Out Of The Frying Pan
The Miami Herald reports that Blackwater is to be “phased out” of “diplomatic duty” in Iraq. First time I’ve heard it called that …
They are to be replaced by those bast … ions of diplomatic relations, either Dyncorp or Triple Canopy.
For those that don’t know, Sourcewatch has this to say about Dyncorp:
“Kathryn Bolkovac, a United Nations International Police Force monitor, filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were (sic) prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.”
…
“In January 2007, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., reported that ‘he had identified tens of millions of dollars worth of accounting discrepancies, missing weapons and unauthorized billings’ by DynCorp. Bowen accused DynCorp of ‘lax accounting and monitoring procedures.’”
And they say this about Triple Canopy:
“Triple Canopy is currently the defendent in a lawsuit filed by three former employees who worked for Triple Canopy under a contract for KBR. Former Army Ranger Shane Schmidt and former Marine Charles L. Sheppard III claim in the lawsuit that on July 8, 2004, while en route to the Baghdad airport, their shift leader declared he was ‘going to kill someone today’ and shortly afterwards stepped out of the vehicle and fired rounds of his M4 rifle through the windshield of a stopped truck.
The suit goes on to claim the shift leader said, ‘This didn’t happen, understand?’ Soon after, the shift leader stated he had ‘never shot anyone with my handgun before” and then fired his handgun through the windshield of a parked taxi, killing the driver.’”
I’m sure these guys will do a much better job than Blackwater did.