Erinys International

Iraq

According to Stephen Armstrong in 2008 'Erinys has more men in Iraq than the British army'. To exploit crucial contacts in the new Iraqi Governing Council, the firm entered into a joint venture with Nour USA, a company founded by a friend of Ahmed Chalabi which bankrolled the new enterprise. Erinys won an $80 million contract in 2003 to guard Iraq oil installations and according to Newsday 'an industry source familiar with some of the internal affairs said Chalabi received a $2-million fee for helping arrange the contract'. Further alarms were raised when the company started recruiting many of Chalabi's former militiamen from the Iraqi Free Forces raising concerns that he was creating a private army.

According to reports By February 2004, U.S. authorities in Iraq had awarded the company more than $400 million in contracts including a $327 million deal to supply equipment for the Iraqi Armed Forces. . Erinys argue that these claims regarding the contract are false, arguing:

"That contract was nothing, whatever, to do with Erinys Iraq, so the attribution to Erinys Iraq is false".

According to the Washington Post the Nour contract was formally challenged because of complaints about the bidding process. The contract was then awarded to Anham.

Iraq Contracts

Contract	Date Started	Date Ended
Oil Protection Force	August 2003	December 2004
Gulf Regional Division	January 2004	November 2007
AG Siemens Contract	2007	N/A

The initial Erinys contract in Iraq was the Oil Protection Force (OPF) contract. This contract was active from August 2003 until December 2004 when responsibiliy for guarding the oil pipelines was handed over to the Iraqi government. Erinys had a contract to provide "security and support services to the US Army Corps of Engineers" in the Gulf Region Division (GRD). The contrect ran from the formation of the GRD in January 2004 until November 2007. Erinys also had a contract in 2007 to provide support to AG Siemens who were in Iraq to "repair and refurbish several power generating plants across Iraq".

Ahmed Chalabi Connection

The New Yorker's Jayne Mayer reported on the connections between Ahmed Chalabi's friend and Erinys. She writes:

"Several of Chalabi’s friends have been awarded lucrative contracts. Abdul Huda Farouki, a Jordanian-American businessman who lives outside Washington, D.C., has obtained big stakes in two companies, Nour USA and Erinys Iraq, that will be paid millions of dollars to supply the Iraqi Army and to secure the country’s oil infrastructure. Farouki became a friend of Chalabi’s when he took out twelve million dollars in loans from Petra Bank".

Writing for The Guardian Suzanne Goldberg notes that:

"The first recruits of the 14,000-strong oil protection force raised by Erinys Iraq were members of the Iraqi Free Forces, the US-trained militia that was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was America's protege in the run-up to the invasion. Members of Mr Chalabi's inner circle were among the founding partners of Erinys Iraq".

According to reports Nour USA provided the initial funding for Erinys Iraq. Nour's funder was a friend and business associate of Ahmed Chalabi, Abdul Huda Farouki. Nour USA were the key beneficiary of both the oil security contract and the Iraq army procurment contract. Nour is a joint venture partner with Erinys and the Erinys security contract was amended to include Nour. A founding partner and director of Erinys Iraq is Faisal Daghistani, the son of Tamara Daghistani, for years one of Chalabi's most trusted confidantes, according to Newsday. The firm's legal representative in Baghdad is Chalabi's nephew Salem Chalabi.

Mark Perlman writes of the controversial connections between Erinys and Chalabi:

"In addition to fueling criticism over the lack of transparency of the bidding process in Iraq, the contract has also ignited political infighting in Baghdad between two key U.S. allies. The leader of the Iraqi National Accord, an exile group with close links to the CIA, has accused one of his main rivals of orchestrating the deal for his own purposes. Iyad Allawi told the Financial Times last December that Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Pentagon-backed Iraqi National Congress, had engineered the Erinys contract in order to set up a private militia that would end up undermining central authority over the vital oil sector".

Erinys contest several aspects of the reported connections between themselves, Nour USA and Ahmed Chalabi. According to Peter Roberts of Erinys:

"I am aware that there is a belief that A. Chalabi was somehow instrumental in obtaining the contract (and that he was paid $2 million), but the link with Nour USA was formed after the award of the contract and it is unclear to me:

• how the Iraqi Governing Council might have been involved in the contract award which was factually made by the Coalition Provisional Authority and
• who might have paid Chalabi $2 million, since Erinys did not have that sort of money at that time

However, beyond saying that Knut Royce (and others) was wrong, I cannot deny that they said it, so, as long as the allegation is in reported speech, it is admissible".

Nour USA

In 2003 a report in the National Journal shed some light on the relationship between Nour USA and Erinys. The report said:

The company's [Nour USA] managing director, David Braus, said the Cohen Group was hired to help identify relevant American government contacts for winning business in Iraq. The Cohen Group "introduced us to people in the U.S. government who were involved in oil-industry security," Braus said. At the Cohen Group, Christine Vick and Paul Gebhard are leading the work for Nour.

