4um: Hired Guns at the Border? The Contracting Has Begun

Title: Hired Guns at the Border? The Contracting Has Begun
Source: texas civil rights review
URL Source: http://texascivilrightsreview.org/p ... ame=News&file=article&sid=1040
Published: Jul 26, 2007
Author: nick braune
Post Date: 2007-07-26 21:23:01 by KOSak
Keywords: None
Views: 194
Comments: 3

The July 8th front page of McAllen's paper, The Monitor, had an article, 'Border Patrol May See Surge,' discussing a proposed increase (surge) in numbers of Border Patrol agents. This momentarily caught my attention for two reasons.

First, the U.S. has not done well with surges lately: 'The Surge' in Iraq has produced nothing but a resented brutal lockdown of Baghdad and its suburbs. And secondly, I always suspect there are too many Border Patrol agents already.

But the article kept my attention. I take it that a private contracting company, DynCorp International of Virginia, is sending out press releases (basically advertising itself) hoping to be hired by Homeland Security in this border region. It is offering 'to train and deploy 1,000 private agents to the U.S.-Mexican border within 13 months, offering a quick surge of law enforcement officers to a region struggling to clamp down on illegal immigration.'

Note that the company thinks we don't know that the 100,000 private contractors in Iraq, with at least half of them doing policing and fighting functions, have a horrible reputation. (See the documentary 'Iraq for Hire.')

DynCorp, it seems from The Monitor, is touting its mercenary -- 'we'll fight anyone for pay' -- experience in Iraq and says that many of their cadre have law enforcement backgrounds and are licensed officers. (The company does not use the term 'mercenaries' however, preferring terms like 'officers,' 'private agents,' and 'contract agents.' The company also does not say what countries the mercenaries are 'licensed officers' in. These big contractors recruit from all over the world; Latin America and Fijian mercenaries have made the news lately.)

To the credit of the Border Patrol, their spokesman told The Monitor that they do not need outside help from private contractors like DynCorp and are recruiting and training new people every day. This claim, however, contains a untruth. The Border Patrol has already contracted ($50 million) to Wackenhut/GEO, a notorious private policing and jailing corporation, for transporting migrants back to Mexico. (Tucson Weekly, May 3, 2007)

So much for the claim that the Border Patrol doesn't need help from private contractors; in the past, transporting migrants to Mexico was done by the Border Patrol itself. To the credit of The Monitor, it quoted a critic, a sociologist studying the border region, who said that private contractors wouldn't have the proper training for this work. The critic was also quoted as taking a dig at the National Guard troops supplementing the Border Patrol, reminding us that three guardsmen recently were arrested on suspicion of smuggling immigrants in Laredo.

First, on the Border Patrol itself: I am unconvinced that their agents, in contrast to the mercenaries, are much better trained and 'professional.' (I have watched their uniformed agents accepting free coffee and discounts on sandwiches…a sure sign of problems.) And I believe, once again, that there are actually too many of them driving around in vans and standing around at the checkpoints already.

Secondly, on the mercenaries — they'd be worse. Even if they were trained to Border Patrol standards, do we really want these mercenaries, who have been in Iraq (maybe helping at Abu Ghraib while reading 'Soldier of Fortune' magazine) patrolling our Valley? The humanist philosopher back in the 1500s, Erasmus of Rotterdam, referred to mercenaries as 'vile excrement of criminality holding life less dear than a small piece of profit.' (They could write caustically in those days.) The 'for sale' mercenaries Erasmus saw coming back from fighting in the Middle East seemed horrifying to him, emotionally contorted.

Thirdly, because border leaders have had such a bad experience with privatized prisons, I would think they would be wary of privatizing policing functions as well. Just last week a prison in Spur, Texas run by contractors (Wackenhut/GEO, which is part of the mercenary business.) was blasted in the press by the State of Idaho. Idaho has sent overflow prisoners to Texas, but one of them committed suicide recently causing Idaho to investigate the treatment. Investigators were shocked, calling it the worst facility they had ever seen.

This is the second scandal in a Wackenhut/GEO prison in Texas triggered by a suicide. A previous suicide, in Val Verde County, apparently resulted from sexual abuse. Our political leaders should be wary of private contractors promising to provide low cost social services. (Here are the first two sentences of a 1999 Gregory Palast article on Wackenhut: 'New Mexico's privately operated prisons are filled with America's impoverished, violent outcasts – and those are the guards. That's the warning I took away from confidential documents and from guards themselves who nervously spoke on condition that their names never see the light of day.')

The importance of The Monitor article: using private contractors directly for border immigration policing is now being publicly floated. Beware. The article even reports that one congressman, Mike Rogers (R-Ala), is authoring legislation mandating the use of 'contractors' by the Border Patrol, if hiring goals are not met. I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers wants to deputize the Minutemen.

"No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words 'no' and 'not' employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights." -- Rev. Edmund A. Opitz (1914-2006) American minister, author

The three words that best describe the private security business these days are “racism”, “corruption”, and “profits”. Wackenhut, the largest private security provider to the Federal govt and the military outside of Iraq, would appear to be awash in all three.

