Military Contracting: Our New Era of Corporate Mercenaries

Thursday, January 24, 2013 by The Guardian/UK
A niche business has become a huge industry – but murky as ever: privatizing conflict means bypassing democratic oversight
by Arjun Sethi


In early 1995, Sierra Leone was on the brink of collapse. A violent civil war had ravaged the country, leaving thousands dead and countless others wounded. The insurgent rebels, infamous for recruiting child soldiers, were just weeks from the beleaguered capital, Freetown, and appeared unassailable.

Several months later, however, the tide had turned: the government's authority was strengthened, rebel forces were repelled, and control over the country's major economic assets was restored. Executive Outcomes, a private military contractor armed with helicopters and state of the art artillery, helped change the course of the war.

Nearly every tool necessary to wage war can now be purchased: combat support, including the ability to conduct large-scale operations and surgical strikes; operational support, like training and intelligence gathering; and general support, like transportation services and paramedical assistance. The demand for these services, in turn, has ballooned: the gross revenue for the private military contractor industry is now in excess of $100bn a year.

The privatization of conflict is no longer a trend. It's the norm.

The United States relied so heavily on contractors during the recent Iraq war that no one knows with certainty how many were on the ground. In late 2010, the United Arab Emirates, fearful that the Arab uprisings might spread to the Gulf, paid Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, $529m to create an elite force to safeguard the emirate. And today, Russia is openly considering forming a cadre of private military contractors to further its interests abroad.

Yet, the laws that govern this industry tell a different story. Instead of a transnational system with meaningful collaboration, we have a patchwork of state laws that allow companies to forum-shop and circumvent regulations. Contractors can likewise relocate, as they typically rent the equipment necessary to complete their contracts; their primary source of capital is human, not physical.

In addition to closing loopholes, states must monitor contractors, and prosecute them when they commit crimes. To this day, not a single contractor has been successfully prosecuted for its role in the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities or the Nisour Square massacre, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Contractors claim that their services are market- and self-regulated. They contend that wanton violence would stop governments from seeking their assistance. Yet, the theatre of war often obscures their activities.

In its final report to the US Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting found that the US government lost more than $30bn to contractor waste and fraud in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also, corporations can rename and rebrand, thereby mitigating reputational harm. Consider Blackwater USA, which changed its name to Xe Services LLC, and then to Academi – all in the last four years.

The UN working group on the use of mercenaries has suggested that certain military functions, like combat services and interrogation, not be outsourced to private contractors. Its guidelines should be followed. Outsourcing foreign policy goals undermines democratic oversight because contractor activities, including casualties, typically escape public scrutiny. It can also allow states to evade legislative oversight.(It also does more to further the agenda of the corporate ownership of the contractor than the political/military entity by who hired them--As long as war is considered profitable and a money-making, corporate kingmaking enterprise, there will never be peace in our world again. This should go a long way at dramatically illustrating that the idea of "privatizing war" is one of the most evil concepts ever given by mankind.--jef)
The greatest check against war is the horror of war itself. Yet, as the physical distance between warring states grows, so does the temptation to loosen our moral compass. Violence that lacks immediacy is easier to ignore. Permitting third parties to wage war for profit risks a world in which war is not the last resort but an economic transaction in which the victims are faceless and nameless.

And so, we return to Sierra Leone. Although the intervention by Executive Outcomes is sometimes touted as illustrating the viability of military contractors, history suggests otherwise. The contractor was later accused of interfering in domestic politics to pursue financial gain, and an associated firm received payment through diamond mine concessions, which compromised the country's economic future.

Moreover, violence resumed after Executive Outcomes left Sierra Leone. It became clear that the government had over-relied on the contractor and undercut its own institutions.

The fog of war is hazy enough. We don't need additional, unregulated cloud cover.

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 And how about a song that hammers the point home?

Wall Street Banks Secretly Build The World’s Largest Private Army

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Admin
Alexander Higgins
 
Wall Street banks have secretly taken over US firearms and ammunition manufacturers and the world’s largest mercenary firms in a stealth build up private military force.

A Daily KOs article reveals that Wall Street banks have used private equity firms to acquire and launch a massive stealth takeover of private security firms, US ammo and gun manufacturers, uniforms, silencers and an army of mercenaries to build what amounts to the world’s largest private army.


At the same time the private mercenary companies they now control, which include the likes of  Dynacorp and the notorious name changing Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi,  have been authorized under Department of Defense DIRECTIVE NUMBER 3025.18 to actually conduct policing operations inside the United States.

The article reveals CitiBank, Bank of America, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank have provided huge amounts of funding to two private Wall Street equity firms, Cerebus and Veritas Equity, which in turn have used umbrella companies such as Freedom Corp., to engage in stealth takeovers and weapons stockpiling which has consumed the likes of  several gun manufacturers and ammunition manufacturers including Remington, Cobbs, H&R, Marlin, Dakota, and Bushmaker.

Furthermore, the same private equity firms have taken over companies involved in the “crowd control industry”.

One such example is CPI which manufacturers microwave and radio frequency crowd control pain inducers similar to the US Military’s heat gun which has been mentioned for deployment to control Occupy protestors.

All of this comes following news that the Department of Homeland Security has purchased 450 million rounds of ammunition banned by the Geneva Convention which is coupled with reports that feds are buying up all surplus ammo and even ordering stores to cease sales to civilians.

At the same time a DHS informant says that the DHS is preparing for a civil war and recently leaked army manuals reveal mass military detention centers are being prepared inside the US for a War On Terror ‘strategy shift‘.

