Wherever Tim Spicer turns up, he carries the kind of
baggage that gives the private military business a bad
name. An internet video showing private contractors
shooting at civilian cars in Iraq, loosely linked to
his company, Aegis Defence Services, ignited a
firestorm about unregulated gun-wielding security
convoys, escorting reconstruction or government
advisors, roaming the country. [Scroll Down for Box]
This latest scandal comes at a time when the military
security industry is reaping huge profits from the
gun-carrying business in conflict zones around the
world once dominated by rogue soldiers of fortune. As
thousands of armed guards, working largely under U.S.
contracts, travel the roads of Iraq, the industry is
seeking respectability though a Washington trade group
-- the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA).
The group calls itself “the most ethical and
effective voice of the Peace and Stability
Industry,” pledged to ensure that “their
capabilities are not misused or abused.” Its members
include industry heavy hitters like ArmorGroup,
Blackwater, Hart, MPRI, the Olive Group and Triple
Canopy.
Shooting Gallery
The grainy
video (click to download) shows the view
of an Iraqi street from the back of a moving
vehicle. The long barrel of a gun, held by
someone inside the vehicle, swings across the
frame and viewers see the effect of bullets,
apparently fired from the vehicle, spraying
civilian cars coming up behind. Bloggers
claim that the man with the gun is Danny
Heydenreycher, a South African employee of
Aegis at Camp Victory.
In one of the four separate incidents,
after shots are fired, viewers see a Mercedes
car crash into a taxi; passengers flee from
the taxi, but no movement is seen in the
Mercedes, suggesting that the passengers were
injured or killed.
According to Robert Young Pelton, author of an
upcoming book, “Licensed to Kill: The
Privatization of the War on Terror,” the
people driving the vehicle are part of a
convoy of private military contractors. The
video was originally posted on an
unofficial Web site run by a disgruntled
contractor working for Aegis Defence Services.
(The website claims to be a voice for to
"the men on the ground who are the heart
and soul of the company.” The video has been
deleted from the site but has taken on a life
of its own in the blogosphere.)
Aegis holds several sweeping Pentagon
contracts in Iraq worth over $430 million. In
published news reports, Tim Spicer, the head
of Aegis, insists that an internal
investigation of the matter is ongoing and
notes that there is no evidence that the video
involved Aegis. Authorities in Baghdad are
also apparently looking into the video, which
has torched a firestorm of criticism as
bloggers ponder if the United States uses
private contractors who shoot unarmed Iraqis.
Pelton, who spent a month with armed convoys
running the road from the Green Zone
headquarters in Iraq of the U.S. military and
government to the Baghdad International
Airport, said he understands the public
concerns over the conduct of armed private
security companies working in Iraq. Private
security companies are known to regularly fire
guns in the streets as a warning to clear
traffic and to caution vehicles coming up from
behind.
“The US military considers all of Iraq a war
zone,” said Pelton. “Contractors are the
frequent target of car bombs, but there are
rules and professional standards. Two of the
four incidents are trigger happy contractors.
It’s a good bet that all of the victims of
the incidents will generate some type of
retribution against the security industry.
Even in a war zone, there is a clear line
between professional security providers and
amateurs. This video shows how not to conduct
vehicle security.”
Another source who is familiar with private
security operators in Iraq says that it is
nearly impossible to tell the difference
between a hostile vehicle carrying a bomb and
innocent Iraqi civilians driving toward you.
Under rules issued by the Pentagon, any
private security team member is expected to
wave off a possible threat, fire warning shots
and then shoot at the vehicle’s engine to
stop it. Team members are also allowed to
shoot to kill as the last resort in a
situation of pressing circumstances.
“Some team members are scared all the time
and shoot a lot, some are scared once and a
while and shoot once and a while, some are
never scared and never shoot,” the source
said. “You can never tell when you are about
to get blown up, that’s why some contractors
get blown up or they would have shot the
driver.”
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But at the same time as the industry is evolving --
becoming more corporate, more visible, and more
concerned with projecting a responsible image --
private military contractors are facing scandal like
the new video in circulation and unprecedented
scrutiny from the news media. Some executives
recognize that if the companies don’t regulate
themselves, someone else might. The public, and many
policymakers, sees contractors through an image shaped
by accusations of war crimes, rogue operations, and
photos of private contractors engaged in torture at
Abu Ghraib.
To some, Tim Spicer, a Falklands Islands war veteran
with weathered good looks, embodies the industry’s
old rogue image. During the past 10 years, the
53-year-old former Scots Guard lieutenant colonel
racked up a gun-for-hire resume littered with
questionable deals and testaments to poor judgment.
