TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
[video=youtube_share;frdY2lvUaP8]http://youtu.be/frdY2lvUaP8[/video]
In modern times they have grown more Sophisticated and Complex, in modern times the mission statements of what is still called derogatorily Mercenaries very widely and show no signs of decline. Private Military Contractors is a broad term, it can be used to cover entities that supply and provide food, maintain Logistics, Repair and upkeep for equipment, provide security for convoys/ Individuals/ facilities, gather and Analyze intelligence.
Often smaller then a standing army but cheaper to contact to then a standing army PMC forces In Iraq and Afghanistan have come to the fore front. In the gulf war the ratio of PMC's to soldiers was 1 for every 100 in Iraq in 2004 it was more like 10 for every 1.
the Outsourcing of combatants is not limited to the US either the BRitish have a long tradition of it. South Africa, Peru, the Dominican republic, Australia, Dubai and China all operate PMC's of varying different types. Not just ground forces either Naval and Air specialized Groups also operate world wide.
Contractors flood into Iraq to give Al-Qaeda a run for the money
Published time: February 04, 2014 12:56
RT
Air Force, Al-Qaeda, Arms, Army, Iraq, USA
The rapidly developing Al-Qaeda incursion is forcing the Iraqi government not only to buy more American weapons and supplies, but also to payroll an army of mercenaries and private contractors, previously hired by the US Defense Department.
According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 5,000 specialists have been contracted by the Iraqi government. They are currently working in the country as analysts, military trainers, security guards, translators and even cooks. Some 2,000 of them are Americans.
“You have a situation where the government has become dependent on contractors,” Allison Stanger, a political-science professor at Middlebury College, told WSJ. “It's a real quantum shift.”
“The military task has, in fact, been outsourced in Iraq,” confirmed analyst Steven Schooner, a professor at George Washington University Law School.
Washington’s relationship with Baghdad has undergone a major transformation. Officially, the US has just several hundred troops in Iraq and the US Defense Department does not contract private security companies to operate in Iraq.
Yet the major shift in US-Iraq relations now is that Washington is no longer allocating budget money on operations in Iraq. It is Baghdad that spends money on American weaponry, vehicles and equipment, while American defense companies are earning money in Iraq by placing military contractors there.
Private defense companies, such as Triple Canopy and Dyncorp International, have multibillion contracts in Iraq for years to come.
Washington is actively assisting the Iraqi government in fighting terrorism, supplying Baghdad with drones and is considering training some of the country’s elite military forces in neighboring Jordan.
An assault operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a faction of Al-Qaeda currently occupying Fallujah, is promising to be a serious undertaking implying the use of the utmost in firepower, so Baghdad is buying $6 billion worth of military equipment from the US, including 24 Apache attack helicopters and nearly 500 Hellfire missiles.
The U.S. Army's AH-64 Apache helicopter (Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji)The U.S. Army's AH-64 Apache helicopter (Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji)
A group of top US lawmakers attempted to block the Apache deal, expressing concerns that providing Iraq with helicopters and other arms to help battle Al-Qaeda, would also mean that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might use them against his rivals. But the deal has nevertheless been finalized and the first batch of helicopters is expected in Iraq soon, along with the Hellfire missiles. This also means that 200 more contractors will come to Iraq to ensure the helicopters operate properly.
In the meantime violence in Iraq is at a record high. Al-Qaeda militants are advancing in the country’s south and are staging regular terror acts. It seems the Iraqi government has little choice but to come down on the insurgency with deadly force.
History repeats itself
It is probably no exaggeration to say that the war in Iraq is as far from being over as it was in 2003, with two major differences though. First: in the absence of Saddam Hussein his troops have been replaced with Al-Qaeda mujahedeen. Second: the US regular army has been supplanted by thousands of contractors, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The rest remains the same: English-speaking mercenaries are expected to choreograph the storming of Iraqi cities defended by Arab-speaking fighters of Al-Qaeda, exactly as it was back in 2004 during the Battle of Fallujah. Today Fallujah, occupied by Al-Qaeda, remains the primary target for the Iraqi government forces to assault backed by mercenaries.