As for Erinys Iraq, Braus said the firm is made up of joint-venture companies, Iraqi expatriates, and Iraqis who lived under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. It now employs about 100 people in its Baghdad headquarters, but expects to have as many as 10,000 employees throughout Iraq by the end of this year. Braus added that the Cohen Group has also been trying to help Nour, which has a partnership with MCI and other companies, win a big mobile telephone contract in Baghdad that the provisional authority is expected to award soon".

Guarding Oilfields with Kurdish fighters and South African supervisors?

The firm ran the second largest training scheme in the country to create a private army guarding the oil pipelines and refineries. In addition to its thousands of British and South African employees, Erinys hired and trained about 14,000 Iraqi's According to Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch these jobs were 'technically open to all Iraqi's', but those guarding the oil refinery checkpoint in Kirkuk with whom Chatterjee spoke 'estimated 95 per cent were peshmerga' Peshmerga means 'ready to die' in Kurdish and they fought Saddam Hussein with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. According to Chatterjee part of the reason for this is that 'the occupation forces don't trust Arabs'. The top wage for the Kurds, according to Chatterjee, was $120 per month, whereas their supervisors, 'many of whom are South African' earn $5,000 a month on average.

'Plunder of Iraqi Oil'

Erinys objects to criticism, such as that by War on Want, that it is involved in the 'plunder' of Iraqi oil. Its response states:

Allegation made by WoW: WoW invited demonstrators to hold a protest outside the offices of companies working in Iraq, including Erinys’ offices, to campaign against the `plunder of Iraqi oil’. The clear allegation is that Erinys is complicit in this plunder.

Fact: The only involvement of Erinys in oil in Iraq was to train and manage an Oil Protection Force of up to 17,500 Iraqis under a contract with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil to protect Iraq’s oil installations from attack.

As with some of its other statements in self defence, this has a rather other-wordly quality. If Iraq's oil is being plundered by US and other corporations and Erinys is protecting that process, then it is indeed complicit in the plunder and its statement only confirms that fact.

Incident involving 16 year old boy in May 2004

The firm also drew criticism from Amnesty International after the Observer reported obtaining photos that showed Erinys employees restraining a 16-year-old Iraqi 'with six car tyres around his body'.

Pictures obtained by The Observer show two employees of Erinys restraining the 16-year-old Iraqi with six car tyres around his body. The photographs, taken last May, show the boy frozen with fear in a room where the wall appeared to be marked by bullet holes. This newspaper was told he was left immobile and without food or water for more than 24 hours. The firm has denied the boy - arrested for stealing a length of cable - was brutally treated. It claimed he was released without harm within minutes.

The Guardian also reported the denials by Erinys about the incident:

A statement released yesterday by Erinys said: 'This process lasted for approximately three minutes, when the youth broke down in tears, at which point the tyres were immediately removed and the individual released into the custody of his father.'

Erinys says the arrest took place last May at the Kirkuk Sector Patrol Base near the K1 gate of the Northern Oil Company compound. A company spokesman claimed the boy was a shepherd arrested by Erinys's pipeline patrol for allegedly stealing newly-laid cable. The company sent a vehicle to collect his father.

The statement said: 'On learning of the circumstances leading to the arrest of his son, the father expressed shame at his son's activities and requested that he be taught a lesson. In the presence of his father, two Erinys employees restrained the youth using tyres.'

The company claims the picture was taken not to brag but to prove 'there was no injury to the individual - no bruising, no bleeding, no torn clothing'.

The Observer also alleged that Erinys was detaining suspects in holding cells in Kirkuk:

A source with knowledge of Erinys' operations in Iraq claimed the firm, which employs thousands of Iraqis, keeps suspects in a holding cell in Kirkuk.

The company's statement said it was authorised to detain suspects and conduct investigations. It could not interrogate but could detain suspects until they were handed over to the authorities. The restraining of the boy was a 'one-off event' in the garage of the patrol base.

When accused of 'prisoner abuse' by War on Want Erinys insisted 'Erinys has never been involved with holding prisoners in Iraq'. But its own statement admnits that it has held people in detention:

The Erinys Oil Protection Force was authorised by the government to detain suspects and conduct investigations. Such investigations did not include interrogation but may have included detention until hand over to the police or coalition forces.

Perhaps there is a difference between 'detention' and being a 'prisoner', but it is not easy to understand what the difference is since those detained are not at liberty to leave.

