Vinnell Corporation

The Fairfax Virginia based firm, founded in 1931, is a subsidiary of the defense conglomerate Northrop Grumman. In 1975, the company won a $77-million contract to train Saudi Arabian infantry and artillery battalions 'to defend oil fields'. It has been licensed by the government to train the Saudi National Guard, the 100,000-strong force that protects the monarchy and serves as a counterweight to any threat from the regular army.

In 2003 the company received a $48 million contract to train the new Iraqi army and it started recruiting personnel in August. By December, when the first battalion was slated to join the US forces in its operation, 480 out of the 900 from the unit had abandoned their jobs because of 'low pay, inadequate training, faulty equipment and ethnic tensions'. Vinnell was paying the soldiers only $50 a month. The company had subcontracted most of the training to MPRI, a Virginia based firm that had helped train the Croatian and Bosnian armies. Vinnell's contract was subsequently terminated and the Jordanian Army called in to replace it.

Credits

--Idrees 17:02, 17 Nov 2005 (GMT)