

29 Robert K. Scott v. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, 92-TSC-2, July 25, 1995./ Undercover Investigation to Find Whistleblower Whistleblower Case Study 6: The Alaska Pipeline, www.eyeonwackenhut.com

30 ‘Alyeska Settles Suit by a Whistle-Blower,’ The Wall Street Journal, December 21, 1993. ./ Undercover Investigation to Find Whistleblower Whistleblower Case Study 6: The Alaska Pipeline, www.eyeonwackenhut.com.

31  www.wackenuht.com/

32  Security Companies Doing Business in Iraq, USA State Depart. Bureau of Comnsular Affairs.

33  CorpWatch corpwatch.org.

34 CorpWatch, corpwatch.org Dycorp – ‘CEO: Paul V. Lombardi Military contracts 2004: $2.4 billion.’

35 Dyncorp International Companies presently making a killing in Iraq and the U.S include: AKE Limited, ArmorGroup, Control Risks Group, Diligence Middle East, Erinys Iraq Limited, ChoicePoint Inc, Genric, Global (Middle East) Risk Strategies FZ-LLC, Group 4 Falck A/S, Henderson Risk Limited, Hill and Associates, Ltd, ICP Group, ISI, Meyer & Associates, Olive Group FZ LLC, Optimal Solution Services, Overseas Security & Strategic Information, Inc/Safenet- Iraq, RamOPS, Risk Management Group, SOC-SMG Inc., Sumer International Security, TOR International, Triple Canopy Inc., Wade Boyd & Associates LLC, International Protection Services, Dehdari General Trading & Contracting Est. - KUWAIT - IRAQ. Unity Resources Group (Middle East) LLC – representing just some of the new breed of security brokers, all of whom have slick websites and an even slicker sales pitch with Homeland Security and the “War on Terror” featuring prominently.

36 ‘The metrics of losing’ By Tom Engelhardt, May 25 2005, Asia Times Online atimes.com.

Dyncorp and Friends: Securing Private Politics Part IV

  
It is in the appalling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, that we can see how U.S. corporations and vested interests of the Bush administrations truly excelled in profiting from the death and destruction of innocents. Indeed, there is substantial evidence to suggest this destruction and opportunism was purposely orchestrated to both maximize profits for the Bush’s hold on power and to use New Orleans as a test model for further police state powers. 

 

In 2005, after the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress legislation allowed the government to seize private land and to pass it to hungry developers looking for easy money, it proved to be suspiciously opportune for the few. Rather like the financial transactions resulting in massive selling of airline industry stock options a few weeks before the September 11 attacks.²¹ The magnitude of this disaster stems not merely from the tragic loss of life, but the realization that much of the deaths may have been intentionally created.  
 

Why, after many hours when the hurricane had left New Orleans did these so called “breeches” and flooding in the poorest parts of the city take place? Not to mention the fact that the pumping system had an unprecedented but highly convenient breakdown to complement such an operation. These details are ahead of the many eye-witness and extremely disturbing actions of the Department Homeland Security and FEMA who actively prevented aid, assistance, food, emergency supplies and response units from saving lives. This is no sensationalist proclamation but factual data that can even be found from many mainstream sources.²² One particular report from Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La. who had added to the rising indication the across American media:

‘…the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history … Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now … Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA – we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my Parish. The Coast Guard said, ‘Come get the fuel right away.’ When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. ‘FEMA says don’t give you the fuel.’ Yesterday – yesterday – FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, ‘No one is getting near these lines.’” ²³

Sadly, it was bureaucracy and incompetence that were used to funnel blame away from the real instigators of the operation. The scapegoat sacking of the former chief of the CIA George Tenet for so called “intelligence failures” which were in reality, intentional failures, the resignation of FEMA chief Michael Brown followed a similar script. He blamed Homeland Security rather than FEMA for the “listless response” to Hurricane Katrina.24  Both these pantomimes were staged with various parties aware or oblivious to the tried and tested formula. From the wealth of eye witness reports the tragedy as a whole overwhelmingly suggests that the official line was to prohibit any coherent response to the crisis.

