| IRAQ WAR - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
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British mercenary firm with Pentagon contracts exposed in civilian shooting incident in Iraq. |
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by Wayne Madsen The Wayne Madsen Report Entered into the database on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 @ 17:03:55 MST |
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A souvenir video
has surfaced on the Internet showing private security contractors working for
Aegis Defense Services "Victory" Group firing indiscriminately at
Iraqi civilian motorists in Baghdad. The video was reportedly taken by an Aegis
employee and posted on a web site
run by an ex-Aegis employee. The video has since been removed from the site.
The video contains four clips showing Aegis mercenaries firing at civilian automobiles.
The video's soundtrack includes Elvis Presley's "Train I Ride." Aegis
is run by former British Scots Guard officer Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, an international
mercenary who has been involved in UN sanctions busting in Sierra Leone and
Bougainville invasion planning in Papua New Guinea. Spicer's firm, Aegis, was
awarded a $293 million security contract in Iraq. Spicer's men also stand accused
of shooting teenager Peter McBride in the back in Belfast in 1992. That has
prompted a number of members of the Irish Caucus in the Congress to demand the
Pentagon withdraw its contract to Aegis. The Pentagon has rejected such action. Aegis maintains its head office in London's Picadilly. It is also reported to
have an office on K Street in Washington, DC. The Pentagon has had a longstanding relationship with Spicer. The Pentagon's
love affair with mercenary firms began in the 1990s when they were viewed with
favor for their military activities, including sanctions busting, in Africa.
Under the Clinton administration, mercenary firms blossomed. Under George W.
Bush, they have flourished. On June 24, 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency
sponsored a seminar titled "The Privatization of National Security Functions
in Sub-Saharan Africa." This conference ushered in the present cooperation
between mercenaries, oil companies, diamond and other mineral companies, U.S.
intelligence agencies, the military, and non-government organizations (NGOs),
including the always suspect Human Rights Watch, an NGO that often obscures
and obfuscates important facts, as it did with the causality of the Rwandan
genocide and as it is currently doing with regard to offering an incomplete
list of CIA prisoner aircraft in Europe. WMR has obtained the attendee list [Page
One Page Two]
for the 1997 Pentagon mercenary seminar. Spicer attended along with two colleagues
from Sandline International (for which Spicer served as CEO), a mercenary firm
that had already been implicated in illegal Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea
operations. Mercenary firms, which in neo-con "Newspeak" are referred to as "Private
Military Contractors," "Private Security Contractors (PSCs), and Personal
Security Details/Detachments (PSDs), are viewed by informed observers as the
future military forces that will continue to protect US business interests in
Iraq after the planned withdrawal of a large number of U.S. troops next year.
These companies are not governed by any military regulations or international
legal constraints. According to informed sources within the security contractor
community, three U.S. firms, Phoenix, Anteon, and Sytex, should be looked at
closely by U.S. authorities for their interrogation operations in Iraq. Sytex
is currently advertising for interrogators for the US Central Command's Area
of Responsibility (AOR), which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Military interrogators
who were charged with sexually humiliating prisoners at Guantanamo and Iraq
are now working for firms like Anteon and Phoenix Consulting Group. |
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