Highlights of his globe-trotting career include
sparking international scandals in Southeast Asia and
flaunting international bans on arms trafficking in
West Africa. A contract held by his now defunct
company, Sandline, precipitated the toppling of the
very government that hired it: Papua New Guinea. When
Sandline mounted a $10 million armed operation in
Sierra Leone, initially bankrolled behind-the-scenes
by a shady fugitive wanted for embezzlement, Spicer
was accused of legal and financial shenanigans.
And now, to the chagrin of many IPOA members, Spicer
wants to join the organization. His membership bid
comes just as the IPOA is trying to reposition the
industry as for-profit providers of armed men as peace
keepers.
In a vote several months ago, IPOA rejected Spicer’s
company Aegis Defence Services. A second bid to join
the only trade organization for security contractors
is causing a private little war inside the IPOA
sandbox.
“This is an issue about making a stand. The
organization shouldn’t back away even if blood is
spilled on the carpet,” said an executive in a major
security company who cited commercial reasons for
insisting on anonymity. “If the IPOA doesn’t get
it right, it will come back to haunt it.”
Spicer was “surprised” by IPOA’s initial
rejection “especially since we were invited to
apply,” he said in a recent telephone interview. He
flatly denies rumors that he threatened legal action
against the group.
Complicating matters is the fact that London-based
Aegis holds the Pentagon’s largest private security
contract in Iraq. Established in September 2002, by
Spicer, who owns 40 percent of the company and is its
chair and chief executive, the fledgling company made
headlines in June 2004 when it landed the $293-million
three year contract in Iraq despite having no
experience in the Middle East. The contract has since
been expanded for another year, making it now worth
$430 million.
Under the three-year agreement, Aegis wields
considerable power and influence over the safety and
effectiveness of the other security companies
including many IPOA members. Spicer’s company
provides daily analysis on counter-insurgency and
personal protection to government officials. It also
holds sweeping responsibility for electronically
coordinating employees of other security convoys
traveling around Iraq, working for companies with
reconstruction or government contracts. The scores of
contractors under Aegis’s control constitute a
workforce the size to a military division; and may
rank as the largest corporate military ever assembled.
Saving Africa
Doug Brooks, IPOA’s president, a passionate defender
of private military contractors, had no comment about
the internal spat over Spicer and declined to reveal
who re-invited Aegis or why its first application was
rejected. In the industry’s rough and tumble past, Brooks defended Spicer’s former company, Sandline, telling CorpWatch more than a year ago that the company had helped save thousands of lives in Sierra Leone.
"Sandline was remarkably effective,"
Brooks said. "Their goal of restoring the
democratically elected government was achieved. They
maintained a low profile but played a critical role in
the success."
The lanky 43-year-old head of IPOA is more circumspect
these days. “This is an internal matter,” Brooks
said. “But I do think we should try to be
inclusive.”
Brooks, a son of a professor of African studies with
an unfinished doctorate in international security,
says his long-time interest in Africa inspired him to
start IPOA in April 2001. At the South African
Institute of International Affairs, and during years
of teaching and traveling in Africa, he says he saw
impoverished nations with ill-equipped armies struggle
against violent insurrections as developed nations
stood by, unwilling commit their own forces.
The hands-off policy allowed butchers to storm
across the continent while United Nations peacekeepers
frequently fell short of the task, he said. For
example, in 2000, Sierra Leonan rebels routed 17,000
poorly-trained and equipped UN security troops, and
then rampaged through the countryside dismembering
unarmed citizens and creating hundreds of thousands of
refugees.
"We still don’t know how many died,"
Brooks said. "But I spoke to hundreds of Sierra
Leonans about the failure of the UN peacekeeping
force. They are all very vocal and pissed off.
It was the private companies such as Pacific
Architects & Engineers (PAE) and International
Charter Incorporated (ICI) of Oregon (now IPOA
members) that "stayed put," providing
airplanes and logistics support for the local military
and, according to Brooks, gained the trust of the
people.
Spicer defends his work in Sierra Leone and Papua New
Guinea as “defending democratically elected
government that were removed in violent coups.”
Robert Young Pelton, author of an upcoming book,
“Licensed to Kill: The Privatization of the War on
Terror,” offers a different take, noting that
Sandline's predecessor, Executive Outcomes, had
intervened in Sierra Leone in 1995 and saved lives.
"But the Sandline "Arms to Africa"
debacle in 1997 did little to save lives. It's a
common confusion that Spicer allows," he says.
"In PNG Spicer's involvement actually ended up
deposing a democratically elected government. Both
jobs resulted in resource concessions being granted to
Sandline owners or backers."
Whatever the industry’s past faults, Brooks
believes in its future. It was the willingness of
private military companies to do the work that
developed nations refuse, he said, that led him to
found IPOA and seek the support of policy makers.
"I think the industry is a huge resource that
should be tapped,” explained Brooks, who represents
the industry at defense contracting conferences and
meetings with the State Department. "There are
times when government won’t send their own troops,
but they are willing to write a check."