How to Cut Corporate Power

Occupy Corporations
by BILL QUIGLEY

“Corporations are people, my friend.”

– Mitt Romney at Iowa State Fair

Corporations are obviously not people. But Romney is accurate in the sense that corporations have hijacked most of the rights of people while evading the responsibilities. An important part of the social justice agenda is democratizing corporations. This means we must radically change the laws so people can be in charge of corporations. We must strip them of corporate personhood and cut them down to size so democracy can work. People are taking action so democracy can regulate the size, scope and actions of corporations.

One of the most basic roles of society is to protect the people from harm. The massive size of many international corporations makes democratic control over them nearly impossible.

Corporate crime is widespread. The New York Times, ProPublica and others have revealed Wall Street giants like JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have been charged with fraud many times only to get off by paying hundreds of millions in fines. Professors at University of Virginia have documented hundreds of corporations which have been found guilty or pled guilty in federal courts.

Corporate abuse is even more widespread. For example, Corporate Accountability International named six to its Corporate Hall of Shame, including: Koch Industries for spending over $50 million to fund climate change denial; Monsanto the devil for mass producing cancer causing chemicals; Chevron for dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon; Exxon Mobil for being the worst polluter; Blackwater (now Xe) for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians and hiring paramilitaries; and Halliburton, the nation’s leading war profiteer.

Making corporations responsible to democracy of the people is challenging considering Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest corporation, does more business itself annually than all but two dozen of the two hundred plus countries in the world. Without dramatic changes, how can we expect people in small or even big countries to force corporations like Wal-Mart, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP, Toyota or Chevron to live by the same rules all the people have to?

Justice demands we make sure corporations do not harm people. Democracy must require that they operate for the common good.

In order to cut corporations down to size, the people must strip corporations of the special artificial legal protections they have created for themselves.

The story of how corporations took the full rights of legal persons in one of the great perverse tragedies in legal history. Corporations have worked the courts mercilessly since 1819 to take a wide variety of constitutional rights that were designed to cover only people. For example, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868 to make sure all citizens, particularly freed slaves and people of color, had full rights. There was no mention of protecting corporations. But corporations jumped on this opportunity resulting in a questionable Supreme Court decision that granted them legal personhood. At roughly the same time, the Supreme Court approved “separate but equal” racial segregation. Thus in thirty years, African Americans lost their legal personhood, while corporations acquired theirs.

Corporations now claim: 1st amendment free speech rights to advertise and influence elections: 4th amendment search and seizure rights to resist subpoenas and challenges to their criminal actions; 5th amendment rights to due process; 14th amendment rights to due process where corporations took the rights of former slaves and used them for corporate protection; plus rights under the Commerce and Contracts clauses of the constitution.

The most recent corporate judicial takeover of constitutional rights is the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission. The court ruled that corporations are protected by the First Amendment so they can use their money to influence elections.

Because of the bad Supreme Court decisions, it takes a constitutional amendment by the people to change the laws back. An amendment requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress to agree then three-quarters of the states must vote to ratify. This will take real work. But despite the growing size and unrestricted power of corporations, people are fighting back.

Dozens of groups are working to reverse Citizens United and restore limits on corporate election advocacy. In January 2011, groups delivered petitions signed by over 750,000 people calling on Congress to amend the Constitution and reverse the decision. More than 350 local events were held in late January 2012 to challenge the Citizens United decision.

Groups challenging this injustice include Code Pink, Common Cause, Free Speech for People, Moveon.org, Move to Amend, National Lawyers Guild, POCLAD, Public Citizen, People for American Way, The Center for Media and Democracy, and Women’s League for Peace and Freedom.

Many groups are asking for a broad constitutional amendment that makes it clear that corporations are not people and should not be given any constitutional rights. Representatives Ted Deutsch of Florida, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have sponsored bills in Congress to start the process for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that corporations are not people, are not entitled to the rights of people, and cannot contribute to political campaigns.

There are also many energetic actions at the state level. People for the American Way list organizational efforts in nearly all 50 states to end corporate influence in elections or amend the constitution.

Massive corporations now rule the earth. But they are recent arrivals which can and should be dispatched. It is time for people to again take control. The legal fiction of corporate personhood and the constitutional rights taken by corporations must cease. Join the efforts to cut them down to size and restore the right of the people to govern.

Blackwater (renamed "ACADEMI ") mercenaries to return to Iraq

Source: Press Tv
December 13, 2011

With the US pulling out troops from Iraq this month, Washington plans to send Blackwater mercenaries to the Middle Eastern country under the new brand of ACADEMI.

New York-based USTC Holdings, the investment group that bought ex-Blackwater firm, Xe Services, in December 2010, announced on Monday ACADEMI as the new name for Blackwater/ Xe Services, AFP reported.

The development came as US President Barack Obama met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss the next phase of the relations between the two countries after withdrawal of US soldiers.

“We have had a year of extraordinary changes that have resulted in a new, better company," ACADEMI president and chief executive Ted Wright said in a statement.

In an interview published on Monday, Wright said he would like to take ACADEMI's business back to Iraq and went on to say that the firm had hired an external company to help it apply for an operating license in the country.

"I think eventually, we're going to get a license; we're going to do business in Iraq," he said.

Blackwater adopted the name Xe Services after Iraqi authorities announced in 2009 that they would not renew the security firm's contract because of a deadly incident in 2007 in which guards protecting a US diplomatic convoy opened fire in a busy district in the capital Baghdad killing 17 civilians.

Iraqi officials could not sue the Blackwater mercenaries as they had immunity from local prosecution and were not subjected to any Iraqi laws.

