good news, bad news

good news from The Guardian Weekly, 12-18 May 2006, p. 1 (no apologies for the hard copy reference): lieut.-gen. peter chiarelli, commander of day-to-day operations in iraq has issued orders to u.s. military to jettison the heavy-handed approach which simply, to quote his words, "risk the chance of creating an insurgent, of creating somebody who gets so disgusted with the , quote unquote, occupiers that they get off on the wrong side." this is the british rules of engagement and, a little late, make a lot of sense.

bad news from The Guardian Weekly, 12-18 May 2006, p. 1: british were rethinking their tactics when insurgents shot down a helicopter and gunfire broke out when central basra populace celebrated the downed chopper with jubilant riots. according to one basra resident, the dire situation in basra [basra!?; that used to be the one safe place outside the lands of kurds] made another confrontation likely:

• Electricity is absent for most of the day and gasoline is every expensive. Ordinary people can never get a job at the state security forces becauase it is entirely controlled by the militias. People think those who used to live abroad came and controlled everything while the common citizens still cannot get basic life needs.

so softly-softly might be a little too late. there was no rebuilding of iraq and, obviously, there is little security. looks like billions spent in no-bid contracts did a heck of a job.

what do we have against the common insurgency?

an old mad magazine back page fold-in advertisement mocked the old cold medicine, contact, stating "what do we have against the common cold?"; folding it in the answer was "nothing. actually we quite like them; they give us all our business."

a quick check of halliburton jobs around the world, for the week of 13 May 2006, turns up:

• Afghanistan (155)
• Australia (41)
• Canada (2)
• Djibouti (23)
• Dubai (5)
• Iraq (413)
• Jordan (1)
• Korea (1)
• Kuwait (35)
• Macedonia (1)
• United Kingdom (19)
• United States (246)

in other words, the wars in afghanistan and iraq are big business for our quasi-private companies that feed off the no-bid contracts and outsourcing of security and intelligence. now many of these jobs are not security jobs (for some reason it is hard to get a crane operator to go to iraq these days), but many are. according to a 2004 report,

• In Iraq, private military contractors supply more trainers and security forces than all remaining members of the “coalition of the willing” except the US. According to the April 10, 2004 Economist, approximately 15,000 civilian security guards are currently stationed there, at least 6000 of them armed....
• More than $20 billion — a third of the Army’s budget for Iraq and Afghanistan – currently goes to contractors...
• “The global trade in hired military services is booming, and we’re only just now catching up,” notes Peter Singer, who works with the Brookings Institution. “It runs the gamut from cooks whose services have been privatized through to the maintenance people on fighter jets, to communications technicians, to trainers and recruiters, to generals providing strategic expertise, to fighter pilots and commandos. The entire spectrum of military services has been privatized in some way or another.”....
• Meanwhile, the new Bush administration pushed the privatization of more IT functions.
• According to an August 1, 2001 Washington Post report, such moves represented “a clear acknowledgement by NSA officials that the agency has fallen behind the technological curve.”... A month before 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden tried to put a positive spin on the situation. Turning over IT systems to a private company would allow the NSA “to refocus assets on the agency’s core mission of providing foreign signals intelligence and protecting US national security-related information systems,” he said.
• But that rationale doesn’t fully explain...the decision to “refocus assets” address the long-term impact of this wholesale outsourcing – the export of skilled jobs. After eliminating 4000 US “consulting” positions in 2001, then scoring a record $16.8 billion in contracts by March 2004, CSC [csc owned dyncorp for a while, so unsure to whom this applies] announced that it plans to triple its staff in India to 5000 within two years, turning CSC India Pvt. Ltd. into a “strategic hub.” Not coincidentally, the Indian operation was launched in 2001, precisely to tap that country’s pool of low-cost engineering and IT talent. (Outsourcing Defense 6/04, Written by Greg Guma, The Quiet Rise of National Security, Inc.)

any problems with hayden's gut belief in the beauty of outsourcing intelligence besides the fact that the no-bid quasi-private companies closely linked with the administration make out like bandits from your tax dollars? well let's go to the message boards and see who is hoping to be our buddies in military intelligence (not to mention working with shia militias and somali warlords in our admin's belief that the real enemy is a mythic, unified spectre-like terror group):

• I'm a 28 former romanian millitary intelligence officer. Does anybody can tell me if and how i can get a job with dyn corp (in iraq, afghanistan, africa)...
• Hi..., send me an address email and your resume, I shall send you the phone number (us/uk) of the international dyncorp recruiter. (PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2006)

does anyone recall the romanian revolution? is this who we want on our side?

hayden's love of the private: part deux

in february 2004 a published interview with lieutenant general michael v. hayden, then director, national security agency (Military Information Technology Online Archives, Feb 09, vol. 8, no. 1) quickly drilled down to hayden's true loves (and, it appears, the reason the present administration refuse to jettison him, no matter how many of "hayden's heroes" run afoul or amok): "our larger strategy to partner with industry to provide solutions." this interest in partnering with industry means, of course, an interest in outsourcing military intelligence--thus TRAILBLAZER, thus NSA Domestic Technology Transfer Program, thus CIFA. all of which is fine, in itself: why not save a penny by an off-the-shelf software solution, rather than paying the CIA to develop it afresh? but, when you add that this counter intelligence field activity is largely focused on private companies that purchase former "assets" (to use the spook term), since they have the requisite clearances, and that most of these private companies are in no-bid contracts (can't very well advertise to the world what we are looking for in terms of hardware, software, and peopleware, can we?), and that these private companies are busy lobbying pentagon, white house, and capitol hill to make sure they get a portion of these (a large portion) monies, then, yes, we have a problem. and, when you add that much of this intel. and activity is suspiciously off-the-radar in terms of public oversight, then, yes, we have a major problem. and add to that this much of this activity is in iraq and afghanistan, where there is no oversight, then it is a full-blown problem (i assume americans will voice loudly their objection to domestic spying [or is it counter-spying?]).