US troops entered Iraq in 2003 and officially withdrew from the country in 2011. At the peak of war there were 157,800 American military personnel in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander Bill Speaks, reported that there are only 250 American troops in Iraq. These servicemen are either advisers assigned to the Office of Security Cooperation overseeing the US military interaction with Iraqi national forces, or Marine Corps security guards securing US diplomatic facilities.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (C) poses for a picture with U.S. Marines based in Baghdad during his visit to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad March 24, 2013. (Reuters/Jason Reed)U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (C) poses for a picture with U.S. Marines based in Baghdad during his visit to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad March 24, 2013. (Reuters/Jason Reed)
After the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq, the duty of protecting US interests in the country was relegated to thousands of contractors from the US Defense Ministry and other security agencies.
According to the US State Department and Pentagon, it is estimated there were over 12,500 contractors in Iraq, working for the US government as of January 2013. By October, according to a quarterly report, their number had decreased to 6,624 specialists. Less than a quarter of them (1,626) were American citizens, the rest were Iraqis (2,191), with 2,807 civilian experts from foreign countries.
Bill Speaks said that the last major US Defense Department contract in Iraq ended on December 15 and now there are zero contractors in Iraq hired by the US Defense Department.
Where did all those contractors go? They are still in Iraq, maintains the Foreign Policy magazine.
The FP asked Triple Canopy, a huge private defense company and sanctuary for the US Special Forces veterans, for details and learnt that “Recently all US government agencies have reduced their reliance on contractors due to budget cuts and have de-scoped contracts across the board, including in Iraq,” the company said a statement.
“Contractors will continue to remain engaged in Iraq in the near future. However, the majority of these personnel will likely be working on commercial extractive and construction projects,” the company said.
Contractors from America's biggest defense companies are providing maintenance for the equipment and vehicles previously bought by the Iraqi government from the US, such as helicopters, C-130 transport aircrafts, surveillance planes, drones, communication equipment and more.
Over the years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been multiple cases of contracting fraud.
The US Congress’ Independent Commission on Wartime Contracting determined that at least $31 billion in US funding had been wasted due to “poor oversight, fraud, waste, and abuse,” said FP’s former US Representative, Christopher Shays, who used co-chair the Commission.
“When the military had to leave, it made us even more dependent on contractors for security,” Shays said, adding that “The one thing that's a given: We can't go to war without contractors and we can't go to peace without contractors.”
The US has allegedly spent over $200 billion on contractors in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Now that the US administration has transferred these expenditures to the Iraqi government, the American military industrial complex and private security companies are ready to make a fortune in Iraq.
Private Security Firms Tapped Ahead of Sochi as U.S. Prepares for the Worst
By Jennifer Booton
Published January 15, 2014
FOXBusiness
Sochi Olympics Security
REUTERS
Private cyber security and evacuation firms are being tapped this Winter Olympics to ensure the safety of the U.S. delegation following a series of bombings near Sochi that killed dozens of people.
While Russian authorities are using high-tech methods like drones to detect potential threats and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the region, the U.S. issued a travel alert for Sochi on Friday, reminding travelers that major events like the Olympics tend to be an “attractive target for terrorists” and warning visitors should “remain attentive regarding their personal security at all times.”
Travelers are being encouraged to buy private medical evacuation and/or repatriation insurance, which can cover injury, evacuation costs or death in the event of an accident while traveling overseas.
The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) has held calls regarding security with the State Dept., and says it is working in tandem with local organizers and relevant law enforcement agencies to ensure the U.S. delegation and other Americans traveling to Sochi are safe.
“The safety and security of Team USA is our top priority and we will share the new alert with our delegation members,” USOC spokesperson Patrick Sandusky said.
Hiring Private Security
The anxiety surrounding the games has U.S. sports teams tapping the expertise of private security companies.