Business Booms in Iraq
Check writing is exactly what has been happening in
Iraq, where billions of dollars in new Pentagon
contracts have supercharged the growth of private
security companies and spawned multimillion-dollar
companies overnight. Private security accounts for at
least one quarter of the $24 billion earmarked for
rebuilding, according to a recent report by the U.S.
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).
Much of this money goes to the estimated 25,000 to
30,000 armed contractors who were swiftly sucked up
from a global pool of ex-military and law enforcement
personnel.
The sharp demand for personnel has led to varied (some
say lower) standards of training and military
experience in workers from dozens of countries
including the Britain, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador,
Fiji, Nepal, Peru, Serbia, South Africa, and the
United States.
Tim Spicer
Controversy follows Tim Spicer as surely as
contractors follow armies into war. His former
private military company, Sandline
International, which was involved in several
international scandals in the late 1990s,
continues to be a classic case study of what
can go wrong when private military companies
wage war.
The government of Papua, New Guinea hired
Sandline in 1997 to quell a nine-year
rebellion on the island of Bougainville and to
secure one of the world’s largest copper
mines. The plan backfired after local military
leaders learned of the deal and staged a coup.
(Spicer’s contract for $36 million dollars
-- more than the country’s annual budget --
included providing two Soviet-made attack
helicopters, several assault helicopters, six
rocket launchers and grenade launchers,
according to research by Brookings Institute
military expert Peter Singer.)
Riots broke out, Prime Minister Julian Chan
stepped down, and the government imploded.
Soldiers apprehended Spicer at gunpoint,
jailed him on a weapons charge, and then
booted him out of the country amidst a fog of
allegations that public officials had been
bribed.
Despite botching the operation, Sandline
demanded and collected an outstanding $18
million balance from new government in Papua
New Guinea.
Sandline next appeared in Sierra Leone in
1998 as part of an effort to restore the
government of ousted President Ahmad Tejan
Kabbah. Spicer was accused of violating a
United Nations and United Kingdom embargo on
arms smuggling – punishable by up to seven
years in prison. Prior to receiving the $10
million contract, Spicer is reported to have
accepted $70,000 businessman Rakesh Saxena to
bankroll a Sandline expedition to recapture
Saxena’s Siera Leonan diamond and bauxite
mining interests. At the time, the Indian-born
Thai national was awaiting extradition to
Thailand to face charges of embezzlement from
a bank in Thailand and traveling on the
passport of a dead Serb.
Sandline’s shipment of 30 tons of arms to
Sierra Leone ignited a news storm in Britain
after Spicer disclosed that British and U.S.
officials had secretly encouraged him. The
“Arms-to-Africa Affair,” as it came to be
known, rocked Tony Blair’s government,
triggered a high-profile British House of
Commons investigation, forced the resignation
of former British high commissioner in Sierra
Leone, Peter Penfold, and elicited
unsuccessful calls for Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook to step down.
“Our attempts to uncover the structure,
ownership, and business connections of
Sandline were met with extraordinarily evasive
answers by Mr Spicer,” states a government
report. “A follow-up memorandum from Mr.
Spicer was thin and opaque—and failed to
provide a number of promised answers.
Nevertheless, Mr. Spicer's business is not
unlawful, and he is a British citizen with a
record of service in the armed forces.”
In April 2004, around the time that Aegis
received its mammoth security contract in
Iraq, Sandline officially shut down. A notice
on its
website explained that the company was
going out of business because of waning
government support for peacekeeping missions.
“Without such support, the ability of
Sandline to make a positive difference in
countries where there is widespread brutality
and genocidal behavior is materially
diminished.”
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Both the Iraqi and U.S. governments have complained
about the training and behavior of private contractors
in Iraq. In an April performance review, SIGIR faulted
Aegis’s compliance in five areas of its contract,
including inadequate employee background checks and
slack verification of qualifications and training.
After sampling records of 20 of Aegis’s 125 Iraqi
employees, the review concluded that the company
conducted no police checks on 18 and failed to
interview six; there were no records at all for two of
the men.
"There is no assurance that Aegis is providing
the best possible safety and security for government
and reconstruction contractor personnel and
facilities," concluded the audit, which
recommended stricter enforcement of the contract.
The Iraqi Ministry of Interior has repeatedly
complained about reckless gunplay by the private
security convoys that barrel through densely populated
cities with weapons waving out the windows to clear
the streets.
Even U.S. military officials have chaffed that the
increasing reports of indiscriminate shootings and
other war crimes endangers their own troops. However,
under an order issued by the Coalition Provisional
Authority before the U.S. government officially
departed Iraq in June 2004, all private military
contractors are immune from prosecution in Iraq.
“They shoot people, and someone else has to deal
with the aftermath. It happens all over the place,”
Marine Brigadier General Karl R. Horst told The
Washington Post in a September 10th story.