Wackenhut, which has ties to the GOP and the Bush Administration that go almost as deep as Halliburton’s, is currently under investigation:

in Alaska by the GAO for “inadequate training and incomplete background checks that led to employment of officers with criminal records”, “poor” record-keeping that included falsified training records, and a near-total lack of any kind of monitoring or oversight on the program, as well as for illegally obtaining security contracts that were supposed to go to minority businesses;
in Miami (scroll to bottom) by Dade County for fraud - overbilling, billing for services not provided, falsifying records of guards’ hours, and violations of labor laws for working guards in some cases 20 hrs/day, 7 days/week;
by the Homeland Security Committee for “problems at Wackenhut-guarded facilities nationwide that lead to high employee turnover, low morale and ineffective security” at US nuclear sites;
by the House Govt Reform Committee “to examine charges of racism, discrimination and poor performance;
at a Tennessee Army ammunition plant where inspectors found holes in the perimeter fences, and where “two teenage runaways were found wandering around the 6,000-acre property after getting dangerously close to explosives” after the number of guards had been cut “in response to higher gas prices”;
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for security violations “at Wackenhut-guarded Three Mile Island, Seabrook Station, St. Lucie, and Turkey Point nuclear power plants”;
and by the Dept of Energy for “shorting the protective force on combat training; excessive overtime; caught cheating during one security drill and involved in a near-friendly fire incident in another” at its Y-12 (Oak Ridge) nuclear weapons plant.

And that’s only a partial list of domestic investigations.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Oversight Committee is currently holding a hearing, “Allegations of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse at the New U.S. Embassy in Iraq.”

The hearing will examine the performance of the State Department and its contractors in the construction of the new $600 million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The Committee will be reviewing questions regarding the embassy compound construction as well as allegations of labor abuse through improper contracting practices.

Chairman Waxman: “The oversight and management of the embassy project appears to be in disarray. The State Department agency responsible for the day-to-day oversight of the project is the Office of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO). But the OBO appears to be in a raging battle with the State Department officials in Baghdad who will ultimately live and work at the new embassy. The conflicts are so severe that the senior OBO official who is supposed to be on-the-ground in Iraq monitoring the construction of the new embassy has been banished from the country.”

National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairman John Tierney gives opening remarks:

Chairman Tierney: “We take these allegations very seriously. Unfortunately, however, it appears that not everyone may have done so. We have learned during the course of our investigation that a number of officials in our own State Department may have looked the other way when confronted with these disturbing or inconvenient allegations.”

Chairman Henry Waxman questions Karl Demming of KBR about what they found at the embassy:

Chairman Waxman: “If what you are telling us is right, something appears to be seriously wrong with the management and oversight of this project. This doesn’t mean that the rest of the embassy project will be plagued by similar problems, but it obviously raises a major red flag. The State Department said the guard base was fine, that it met and exceeded requirements, but it turned out to be a fiasco. The $600 million question is whether we are going to discover the same kinds of problems when the embassy is turned over to the State Department this fall.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD-07) questions Karl Demming of KBR about “counterfeit wiring” found at the embassy, which contributed to a large-scale electrical meltdown:

Rep. Cummings: “On page 1 of this report it lists, quote ‘areas of concern,’ and it says this, quote: ‘one of the greatest areas of concern is the use of counterfeit..’ - counterfeit - ‘wire.’ Unquote. Which refers to a wire found which has a particular wire size printed on the insulation but actually has smaller, lower capacity conductors, is that right?” Denning: “That’s correct, Mr. Congressman.” Rep. Cummings: “Did you actually obtain samples of the counterfeit wire?” Denning: “Yes, that is correct, Mr. Congressman.” Rep. Cummings: “Now that word ‘countefeit,’ that’s a pretty strong word isn’t it?” Denning: “Yes, it is.”

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton questions Karl Demming of KBR about photographs showing shoddy and dangerous electrical work at the embassy:

Delegate Holmes Norton: “Thank you, let’s go to the next picture. Would you describe the problem there, the specific problem, in laymen’s terms? What are we looking at, what’s the problem in laymen’s terms? What’s the danger?” Denning: “As you can see, the feet, and this receptacle is on the floor, improperly installed.” Delegate Holmes Norton: “So the feet, that’s where you plug – and what’s the problem with that?” Denning: “It’s on the floor, installed improperly. It would be subject to water and moisture every time they clean the defect.” Delegate Holmes Norton: “Who did this? Did KBR do this? Was it done prior to KBR arriving on the scene?” Denning: “This was done during the construction of the BSF camp, not by KBR.”

John Owens, a former employee of First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, gives opening testimony:

“This was a man-camp, and by nature not the most pleasant of places to be. But the conditions were deplorable even beyond what a workng man should tolerate. Foreign workers were packed into trailers tight, with insufficient equipment and basic needs like shoes and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes he was told ‘no, do with what you have’ by First Kuwaiti managers. The contract for these workers said they had to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with some time off on Friday for prayers. A few people from India told me they were making $240 a month…”

Rory Mayberry, a former subcontractor employee for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, gives opening testimony:

Rory Mayberry: “Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.”

Chairman Tierney: “Were you ever contacted by anyone who identified him or herself as a staff member of the State Department Inspector General?”

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 8:22 am by Jesse Lee and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.