The US State Department had reportedly announced in August 2010 that the Pentagon would replace American troops in Iraq with private mercenaries, who call themselves private security firms or security contractors, on grounds of ensuring the security in the war-torn country.

The deployment of ACADEMI mercenaries is likely to cause outrage in Iraq where its predecessor Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries could kill civilians with impunity during their time in Iraq.

Iraqis will also take it as America's unwillingness to end the occupation of their country where since 2003 the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation caused one million deaths, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

Blackwater Mercenary Security For Verizon

by Unions.org

Wait. What? Blackwater? That private, for-profit, trigger-happy army that killed 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007? Yeah. THAT BLACKWATER.

I have just confirmed with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1104 that Blackwater is indeed being contracted by Verizon for security purposes. At this moment, CWA Local 1104 was not able to say how many security contractors have been hired or where they will be working. I’m sure more information will follow.

Blackwater, now called Xe, is considered to be the world’s largest and most powerful mercenary army. In 2004, they had 2,300 men actively deployed around the world and another 20,000 contractors ready to go. They claim that they have trained tens of thousands of security personnel since 1998.

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill reported that, “I saw Blackwater mercenaries speeding up and down the streets in unmarked cars, heavily armed with M4 machine guns, flak jackets, other weapons strapped to their legs.”

The New York Times reports:

The company and its executives and personnel have faced civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations surrounding accusations of murder and bribery. In April 2010, federal prosecutors announced weapons charges against five former senior Blackwater executives, including its former president, Erik D. Prince.

Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against company personnel, some of the cases have fallen apart, burdened by legal obstacles including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene.

But in April 25, 2011, a federal appeals court reopened the criminal case against four former American military contractors accused of manslaughter in connection with the Nisour Square shooting in 2007.

At the onset of the strike, Verizon employed the services of the NJ State Police to escort trucks and non-union workers through picket lines. Now, Verizon’s hiring of a for-profit army during the strike proves two things. First that this is indeed a war on the middle class, and second, that Verizon will bear any expense to win this war.

Can you imagine a country where the billion dollar corporations have the world’s largest and deadliest private, for-profit army at their disposal? What would Blackwater guards actually do on a picket line? I guess we will find out soon enough.

I already wrote about how the un-trained, non-union replacement workers are violating Verizon safety rules and costing the company thousands by making mistakes on the job, most notably by destroying a Verizon bucket truck. In addition to that, Verizon spent $20,000 in postage to mail letters to striking union workers stating that they are terminating their health care on August 31. A union delegate for the IBEW also said that Verizon is offering contractors in Florida $75 an hour, plus hotel rooms, to come up north to work as non-union replacements, but they refuse to keep the terms of the previous union contract.

Verizon said that the concessions they are seeking on the striking union workers from the IBEW and CWA will save their company $1 billion a year. So far, Verizon has refused to budge on these demands. I wonder how much longer Verizon can refuse to sit down at the bargaining table before their union busting activities exceeds that $1 billion mark. For a company sitting on $100 billion in revenue with net profits of $6 billion last year, $1 billion seems like chump change.

U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

By Spencer Ackerman - WIRED
July 22, 2011  

By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside the State Dept. knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

And for months, the State Department’s management chief, former Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, has given Bowen a clear response: That’s not your jurisdiction. You just deal with reconstruction, not security. Never mind that Bowen has audited over $1.2 billion worth of security contracts over seven years.

“Apparently, Ambassador Kennedy doesn’t want us doing the oversight that we believe is necessary and properly within our jurisdiction,” Bowen says. “That hard truth is holding up work on important programs and contracts at a critical moment in the Iraq transition.”

This isn’t an idle concern or a typical bureaucratic tussle. The State Department has hired private security for its diplomats in war zones for the better part of a decade. Poor control of them caused one of the biggest debacles of the Iraq war: the September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square, where Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Now roughly double those guards from the forces on duty now, and you’ll understand the scope of what State is planning once the U.S. military withdraws from Iraq at the end of this year.


“They have no experience running a private army,” says Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War who just returned from a weeks-long trip to Iraq. “I don’t think the State Department even has a good sense of what it’s taking on. The U.S. military is concerned about it as well.”

So far, the Department has awarded three security contracts for Iraq worth nearly $2.9 billion over five years. Bowen can’t even say for sure how much the department actually intends to spend on mercs in total. State won’t let it see those totals.

About as much information as the department has disclosed about its incipient private army comes from a little-noticed Senate hearing in February. There, the top U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq said that they’d station the hired guard force at Basra, Irbil, Mosul and Kirkuk, with the majority — over 3,000 — protecting the mega-embassy in Baghdad. They’ll ferry diplomats around in armored convoys and a State-run helicopter fleet, the first in the department’s history.

But there are signs of even deeper confusion as State prepares to take the lead in Iraq. An internal State Department audit from June faulted top officials for “a lack of senior level participation” (.pdf) in an “unprecedented” transition to civilian control. The result is that “several key decisions remain unresolved, some plans cannot be finalized, and progress in a number of areas is slipping,” the audit concluded. It raises the prospect that the U.S. military will leave Iraq the same way it entered it — without any planning worthy of the name.

Bowen has minimal visibility into State’s planning process. His teams of auditors are in Iraq, reviewing reconstruction contracts for waste, fraud and abuse, as they have since the early days of the war. They just can’t see anything about the guard force. As far as Bowen is concerned, even though there’s been a nearly 90 percent drop in violence since the surge, State’s hired army still acts like Iraq is a killing field, with death squads and insurgents around every corner.

