DynCorp
Based in Reston, Virginia, DynCorp was founded in 1946 by returning WWII pilots as a private air cargo service. In the six years since 1995 DynCorp received nearly $1 billion in contracts from the US government and deployed 181 personnel to Bosnia. By 2002, it was the nation's 13th largest military contractor with $2.3 billion in revenues. In 2003, it was bought by Computer Sciences Corporation of El Segundo California in an acquisition worth $1 billion. [1] It has 14,000 employees, operating in more than 30 countries. [2]
In 1991 DynCorp received the contract to maintain the US military base Camp Doha in Kuwait and it also maintains the Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar. [3] It trained Haitian police after the US intervention in 1994. [4] Its employees make up the core of the police force in Bosnia. [5] DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai and will train the Afghan forces once the Green Berets depart. In Colombia, DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions as part of the infamous 'Plan Colombia'. [6]
In Iraq DynCorp won a lucrative contract to provide a thousand advisors to help form Iraq's new police department, judicial branch and prison system. [7] DynCorp was reportedly hiring police trainers for Iraq through a website even before it received the contract. The money for this was taken from funds allocated for anti-drug operations in Afghanistan. The raid on the home of Ahmed Chalabi was also overseen by DynCorp mercenaries. [8]
DynCorp has a controversial past - a fact well known to the US government, yet that did not preclude the awarding of new contracts in Iraq. [9] While stationed in Bosnia, thirteen DynCorp employees, along with the Serbian mafia, were involved in the trafficking of under aged sex slaves. The two individuals who exposed this racket were fired instead. [10] Later when the controversy broke the culprits were merely forced to resign without any criminal charges being brought up against them. Their ambiguous legal status and immunity under Bosnian law precluded the possibility of prosecution.
A class action suit was filed against the company by Ecuadorian peasants alleging that herbicides spread by DynCorp in Colombia were affecting legitimate crops across the border, causing livestock illnesses, human diseases and in some cases, killing children. The State department intervened immediately on the firm's behalf. [11]
Ecuador recently threatened to kick out DynCorp for using its territory to procure Colombian mercenaries. {{ref|12}
Related Articles
- U.S. to pay $4.6 billion for translators in Iraq, World Tribune.com, December 22, 2006
References
- ^ http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=18
- ^ http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=76
- ^
- ^ http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=45
- ^
- ^ http://observer.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,846595,00.html
- ^ http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=185
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13904-2004Jun3.html
- ^ http://www.dyn-intl.com/subpage.aspx?id=185
- ^ http://www.prisonplanet.com/dyncorp_disgrace.html
- ^ http://www.advocacynet.org/cpage_view/amazonoil_colombia_17_65.html
- ^