walter pincus, of the washington post might have been slightly sullied by association with the plamegate affair. but he deserves a medal for repeatedly pointing out the outsourcing intel. problem (IRAQ: Increase in Contracting Intelligence Jobs Raises Concerns, March 20th, 2006). how much of a problem is all this? here is just a little, almost silly boondoggle, all based on partnering with industry to do intel. work. it is, perhaps not all that important; it is just that we only know about it, any of it, because of hookergate and top-gun cunningham.

• Perhaps the most spectacular boondoggle achieved by Cunningham went through CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity), a Defense intelligence agency established ... to "coordinate policy and oversee the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies." But here's the good part: 70% of its budget is contracted out.
• Right after CIFA was established, Cunningham helped his friend Mitchell Wade's company MZM land a $6.3 million contract with CIFA through an earmark. The earmark set aside the money for CIFA, and Cunningham made sure that MZM got the contract....
• Here's what your taxpayer dollars bought:
• The resultant program saw more than $6 million spent for a mass data storage system supposedly for CIFA that, according to the prosecutorial document, included almost $5.4 million in profit for MZM and a subcontractor. "Adding insult to injury," the prosecutors wrote, "the final system sold to the government was never installed (as it was incompatible with CIFA's network system) and remains in storage in Arlington, Va." (The Daily Muck, By Paul Kiel)

so perhaps it is all not much of a problem after all. i once worked in educational computing in boston in the early 80s. a tech specialist and time-and-motion man (or whatever they call them) came down from new hampshire (home then of the free-from-taxes right) to help us (and prepare a report on the staff's work). he was all agog about reagan's star wars. now star wars never did anything except spend most of our tax dollars. this stuff, too, promises more to make a few subcontractors rich than anything else. but i still think there is a problem.

hayden's love of the private

perhaps gen. hayden, pres. bush's pick to replace porter goss as cia head, is already dead in the water. for some reason, no one has noted that hayden would be the second military man heading the cia (the no. 2 at langley already is), and, sources tell me, this is not allowed (there is already a suggestion that hayden would retire; surely a case of following the letter but not the spirit of the law). but in case the go-hayden crowd is strong, it might be noted that hayden "contracted with MZM Inc. for the services of Lt. Gen. James C. King, then a senior vice president of the company ." (CIA Nominee Hayden Linked to MZM, By Justin Rood - May 8, 2006)

those of you following the small print will note that mzm's links with republicans were exposed in the cunningham indictments (aka hookergate) and mzm was quietly bought by veritas capital (which is up to its eyeballs in monetary dealings with the republicans), which itself has made a small fortune buying-and-selling dyncorp. now the point here is not that king was dirty; i assume he was clean (again the letter not the spirit of the law). it is that his entire history with the military is one where he is a strong advocate of privatizing the military/security end of the government. Thus, from 2001 we have the following:

• The director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Pentagońs photographic intelligence service, is under fire from Congress over questionable privatization efforts. Eleven House members wrote...to question the photo spy agencýs program of directly converting government employees to private contractors -- often at greater expense to U.S. taxpayers.
• NIMÁs director, Army Lt. Gen. James C. King, was supposed to carry out a cost-benefit study as part of the privatization program. But Gen. King instead exercised an option allowing the agency to forgo the cost study if the agency selects a contractor that is 51 percent owned by an American Indian tribe.
• An Alaska native-owned company, NJVC, is expected to get the contract for computer support and other services in September. (May 18, 2001, Notes from the Pentagon, by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough)
  

nothing wrong with a new-found love of american indian tribes, of course. but mzm and dyncorp have made millions in no-bid contracts from your dollars to fund private "peacekeepers" (aka mercenaries). state terror is bad enough, but, following hobbes (thomas, not calvin and...), we make a contract with the government for them to have a monopoly of such force, not to parcel it out to others. consider for a moment when dyncorp makes an agreement with court militias in somalia or the shiite militias in iraq to keep the peace, meaning to keep their costs low? where is the security of you and me? and where is the security of our boys still fighting over there? we don't elect any of these people. so let's ask a few more questions about where hayden/king would take us.

opening gambit

"at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style"(LA Times | Louise Roug | Posted May 7, 2006): what security are we providing in the least for the iraqis? what are our boys doing there? this is not one country but three; saddam kept it together through strongman, state terror. we can't even do that. nevertheless, republican-backers veritas capital (you remember them, yes?; the folks who quietly took over scandal-ridden mzm, inc.?) made well over 100 million dollars buying then selling dyncorp [this is unsubstantiated; they just own dyncorp, but are reportedly floating an ipo on same], whose claim to fame is the planting, watering, and feeding of " civilian peacekeepers" (aka mercenaries) in afghanistan and iraq. you all are doing your homework aren't you?