Legal action over death of US soldier in 2005

In October 2007 Reuters reported a legal action against Erinys was launched in both Texas and London:

A British private security company is being sued in the United States over the death of a U.S. soldier hit by one of its convoys in Iraq, according to court documents... The case against Erinys, filed in a court in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday and also in London, was brought by the Perry Monroe, father of Christopher Monroe, a U.S. soldier who was struck by an Erinys vehicle while on duty in southern Iraq in October 2005.

The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and travelling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on, leading to an accident in which Monroe was hit, suffering severe injuries that led to his death.

"Even though warned that the remainder of the U.S. convoy was ahead, the Erinys PSD team employee with reckless disregard accelerated to a high rate of speed and struck Christopher with his armoured Suburban [vehicle], tearing off his right leg.

"Mr Monroe has been compelled to file this lawsuit to require the Erinys PSD team to account for its action that led to the death of his 19-year-old son," reads the suit, which also seeks unspecified damages.

Erinys, which provided security to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the time of the incident, denied any wrongdoing... The case filed in Houston is the first time that a private security company has been accused of negligence in the case of the death of a U.S. soldier, lawyers said.

Erinys evidently don't like this story to be repeated because when it was repeated by War on Want they complained. Erinys stated:

2nd Allegation made by WoW: “Erinys is also being sued in the US for the death of a US soldier hit by an Erinys convoy in Iraq in 2005”

Fact: Reuters contacted Erinys before filing its original press report on 26 October 2007 (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL26662748) and included a statement that “There was a full and very thorough investigation by the U.S. military into the case at the time, and both Erinys and its employees were fully exonerated”. This balance has been excised from the WoW report.

This response from Erinys hardly amounts to much and certainly does not contradict the statement that Erinys was being sued in the US and London. It would be unbalanced to state that Erinys were guilty without giving their view that they have done nothing wrong. But War on Want did not express any view on their guilt or otherwise. In other words Erinys are admitting that the statement is true. It is hardly 'unbalanced' to state the truth of the matter.

Kirkuk incident 18 October 2007

According to a report in The New York Times:

A man lost his eye and two other people were wounded when private security contractors fired into a crowded taxi as it approached their convoy of sport utility vehicles in northern Iraq on Thursday.

The shootings took place when security guards working for the British company Erinys International were escorting employees of the United States Army Corps of Engineers on a highway east of Kirkuk. The guards said that a car approached “at a high rate of speed,” according to a statement issued by the Corps of Engineers. When efforts to warn it off failed, the contractors fired into the vehicle, the statement said.

One of the occupants of the car, who was interviewed from a hospital bed in Kirkuk, said that after they fired, the security contractors pointed their guns at the car to discourage those inside from climbing out. The guards then drove away without offering medical help, said the man, Zairak Nori Qadir, whose right eye was hit by a bullet.

“They fired on us, and we never threatened them,” Mr. Qadir said. “They shot us and didn’t let us release ourselves from the car until they escaped and left us covered in blood.”

“Those are savages and criminals and killers,” he said.

A man who answered the phone at Erinys’s Middle East headquarters in Dubai referred questions to the Corps of Engineers. In its statement, the Army Corps said it would appoint an officer to investigate the shooting. “No further details are available at this time,” the statement said.

Erinys account of the incident in Kirkuk was given in a press release rebuttal of allegations made by War on Want. Their account of the incident is as follows:

The Erinys team had been deployed to escort a convoy of vehicles carrying civilian employees of the US Army Corps of Engineers on a highway east of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq. When a vehicle approached the convoy at high speed the security team initiated escalation warning procedures under the rules for the use of force specified by the US Government. These rules are a legally enforceable part of contracts between security companies and the US Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq and are designed to protect convoys from attack by mobile suicide bombers. In the incident referred to above the convoy was halted to change a punctured tyre; all sirens and flashing lights were operating and all traffic was stationary and being held at a safe distance.

Despite the sirens and flashing lights a fast-moving taxi drove around the stationary traffic towards the convoy. The Erinys team gave the specified verbal, hand and bright light warnings to the taxi, but it did not stop. Carefully aimed disabling shots were then fired into the engine block to disable the vehicle as the penultimate stage of escalation. Regrettably, injuries were caused to the passengers by a ricochet. Before leaving the scene, the Erinys team noted that the occupants (two at their count) were being given medical assistance in a nearby ambulance. A subsequent Press Release by the US Army Corps of Engineers confirmed that the Erinys team had complied with laid-down procedures.

Erinys conclude that 'the incident in Kirkuk is not an example of human rights abuse but of a professional response in self-defence against a potential vehicle-borne suicide bomb.'

However, it is misleading to refer to the unarmed occupants of the taxi as a 'potential vehicle-borne suicide bomb' and reminiscent of the spin used by the UK and US governments to displace attention from the killing or wounding of civilians by military personnel.