“Have the standards for convoy travel changed at all from the worst moments of Iraq civil war? The answer’s no,” Bowen says. Diplomats are allowed an hour for meetings outside secured U.S. fortresses. Then it’s time to hit the road, in armored cars full of men armed to the teeth and wearing black sunglasses.

The State Department says it’s learned its lessons from Nisour Square and now places stricter rules on contractors, like putting cameras in contractor vehicles and revising “mission firearms policies,” as Kennedy told a congressional panel last month. (.pdf) It’s an issue Kennedy’s well-versed in handling: He ran the department’s internal investigation into Nisour Square in 2007. Now, according to Bowen, he’s shielding State’s plans from scrutiny.

State wouldn’t comment for this story, saying it would be “inappropriate” to discuss an internal matter concerning Bowen. A department official who wouldn’t speak on the record merely said that it provides him with “extensive materials in response to their audit requests for documents and information falling within its statutory responsibilities.”

But Congress is showing signs of restiveness over State’s stonewalling. A bill that the House Foreign Affairs Committee crafted this week includes a provision specifically instructing State to let Bowen’s office to do its job: “SIGIR should audit military, security, and economic assistance to Iraq during the term of SIGIR’s existence,” the language reads, inserted at the behest of the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

But it’ll take months for that bill to pass. Until then, Bowen is shut out of State’s ad hoc foray into generalship. “From my conversations with State Department people,” Mardini says, “they really don’t have a sense of how difficult this is going to be.” And it doesn’t look like they want to know.

The Radical Privatization of Warfare

Sunday, July 17, 2011 by Cultures of Resistance
Coalition of the Billing

When the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq, it assumed that the war would be short and decisive. Yet by early 2010 the war had already cost over $700 billion, much of which went to corporations that profit from the conflict. Jeremy Scahill, best-selling author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, has been a leading voice in opposing the war and in denouncing the radical privatization of the military. According to Scahill, at the time of this interview there were 630 companies on the U.S. government’s payroll in Iraq. More shocking are the 170 mercenary corporations operating in Iraq. Despite repeatedly committing criminal violations, these companies have been immune from prosecution and have repeatedly been rewarded no-bid contracts. Cultures of Resistance sat down for an exclusive interview with Scahill, in which he discusses the most recent stage of the corporate military-industrial complex's evolution.


Coalition of the Billing: An Interview with Jeremy Scahill from Cultures of Resistance on Vimeo.

Xe Services (Blackwater)’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft

By Spencer Ackerman WIRED
May 4, 2011

The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private-security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former U.S. attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.

Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement. The subcommittee is designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.”

In other words, no more shooting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, no more signing for weapons its guards aren’t authorized to carry in war zones, no more impersonations of cartoon characters to acquire said weaponry, and no more ‘roids and coke on the job.

Ashcroft’s arrival at Xe is yet another clear signal it’s not giving up the quest for lucrative government security contracts now that it’s no longer owned by founder Erik Prince, even as it emphasizes the side of its business that trains law enforcement officers. In September, it won part of a $10 billion State Department contract to protect diplomats, starting with the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

Ashcroft, a U.S. senator before becoming attorney general in the Bush administration, is a very known quantity to the federal officials that Xe will pitch. Even if he’s not lobbying for Blackwater, Ashcroft’s addition on the board is meant to inspire confidence in government officials of its newfound rectitude.


To some, Ashcroft will be forever known as the face of Bush-era counterterrorism: the official who vigorously defended the Patriot Act’s sweeping surveillance powers; told civil libertarians that their dissents “only aid terrorists,” and covered up the Spirit of Justice’s boob. At the same time, when Ashcroft was critically ill in 2005, he resisted a White House mission to his hospital bed entreating him to reauthorize warrantless surveillance in defiance of the acting attorney general.

“This is a company with a strong history of service to its country, and a reputation of best-in-class offerings to its public and private customers,” Ashcroft said in a statement. “I look forward to helping USTC enhance its governance and oversight capabilities as the company moves forward,” referring to U.S. Training Center, another of Blackwater’s many names. Like scores of other senior security officials, Ashcroft has spent his post-government career running a Washington consulting firm.

Xe is still sorting out its leadership and searching for a permanent CEO. For now, the investor team that bought the company in December assembled and empowered a board of directors to run the shop along with the existing management. That board includes former National Security Agency director Bobby Ray Inman. Its chairman is Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs.

Ashcroft and his new subcommittee will report to the board. “With the formation of this subcommittee, and with Ashcroft as its chair,” the firm says in the statement, “USTC aims to set the bar for industry standards against which all other companies will be measured.”

Pentagon hires contractors to regulate contractors

(Every so often, a story comes along which epitomizes the term "ridiculous." This...is one of those stories.--jef)

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Pentagon hires contractors to regulate contractors
PressTV - Fri Mar 18, 2011

Instead of keeping watch itself, the Department of Defense today relies on contractors to monitor the work of other contractors, a risk strategy that became cemented during the Iraq War thanks to a politically-connected-and powerful-company with ties to the Bush White House.

In late 2004, the U.S. Army command overseeing logistical support for troops in Iraq had a serious problem on its hands. Army officials had hired KBR, then a subsidiary of Halliburton, which Vice President Dick Cheney had helped lead, to supply soldiers with food and other supplies. But at least $1 billion in billing by KBR was questioned by the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency, resulting in the Army deciding to withhold 15% of its payments to KBR.

Company officials fought the withholding and pressured both the Defense Department and Congress to release the money it claimed it was owed. So the Army removed those who had raised alarms over the billing and hired another company, consulting firm RCI, to conduct its own audit of KBR costs.

RCI didn't find any problem with KBR's billing and the contractor got most of its money.