The results of this government sanctioned criminal behaviour led to an official death toll of 1,300 ²⁵ in Louisiana and Mississippi, with estimates of over 6,644 still missing, 1,000 of which are children.²⁶ It represented a social disaster visited primarily upon African-Americans who were effectively left for dead. Those families that survived and if their homes had not been claimed “unsafe” by the government, had to leave their communities only to be broken up and scattered across the U.S. still unsure if some members of their families are alive or dead.

So, what possible motives could the U.S. government have had in harming its citizens in such an obvious and calculated way? Perhaps the same reason they had in suggesting 12 Arabs hijacked some jet airliners with box-cutters and were able to just slip through the most technologically advanced systems of air defence in the world. Naturally, we can all be relied on to not worry about such little wrinkles in the “official” theories. Perhaps a more realistic appraisal of the motives were the following:

1. To acclimate the American people to the presence of armed troops on American soil, which will soon be a familiar sight not just in southern Louisiana, but throughout the country. Even as you read this, the White House and Congress are hard at work drafting legislation and executive orders that will normalize the use of combat personnel to deal with any contrived situation.

2. To allow the city of New Orleans to be rebuilt and refashioned into what our fearless leaders no doubt see as a city of the future – a city that is much richer, and much whiter, than the city that stood before.

3. To solidify control over the Gulf Coast oil and gas industry, since a key goal of the perpetrators of the ‘Peak Oil’ charade, as I’ve noted before, is to achieve total control over all the world’s major oil and gas taps. ²⁷

‘Peak oil’ being a major weapon of disinformation designed to give factions within the military industrial complex further leverage for unilateral demarcation and consumption of resources.  
 

It will come as no surprise by now to learn that U.S., U.K. and Israeli security companies including Dyncorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut, Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) and Uncle Tom mercenary and all, descended on the remains of New Orleans to make a further killing much as it did in Iraq. For reconstruction and humanitarian relief one does wonder why the presence of these specialist companies were anywhere near the city, not for the milk of human kindness – of that we can be sure. 
 

The outsourcing since 9/11 has doubled as part of a global trend toward the creation of multinational organizations which act as protectors and police for the world’s rich executives and affluent communities. Meanwhile, another sideline offers training programs, troops and intelligence for right-wing armies across the world. The reason these companies are so effective and so damaging is that they enforce the status quo and help to sustain conflict by the neo-con principle of endless regime changes and the transplantation of power for those that can pay for it. In other words, those with links to the Pathocracy. In the post 9/11 century of total propaganda they are the de facto arm of U.S. foreign policy.

21 “Huge surges in purchases of put options on stocks of the two airlines used in the attack -- United Airlines and American Airlines; Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of reinsurance companies expected to pay out billions to cover losses from the attack -- Munich Re and the AXA Group; Surges in purchases of put options on stocks of financial services companies hurt by the attack -- Merrill Lynch & Co., and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America; Huge surge in purchases of call options of stock of a weapons manufacturer expected to gain from the attack – Raytheon; Huge surges in purchases of 5-Year US Treasury Notes.” - Insider Trading: ‘Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge.’ 911 research.net.

22 ‘Daley ‘Shocked’ at Federal Snub of Offers to Help,’ Chicago Tribune, September 2, 2005 / ‘Homeland Security Won’t Let Red Cross Deliver Food,’ by Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 3, 2005 / ‘Airboaters Stalled by FEMA,’by Nancy Imperiale Sun Sentinel, September 2, 2005.

23 ‘Storm and Crisis: The Fallout,’ by Scott Shane New York Times, September 5, 2005

24 ‘Brown blames Homeland for Katrina response’ Ex-FEMA chief says he's a scapegoat: ‘I feel somewhat abandoned’ AP, Feb. 10, 2006.

25 ‘Death toll from Katrina likely higher than 1,300’ - Number of bodies found offers only partial indicator of deaths, experts say, MSNBC, February 10, 2006.

26 6,644 are still missing after Katrina; toll may rise’By Kevin Johnson, USA Today, November 2005.

27 “Katrina, Eugenics and 'Peak Oil,'” Part II, By David McGowan, Newsletter #74 October 23, 2005.