In November, the USSA once again brought on private crisis, rescue and evacuation team Global Rescue for its third consecutive Winter Olympics to boost security for athletes on and off the mountain. They have worked together since 2006, with Boston, Mass.-based Global Rescue conducting dozens of missions for USSA throughout their training efforts and at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy and Vancouver.
These Winter Games are being taken with extra precaution.
“This will be one of our larger deployments [for USSA] given the scale and the location,” said Global Rescue CEO Dan Richards. “Our planning with them began months ago.”
Among the preparation has been coordinating communication in the event of an emergency, identifying rally locations, putting into place a command and control plan, finding shelter-in-place locations and ensuring plans to evacuate athletes and their families can be executed effectively in crisis mode.
Global Rescue has had a hand in a number of major events over the past decade, including evacuating clients from Tahirir Square in Egypt during the Arab Spring uprising. It has more than 100 aircraft on contract around the world at any given time to assist with evacuations as well as personnel both on and off the ground with teams ready to deploy when necessary.
It’s not the only company of this type, but it is the only confirmed private firm working directly with a U.S. Olympic team at Sochi.
“We are crafting protocols and strategies they can use to deal with events that might occur while they’re in Sochi,” Richards said of USSA.
USSA wouldn’t comment specifically on its security detail, but a spokesperson said it maintains “close contact” with the USOC and “other agencies” on security.
Cyber Fortifications
Meanwhile, cyber intelligence officials are expected to continue working with private security firms to keep tabs on the record number of text, email, phone call and social media activity during the two-week games to try and intercept any potential plots that could endanger U.S. visitors.
Of course, their work likely began months if not years ago.
“As the saying goes, it's better to be ‘safe than sorry,’” said Dr. Lance Larson, CEO of security consulting firm Larson Corp. and an adjunct professor at San Diego State University. “Safeguards, cyber defenses put in place before an event, are much cheaper and more quickly implemented.”
Larson, who has worked with counterterrorism training at the FBI Laboratory and sat on a law enforcement intelligence and Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center task force, said the best opportunity for upcoming cyber security firms will be social media monitoring and analyses.
Scouring feeds from Twitter (TWTR), Facebook (FB), Google+ (GOOG), Instagram, Foursquare and Yahoo’s (YHOO) Tumblr for special keyboards like #Sochi plus an expletive may give “defensive personnel pre-warning to a potential real-world terrorist plot,” he said.
Geofencing, which allows cyber professionals to setup a virtual fence to monitor all social media posts from a specific geographic region, might also serve as a useful tool during the Winter Games.
Sponsors Quiet on Security
The Sochi Olympics’ biggest global sponsors have not said whether they are boosting security or taking extra protocols ahead of the game to ensure the safety of their customers and employees, though it would be highly unusual if they weren’t already in contact with the State Dept.
None of the top ten sponsors, including Coca-Cola (KO), McDonald’s (MCD), Procter & Gamble (PG), Dow Chemical (DOW), General Electric (GE), Panasonic, Samsung, Visa (V) and IT firm Atos, responded to requests for comment regarding security at Sochi.
However, Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO of global brand strategy consulting firm Vivaldi Partners, said he isn’t surprised.
“My recommendation for brands is to not run any messaging or communications before Sochi,” Joachimsthaler said. “If the inherent negative information (the risk of safety) can be framed positively, then it would have a positive effect, but I don’t know how to achieve that practically.”
Follow Jennifer Booton on Twitter at @Jbooton
It's a fact of war. Mercenaries have fought in conflicts since the first War.Pentagon Recoups $283 Million in Supreme Foodservice Fight
By Danielle Ivory and Tony Capaccio Apr 17, 2013 4:02 PM ET
Photographer: Rich Clement/Bloomberg
U.S. lawmakers are scheduled to hold a hearing today on the multibillion-dollar dispute... Read More
The Pentagon has recouped more than a third of the $757 million in overpayments it says were made to Supreme Foodservice AG, a contractor in Afghanistan, according to an agency official.