"This was a form of buying the audit that you want and the Army, who was relying on KBR for the major troop support in Iraq, gave this contractor a green light for business as usual ... running up as much costs as possible with the war as an excuse," wrote Charles M. Smith and Robert H. Bauman, two former Pentagon oversight and investigative personnel, for Truthout in recalling the KBR controversy. AllGov

• Last August, the Congressional Research Service reported that the Department of Defense workforce has 19% more contractors (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000) in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the wars in these two countries the most outsourced and privatized in U.S. history. World Press

• In the 1st quarter FY 2011, the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) reported approximately 176,161 contractor personnel working for the Department of Defense. World Press

• The heavy reliance on contractors in Afghanistan signals that a situation which defense planners once considered temporary has become a standard fixture of U.S. military operations. WSJ

• According to a U.S. Senate report in October 2010, heavy U.S. reliance on private security in Afghanistan has helped to line the pockets of the Taliban.

Disney, Monsanto (the devil) among Blackwater’s hidden clients

By John Byrne - Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Also on list: Royal Caribbean, Deutsche Bank, Chevron

Almost three years ago exactly -- Sept. 17, 2007 -- a cadre of guards from the security firm then known as Blackwater shot and killed 17 Iraqis at a public plaza in Baghdad.

The company, long in the public eye, has been known for brutal tactics and as a mercenary for the US State Department in countries where the US has boots on the ground. What hasn't been known, however, is that the same company was handling intelligence ops for publicly-traded US companies.

Atop the list is Monsanto (thew devil), the biotech giant, who The Nation's Jeremy Scahill revealed Wednesday accepted a proposal through a Blackwater subsidiary which "offer[ed] to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm."

Monsanto (the devil) doesn't stand alone. Through a network of 30 subsidiaries and shell corporations, Blackwater-linked entities provided "intelligence, training and security services" to a cache of major multinational firms, including: Monsanto (the devil), Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents Scahill obtained.

Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince -- who has himself been linked to the CIA -- helped train companies through two other firms he controlled: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center.

Not surprisingly, no one responded to requests for comment.

Monsanto (the devil) topped the list of firms using Prince's services, Scahill writes.

"According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto (the devil) —the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09," the reporter writes. "The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with... Monsanto (the devil) security manager for global issues."

"After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives.... saying that Wilson "understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto (the devil) [brand] name.... Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for." Black added that Total Intelligence "would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto (the devil) ." Black also noted that Monsanto (the devil) was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater "could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally." Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto's (the devil) "generous protection budget" but would eventually become a line item in the company's annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto (the devil) paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

....In an... e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto (the devil) hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating "there was no such discussion." He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto (the devil) "with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites." Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was "a completely separate entity from Blackwater."

Walt Disney?

The Walt Disney Company hired Total Intelligence and TRC to do a "threat assessment" for potential film shoot locations in Morocco, with former CIA officials Black and Richer reaching out to their former Moroccan intel counterparts for information. The job provided a "good chance to impress Disney," one company executive wrote. How impressed Disney was is not clear; in 2009 the company paid Total Intelligence just $24,000.

How about Deutsche Bank?

Total Intelligence and TRC also provided intelligence assessments on China to Deutsche Bank. "The Chinese technical counterintelligence threat is one of the highest in the world," a TRC analyst wrote, adding, "Many four and five star hotel rooms and restaurants are live-monitored with both audio and video" by Chinese intelligence. He also said that computers, PDAs and other electronic devices left unattended in hotel rooms could be cloned. Cellphones using the Chinese networks, the analyst wrote, could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices. He concluded that Deutsche Bank reps should "bring no electronic equipment into China." Warning of the use of female Chinese agents, the analyst wrote, "If you don't have women coming onto you all the time at home, then you should be suspicious if they start coming onto you when you arrive in China." For these and other services, the bank paid Total Intelligence $70,000 in 2009.

Prince, now the owner of Blackwater successor Xe Services, now has his eyes on another target: the Democrats.

He's now writing a book alleging that officials in the Clinton and Obama administrations "approved of his most sensitive and controversial operations," according to a report by veteran intel reporter Jeff Stein published in The Washington Post earlier this month.

The Post's Jeff Stein cited two unnamed sources who say Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, is hurrying to sell his company before he can go public with a book that takes aim at the Democratic Party. One of the sources told Stein that Prince and his friends "think this will destroy the Democratic Party in the elections."

The source, who is described as having a "business relationship with Xe," said Prince had "given his people three weeks to complete the sale of the company and the book will be released then," in time for the November elections.

To read about the firm's work for Barclay's, and the companies network of "black op" subsidiaries, click here to read Scahill's full report.

Kucinich criticizes ‘privatization of war’ after Obama’s speech

By Eric W. Dolan | Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

A leading congressional opponent of the Iraq war welcomed the formal end of US combat operations on Tuesday but warned of the increased reliance on private mercenaries.

"The President is rightly celebrating that less American troops are in harm's way," Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said Tuesday night. "I join the President in that celebration."

"We need to dispense with the fiction, though, that this announcement in any way diminishes our financial or resource commitment to Iraq," he continued.

"Fifty thousand 'non-combat' troops will remain, and that number does not include the State Department's plan to double the amount of mercenaries through next year--whose only loyalty is to the highest bidder--and fortify numerous 'enduring presence posts' throughout the country. This fortification will include the recent State Department request for Black Hawk helicopters, mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, and advanced surveillance systems.

Such a substantial reliance on mercenaries amounts to a privatization of war."

The State Department is planning to rely on 6,000 to 7,000 private security guards, according to The New York Times.