“These guys run loose in this country and do stupid
stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't
come down on them hard when they escalate force.”
Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry
Division, which is responsible for security in and
around Baghdad, said that between May and July, he
tracked at least a dozen shootings of civilians by
contractors.
Some private contractors argue that the dangers of a
war zone necessitate shooting at, and possibly
killing, people who turn out to be civilians. Since
the violent resistance in Iraq makes little
distinction between them and enlisted personnel, they
say, contractors must act aggressively for their own
protection.
The military itself has given mixed signal to private
contractors in Iraq. In a major incident in May 2005, 19
security contractors working for Zapata Engineering
were detained for allegedly shooting recklessly in
the streets of Fallujah and nearly hitting U.S.
forces. Later Marines searched, roughed up members of
the convoy, and jailed them for three days without
charges.
The Zapata contractors were released, but complained
that the U.S. military had blacklisted and banished
from working in the security business in Iraq --
although none ever was charged with a crime.
Another U.S. Army investigation last spring was based
on an anonymous four-page letter detailing allegations
of wrongdoing by the contractor USIS, according to a
recent story in The Los Angeles Times.
The letter writer accused USIS of deliberately
reducing the number of trainers to increase its profit
margin and detailed two incidents in which USIS
contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in
the killing of Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah a
year ago. (Private security contractors are not
allowed to conduct offensive operations.)
The letter also claims that a USIS employee saw Iraqi
police trainees kill two innocent Iraqi civilians,
then covered it up. A USIS manager "did not want
it reported because he thought it would put his
contract at risk," according to the letter.
The head of the probe, Army Colonel Ted Westhusing,
reported the allegations to his superiors, but told
them that he believed USIS was complying with the
terms of its contract. U.S. officials investigated and
found "no contractual violations," and
“these allegations to be unfounded, according to The
Los Angeles Times. (Westhusing subsequently
committed suicide, distraught over his experiences in
Iraq)
Marriage Rules Without Divorce or Alimony
Brooks and his IPOA members know full well how such
incidents and grievances feed into the image of
private security workers as macho mercenaries unbound
by laws of war or decency and loyal only to cash. IPOA
has crafted a
code of conduct -- now in its 10th revision --
that Brooks believes establishes self-regulation among
IPOA members and "a deep sense of
responsibility."
The rules call for "effective legal
accountability," transparency, and dedication to
the “greatest benefit of humanity.” IPOA members
pledge to observe international human rights laws;
cooperate with investigations of contract violations;
and work only for legitimate, recognized governments,
international organizations, non-governmental
organizations, and lawful private companies. (Pelton
says the rules resemble the "vows of marriage and
without the divorce or alimony" noting that it is
a self-adminstered code with no enforcement.)
IPOA now boasts of 18 member companies. All are in the
business of war or post-conflict stabilization. Most
are active in Iraq, specialize in providing armed
security forces or training, and are staffed by former
military personnel. Others provide expertise a wide
variety of tasks traditionally handled by the
military: de-mining, building, transportation, and
equipment maintenance.
The conflicting views and the code’s legitimacy are
now being tested behind closed doors as IPOA considers
membership for Aegis. Given the track record of many
private military contractors around the world, it may
be that IPOA’s rejection of Spicer’s application
has more to do with old-fashioned competition than
with new-found principles. Indeed Spicer believes that
criticism of him and the rejection of his membership
bid "may be commercially and politically
motivated.”
Mark Whyte, an executive with the British security
company, Pilgrims, whose company protects business and
media clients in Iraq, tends to agree with that
conclusion.
“While I'm no personal fan of Spicer, this is little
more than professional jealousy in my view,” Whyte
said.
Pilgrims does not belong to IPOA and Whyte takes
issue with some of the organization’s more
politically-charged goals of nation building, but
adds: “If you look at the values espoused by IPOA, I
would say that Aegis is one of the few companies that
actually try to live up to them in Baghdad.”
Whether that assessment is accurate or not, Aegis is
certainly aiming to position itself as a respectable
member of a legitimate industry. In addition to its
bid to join IPOA, it has hired former U.S. and British
government figures including Robert McFarlane, former
national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan,
Lord Peter Anthony Inge, former British chief of
defense staff, and Nicholas Soames, former British
armed forces minister. All hold advisory or
non-executive positions.
"This is only just becoming an industry,” Mark
Bullough, Aegis managing director, told the Financial
Times on November 4, referring to the new
appointments. “There has been a question mark over
how respectable it is. Certainly the reassurance of
the non-executive names offers an endorsement of our
company and points of reference for people not used to
dealing with the sector.”
David Phinney is a journalist and broadcaster
based in Washington, DC, whose work has appeared in
The Los Angeles Times, New York Times and on ABC and
PBS. He can be contacted at: phinneydavid@yahoo.com.
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