The Defense Logistics Agency wants Supreme, based in Ziegelbrücke, Switzerland, to return the entire $757 million, Matthew Beebe, the agency’s deputy director for acquisition, said in prepared testimony for a hearing today in Congress. The company has claimed it’s owed $1.8 billion more than the $5.5 billion already paid under the contract to supply food and water to troops.
The military agency’s demand for refunds “followed six years of unsuccessful negotiations between DLA and Supreme over fair and reasonable rates for distributing food to hundreds of forward operating bases throughout Afghanistan,” according to a memo prepared by the Democratic staff of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.
The memo and prepared testimony were obtained by Bloomberg News in advance of the panel’s hearing.
The Defense Logistics Agency, which manages the contract, in March 2012 began withholding $21.8 million per month from Supreme, Beebe said. As of March 31 this year, the agency had recouped $283 million, he said.
Supreme Appeal
Supreme has appealed the agency’s demands with the U.S. Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, and the case is scheduled to be heard in April 2014.
Michael Schuster, a managing director at Supreme, told the lawmakers today that the defense department’s audits of the company were “fundamentally flawed,” operating as if the contract was cost-plus, rather than fixed-price. Schuster said the “heart” of the dispute with the Pentagon came from this discrepancy.
Under a “cost-plus contract,” a contractor is paid for all of its allowed expenses.
In prepared testimony, he said that the Defense Logistics Agency had rapidly expanded the company’s responsibility weeks after awarding the contract in 2005. The changes required Supreme to “change fundamentally” its approach to working in isolated and dangerous Afghanistan, Schuster said.
“Although the military agency’s original solicitation said that only ’remnants’ of the Taliban were still active, Supreme had to build this network in an active war zone,” he said. More than 300 subcontractors for Supreme have been killed while delivering food to troops in Afghanistan, he said.
Chaffetz, Tierney
U.S. Representatives Jason Chaffetz and John Tierney, the Republican chairman and the top Democratic, respectively, of the House Subcommittee on National Security, sent a letter to Schuster last May, requesting documents related to the contract. The committee is now reviewing them.
“It is outrageous that the American taxpayer has been on the hook for over $750 million in overpayments to Supreme,” Tierney said in an e-mailed statement. “While I am encouraged that DLA has been successful in recouping a portion of these funds, I am deeply concerned about the federal government’s ability to collect once the contract ends.”
Pentagon Inspector General Gordon Heddell said at a Dec. 7, 2011, hearing that the original Supreme contract was “an example of just how bad it can get.”
The contract wasn’t well designed or “well-thought out,” Heddell said.
Supreme earlier this month sued the Pentagon in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for awarding a $10 billion food contract to Anham FZCO.
Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, said “Supreme Foodservice gouged the taxpayer big- time.”
“The government offered to pay Supreme all its costs and overhead, plus a generous profit,” Tiefer said in an e-mail. “Instead of taking the government’s sensible offer, Supreme overcharged massively on the blatantly fictitious notion that it deserved a made-up and highly inflated ‘market’ rate.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Danielle Ivory in Washington at [email protected]; Tony Capaccio in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at [email protected]
In modern times they have grown more Sophisticated and Complex, in modern times the mission statements of what is still called derogatorily Mercenaries very widely and show no signs of decline. Private Military Contractors is a broad term, it can be used to cover entities that supply and provide food, maintain Logistics, Repair and upkeep for equipment, provide security for convoys/ Individuals/ facilities, gather and Analyze intelligence.
Often smaller then a standing army but cheaper to contact to then a standing army PMC forces In Iraq and Afghanistan have come to the fore front. In the gulf war the ratio of PMC's to soldiers was 1 for every 100 in Iraq in 2004 it was more like 10 for every 1.
the Outsourcing of combatants is not limited to the US either the BRitish have a long tradition of it. South Africa, Peru, the Dominican republic, Australia, Dubai and China all operate PMC's of varying different types. Not just ground forces either Naval and Air specialized Groups also operate world wide.