These private security contractors are expected to "operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress."

Private security firms such as Xe, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, have received harsh condemnations from Iraqi officials for killing civilians.

Two Blackwater employees have been indicted for the unprovoked murder of two Afghan civilians in 2009 and will appear before a grand jury for trial on September 14.

A similar incident occurred in 2007, when Blackwater security workers shot and killed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

The five guards were charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others during an unprovoked attack at a busy traffic circle using gunfire and grenades.

The men had faced up to 10 years in jail on each of 14 manslaughter counts, but a judge dismissed the case.

US officials have had reason to complain, too. In August, the security firm agreed to pay 42 million dollars in fines to settle 288 alleged violations "involving the unauthorized export of defense articles and provision of defense services to foreign end-users" in a number of countries between 2003 and 2009.

Kucinich warns that regardless of the official end of combat operations in Iraq, the United States will continue to spend billions of dollars "with absolutely nothing to show for it."

"We must admit that our mere presence there undermines any hope for a peaceful and stable Iraq. We need to remove all American forces - military and otherwise - and commit to working diplomatically for a viable government."

Blackwater guards indicted for murder

By Eric W. Dolan  |  Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

A federal grand jury has added an additional indictment to a former Blackwater employee involved in the murders of two Afghan civilians in May of 2009, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

Two Blackwater guards have been charged with second-degree murder for the fatal shootings.

The Virginian-Pilot reports,

[Christopher] Drotleff, of Virginia Beach, and [Justin] Cannon, of Corpus Christi, Texas, were working for a subsidiary of Blackwater, also known as Xe, to train the Afghan police force in Kabul. The indictment alleges they were drinking that day when they became involved in a traffic accident and began firing their weapons at another car.

Drotleff and Cannon say they fired in self-defense, in fear for their lives, at a car that was speeding toward them. The government counters that the victims were all shot from behind.

The new indictment replaces a firearm charge against Cannon with use of a machine gun during the killings. The new charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on conviction.

The two former Blackwater security workers were also charged with aiding and abetting each other in the murders of Rahib Mirza Mohammad and Romal Mohammad Naiem. A third civilian, Fareed Haji Ahamd, was wounded in the shooting.

Drotleff and Cannon will appear before the grand jury for trial on September 14.

A similar incident occurred in 2007, when five Blackwater security workers shot and killed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

The five guards, who had been part of a convoy of armored vehicles, had been charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others during an unprovoked attack at a busy Baghdad traffic circle using gunfire and grenades.

The men had faced firearms charges, and up to 10 years in jail on each of 14 manslaughter counts, but a judge dismissed the case.

In 2009 Blackwater Worldwide officially changed its name to Xe, in the midst of widespread negative publicity. Then they changed their name to Prevanent.

Blackwater: Can't Stop, Won't Stop

by Fouad Pervez  |  Friday, August 6, 2010 by Foreign Policy in Focus

Blackwater (rebranded as Xe and then Paravant in an effort to escape the negative publicity associated with their former name), recently received a $100 million contract from the CIA to secure its bases in Afghanistan. The State Department also awarded them $120 million to provide security for new diplomatic buildings, including consulates outside Kabul, giving the firm a total of $220 million in new contracts in Afghanistan. This seems remarkable, given the extremely negative image Blackwater has throughout the world. That people even know about a private security company is a bad sign in itself. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Leon Panetta had to go on the offensive to defend the contracts.

The contracts are certainly problematic. But the real issue is not Blackwater itself, but U.S. military grand strategy.

From a financial aspect, it is not surprising that Blackwater got the contracts. For the CIA contract alone, Blackwater bid a full $26 million below the next lowest bidder, quite significant considering the contract was for $100 million. This low bid was made possible largely by the many huge contracts Blackwater received in Iraq. With close ties to the Bush administration, Blackwater was the 12th largest contractor in Iraq, even though it was not tasked to build embassies and roads. They pulled in almost $500 million between 2004 and 2006. They are the State Department’s most frequently used security contractor and get 90 percent of its money from the government, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts. Thus, Blackwater built a comparative advantage over its rivals during the Bush years. This advantage, which the company still enjoys today, enables Blackwater to bid lower amounts since their profit margins are not as tight as other companies.

Garrisoning the Globe

However, the reason companies like Blackwater, even with their troubling histories, are in demand in the first place has to do with U.S. grand strategy. American foreign policy has become increasingly aggressive over the years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is not just increased aggression, but increased residency — we keep a presence in more places than before. For instance, there are more than 850 U.S. military bases overseas, a number that does not include bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other sensitive locations. An all-volunteer army exacerbates the problem, as there are fewer troops to handle a larger mission. Engaged in two major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and maintaining bases and troops in over 100 countries translates into serious military overstretch. American foreign policy from the 1940s on, especially toward Western Europe, has been consistently geared toward global hegemony. Instead of passing the buck to Western Europe at critical junctures when it would have been better and cheaper to do so, the United States undermined Western European efforts to gain military independence and autonomy during the Cold War because it was more concerned with global hegemony than the Soviet threat.

The United States seems unwilling to scale back its global military presence. The Obama administration’s National Security Strategy no longer explicitly opposes the rise of any real competitor. But the divergence with the Bush administration approach is somewhat cosmetic. Obama does call for a decrease in direct uses of power and acknowledges that America has no real rival, but does not rule out unilateral action and, more importantly, calls for a maintenance of the level of U.S. military superiority. More troops are necessary to keep up with the mission.

This is where private military contractors like Blackwater become important. These modern-day Hessians provide America a significant amount of needed foot soldiers. They come with other perks as well — they are often beyond the reach of military rules of law, allowing them greater discretion in inflicting disproportionate force to pacify areas. More significantly, increased Blackwater troops mean fewer official U.S. troops. Private military troops now outnumber U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The advantage of a private military to a political leader is the public cost. Military deaths play a significant role in American foreign policy. The rising troop deaths in Vietnam eventually turned the public against that war. However, if the soldiers are increasingly from private companies, public costs decline. Except for the occasional anomaly, such as the hanging of four Blackwater troops off a bridge in Fallujah, no news headlines announce the deaths of Blackwater soldiers.

But this increased U.S. military presence, so dependent on private contractors, has serious deleterious effects. The more troops, the more resistance. Tellingly, over 700 international relations scholars, who rarely agree on anything, opposed the Iraq War for this very reason: concern about negative ramifications of the U.S. military presence.

Blackwater Despite the Risks

Despite its horrific track record in Iraq, the connection between founder and former CEO Erik Prince and religious extremism, and the accusations that the company defrauded the federal government through phony billing, Blackwater might obtain a $1 billion contract from the U.S. government for work in Afghanistan next year. The comparative economic advantage Blackwater gained during the Bush administration explains why it's positioned to win more contracts. But the lack of change in the overall U.S. mission of global military primacy explains why private military contractors like Blackwater have the impact they have in the first place.

Congress has begun to express some reservations about the contracts. A federal commission established to study wartime contracting slammed State Department officials in a hearing over the $120 million contract they awarded to Blackwater. They were unable to get an answer from officials as to how Blackwater’s history in Iraq figured into the contract. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a strong Blackwater critic, strongly condemned the contract, wondering “why any branch of the government would decide to hire Blackwater, such a repeat offender. We’re talking about murder…a company with a horrible reputation that really jeopardizes our mission in so many different ways.” Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Representative Jim Moran (D-VA) have also been vocal about questioning Blackwater contracts.

However, the real test is whether these contracts are reversed and/or future contracts are given in a much more limited manner or with much greater scrutiny of private military companies. Except for the initial protests from several members of Congress, there has been no new congressional activity on the contracts — no hearings or investigations scheduled.

However, even if Congress does eventually act, it will have addressed only part of the problem. Without either a shift away from maintenance of America’s current global military superiority or from the current U.S. military presence in over 100 countries, there will be a serious problem of military overstretch. By either adopting a more defensive role as an offshore balancer, or significantly scaling back its global military presence, or both, the U.S. military could ameliorate its overstretch problem. Short of that, contractors like Blackwater provide political leaders a convenient “out” from the problem of a draft, which could generate a major public backlash. Because of their economic and political utility, private military contractors like Blackwater will continue getting contracts, regardless of their toxic baggage.

Blackwater's Nine Lives

In the Name of Security
By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI

The Gods have their own rules.

Ovid, Metamorphoses

One of the many nice things about being a United States Senator is that you can ask just about anyone in government to explain actions being taken and anticipate a response and, in many cases, a change in conduct. Here is one example of how a United States Senator was able to influence policy. It pertains to Blackwater.

On February 25, 2010 Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee sat down and wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to investigate whether Xe Services, (formerly known as Blackwater) had made false or misleading statements when it bid for an Army contract in Afghanistan. The reason for his letter was that he had just finished conducting a hearing reviewing the results of an investigation of Blackwater. In his opening statement at the hearing Senator Levin said that: “Blackwater operated in Afghanistan without sufficient oversight or supervision and with almost no consideration of the rules it was legally obligated to follow. The means by which Blackwater acquired weapons for its contractor personnel in Afghanistan showed just how little regard company personnel had for those rules.” Senator Levin did not limit his letter writing to writing the Attorney General. He also sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

In the letter to Secretary Gates he said the Pentagon should consider deficiencies in Blackwater’s past performance before awarding it additional contracts. He said: “[W] e received evidence that Blackwater may have: used a front company for the contract; made false official statements and misled Department of Defense officials in its proposal documents; misappropriated government weapons and carried weapons without authorization; and hired unqualified personnel with backgrounds that included assault and battery, larceny and misappropriation of property, insubordinate conduct, and drug and alcohol abuse; and violated CENTCOM’s movement control policies.” He concluded saying the Department of Defense “should review the transcript of this hearing and consider the deficiencies in Blackwater’s performance . . . before a decision is made to award the police training work to Blackwater.”

The investigations Senator Levin requested may be ongoing. So is the awarding of lucrative contracts to Blackwater. Jeff Stein who writes “Spy Talk”, reported on June 21, 2010 that the State Department gave Xe Services a $120 million contract for providing “protective security services” at new U.S. consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Two days later he reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had hired the company to guard CIA facilities in Afghanistan and other places. Xe was not the only contractor interested in obtaining the work. In connection with both of those contracts DynCorp and Triple Canopy had bid on the jobs but lost out to Blackwater.

Senator Levin’s reaction to these awards has not been reported. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s have. They are hardly surprising. She was outraged. Her outrage was prompted by her familiarity with Blackwater and its performance. In November 2009 she learned that the government had given Blackwater an indefinite extension of a contract to provide “Aviation Services” in Iraq and said: “Given the company’s history of massive abuses and misconduct, I believe it is inappropriate for the United States government to continue doing business with this firm.” Upon hearing of the newest contracts in Afghanistan she said, speaking to ABC news: “I’m just mystified why any branch of the government would decide to hire Blackwater, such a repeat offender. We’re talking about murder . . . . A company with a horrible reputation that really jeopardizes our mission in so many different, different ways.”

For all we know, the Justice Department may be conducting an investigation of Blackwater’s conduct in both Afghanistan and Iraq in response to the letter it received from Senator Levin. For all we know the CIA may be investigating Blackwater’s prior conduct even though it has just agreed to pay the company $125 million for its services. For all we know, the State Department may be conducting its own independent investigation in response to Senator Levin’s letter. Here is what we know for sure, however. The mystery to which Ms. Schakowsky was referring has been unraveled by CIA Director Leon Panetta.

In a June 27 interview on ABC News Mr. Panetta said that in a war zone “we continue to have needs for security. . . . Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security. The State Department relies on them, we rely on them to a certain extent. So we bid out some of those contracts. They . . . . outbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said . . . that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice to but accept that contract..”

That explains it all. Sort of.

Blackwater...er, Xe...er, Paravant is back and so are their criminal acts

vidlink

The fact that these douchebag idiots are still being contracted by the govt speaks volumes about their incompetent governance. Why do we use these idiot mercenaries when we have the largest, most capable military in the world? Holy shit!

And now they've changed their name again: Blackwater, then Xe, and now Paravant.

Obama Just Can't Quit Blackwater

June 28, 2010 by TalkingPointsMemo
by Justin Elliott

In fairness, Barack Obama never said he wanted to quit Blackwater. But it's still notable that the troubled firm made famous by helping to fight George W. Bush's wars has become a permanent part of the U.S. foreign policy tableau, with news of two big contracts issued to the firm by the Obama Administration in recent weeks.

CIA chief Leon Panetta, whose agency's $100 million contract with Blackwater for security in Afghanistan was recently revealed, explained on ABC Sunday (emphasis ours):

"[Blackwater] provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract."

(More in a bit on whether Blackwater, now known as Xe, has really shaped up its act.)

The CIA contract follows the news this month that the State Department awarded the company an 18-month, $120 million contract to protect consulates in Afghanistan. And even that's not all. In December, a Blackwater official told a contracting commission appointed by Congress that the company has training and security contracts as well as a "drug interdiction unit" working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan.

And in a must-read story published Sunday, McClatchy reported that the Obama Administration has opted not to pursue criminal charges against Blackwater for possible violations of sanctions in the company's long campaign to sell services to the government of Southern Sudan.

As noted above, Obama never took a particularly hard line on the government's increasing reliance on military contractors like Blackwater during the 2008 campaign. He promised only to "establish the legal status of contractor personnel, making possible prosecution of any abuses committed by private military contract." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for her part, blasted "private mercenary firms" and sponsored legislation to actually ban them from Iraq.

It's possible that the government has concluded internally that Blackwater has turned over a new leaf -- Panetta referred Sunday to a CIA panel that determined the company "shaped up their act."

But publicly, the allegations of criminal activity and malfeasance continue to flow apace. The best-known example was the killing of 17 civilians by Blackwater contractors in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007. Much more recently, two men working for Blackwater in Afghanistan were charged with murder in the killing two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May 2009. A civil lawsuit filed by two former Blackwater employees in February alleged the company put a Filipino prostitute on its taxpayer-funded tab in Afghanistan under the category of "Morale Welfare Recreation." Finally, this past April, several former top company officials were indicted on weapons and obstruction of justice charges.

We've put in a request with the CIA for more information on that panel Panetta mentioned, and we'll let you know if we hear back.

Late Update: CIA spokesman George Little writes:

"The contract was awarded after a team of CIA professionals, acting in strict accord with federal procurement guidelines, evaluated bidder proposals under criteria such as cost and the ability the meet the agency's requirements."

Blackwater is STILL Getting Govt Contracts worth Millions of Dollars

(This is completely insane!!! Blackwater should not even exist anymore, much less still be getting govt contracts for security in militarized zones. They are founded by war hawks, & manned by mercenaries--and ALL of them are guilty of murder.--jef)

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Blackwater Firm Gets $120M U.S. Gov't Contract
Published on 06-19-2010

CBS News has learned in an exclusive report that the State Department has awarded a part of what was formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide a contract worth more than $120 million for providing security services in Afghanistan.

Private security firm U.S. Training Center, a business unit of the Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater, now called Xe Services, was awarded the contract Friday, a State Department spokeswoman said Friday night.

Under the contract, U.S. Training Center will provide "protective security services" at the new U.S. consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, the spokeswoman said. The firm can begin work "immediately" and has to start within two months. The contract lasts a year but can be extended twice for three months at a time to last a maximum of 18 months.

Should the firm fulfill all 18 months available in the contract, it will be paid a total of $120,123,293, the spokeswoman said.

The awarding of the contract comes just more than four months after the government of Iraq ordered hundreds of Blackwater-linked security guards to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest.

The Justice Department is also trying to prosecute a case against five Blackwater guards who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street in 2007. Last December, a federal judge dismissed the U.S. government's case against the guards in the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in the shooting because prosecutors used sworn statements the guards gave under a promise of immunity. Federal prosecutors are continuing to appeal the dismissal.

The Justice Department's case or Blackwater's expulsion from Iraq didn't block U.S. Training Center from bidding on the multi-million dollar contract, the State Department spokeswoman said.

"Under federal acquisition regulations, the prosecution of the specific Blackwater individuals does not preclude the company or its successive companies and subsidiaries from bidding on contracts," the spokeswoman said. "On the basis of full and open competition, the department performed a full technical evaluation of all proposals and determined the U.S. Training Center has the best ability and qualifications to meet the contract requirements."

Two other companies submitted bids for the contract, the spokeswoman said; however, she could not name either of U.S. Training Center's competitors when reached Friday night.