Free Republic

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview. The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed leaks from the intelligence community for...

A contractor who was working at a Florida airport opened up a container to find a live missile. The shocking find happened on Friday afternoon at Lakeland Linder International Airport east of Tampa. It's not known how the missile arrived at the airport which is mainly used for private jets and no longer for any kind of military use.

Haditha: Where Are They (the Accusers) Now? Diana West January 18, 2012 Eight charged; seven cleared; one, please, let’s hope, to go.Finally, the last “Haditha” trial is in progress, and, thanks to Nat Helms at Defend Our Marines, everything you need or want to know about the proceedings, the witnesses, the facts about the case of SSGT Frank D. Wuterich, the last of the Marine Mohicans, is here. Tim McGirk, source of the Haditha myth-acre. Of course, I still have a few questions — the exact same questions I had when I first looked at the case back in late...

Five contractors this week secured another chunk of a $10 billion global law-enforcement project of the U.S. State Dept., which is deploying hired guns and consultants worldwide. Although the department yesterday (May 11) identified the companies to whom it awarded new contracts, it did not specify the destination or mission assigned to the respective vendors. Rather, it will pay the vendors on an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, or IDIQ, basis. DynCorp International, Justice Services International, MPRI, PAE Government Services, and Civilian Police International will provide a variety of “civilian police” (CIVPOL), corrections, and advisement services to clients of the State...

DynCorp International, the private military contractor, said on Monday it has agreed to sell itself to Cerberus Capital Management for $1.5 billion, as the private equity industry continues to return to its core business of deal-making. Cerberus will pay $17.55 a share for DynCorp, a 49 percent premium to Friday’s closing price of $11.75. DynCorp now has 28 days under a “go-shop” provision within the deal agreement to find a higher and better offer. While DynCorp has continued to win new contracts from the federal government, it has also been the subject of controversy over the years for its assignments...

The Entry Control Points (ECP) into the International Zone (IZ) have been increasingly difficult to deal with. It is nothing that is intolerable. However, in an increasing basis Protective Security Detail (PSD) teams have been instructed to exit vehicles for search, download weapons and such. That is okay, because after all, Iraq, like it or not, is its own country and sets the ground rules. Well, a few days ago the antics were ratcheted up again. As a team was entering ECP4 (old CP12) the last vehicle of the motorcade was stopped, which is not uncommon. This time though, the...

Former Marine Killed in IraqLast Edited: Friday, 06 Mar 2009, 10:38 PM EST Created On: Friday, 06 Mar 2009, 10:37 PM EST Ron Savage RIVERVIEW, Mich. - A former Marine from metropolitan Detroit is killed in Iraq. 25-year-old Justin Pope was working for a U.S. contractor. Friday night, he was remembered as a kind and brave man who wanted to serve his country. A crowd of more than 100 people gathered to celebrate his life. The Riverview police and fire departments also joined the vigil. It was an evening of prayers, candles and crying. Pope served two tours of duty...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — All State Department security convoys in Iraq will now fall under military control, the latest step taken by government officials to bring Blackwater Worldwide and other armed contractors under tighter supervision. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agreed to the measure at a lunch on Tuesday after weeks of tension between their departments over coordination of thousands of gun-carrying contractors operating in the chaos of Iraq. Mr. Gates appears to have won the bureaucratic tug-of-war, which accelerated after a Sept. 16 shooting in central Baghdad involving guards in a Blackwater...

The State Department so badly managed a $1.2 billion contract for Iraqi police training that it can't tell what it got for the money spent, a new report says. Because of disarray in invoices and records on the project — and because the government is trying to recoup money paid inappropriately to contractor DynCorp International, LLC — auditors have temporarily suspended their effort to review the contract's implementation, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart W. Bowen Jr. Bowen had been trying to review a February 2004 contract to DynCorp awarded by the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics...

The U.S. State Department is unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police, a government report said Tuesday. "The bottom line is that State can't account for where it went," said Glenn D. Furbish, who was involved in putting together the 20-page report for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR). The Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) "did not have the information needed to identify what DynCorp provided under the contract or how funds were spent," the report said. As...

PHOENIX (AP) -- A military contractor is recruiting current and former agents with the U.S. Border Patrol to teach Iraqis how to secure their national borders. The U.S. State Department has asked Virginia-based DynCorp International to find 120 people with Customs and Border Enforcement experience to go to Iraq for the training.

Shares of DynCorp International (DCP: 16.05, +2.14, +15.4%) rocketed up 15% Monday after the government contractor wrested a lucrative translation and interpreting contract away from competitor L-3 Communications (LLL: 79.00, -4.72, -5.6%). The stock gained as much as 21% earlier in the session. The Falls Church, Va., company announced Monday that Global Linguistic Solutions, a joint venture formed by DynCorp International and privately held McNeil Technologies, won a $4.6 billion, five-year contract from the Department of Defense to provide language services to the U.S. Army and other U.S. government agencies fighting in Iraq. The contract calls for 6,000 local Arabic...

A local consortium of DynCorp International and McNeil Technologies was awarded a five-year Army contract worth up to $4.6 billion yesterday to provide linguists to the U.S. military in Iraq. The joint venture, known as Iraq Global Linguist Solution, unseated the incumbent, New York-based L-3 Communications, for the work. "We are very happy, of course, but we are also genuinely honored to be chosen to perform this service for our troops," DynCorp spokesman Greg Lagana said. The group will begin work in March, and the contract could last through 2011, according to a statement from Army Intelligence and Security Command....

(Columbia) Nov. 12, 2004 - A South Carolina Highway Patrolman who was working in Iraq to help train police forces there has been killed in an ambush. Forty-seven-year-old Douglas Thomas was a veteran South Carolina Highway Patrol officer. In the early 1990s his picture was featured in posters for a statewide campaign against drunk driving. Lance Corporal Thomas was a USC graduate who joined the patrol in 1987. He was assigned to the patrol's Lexington office. Thomas took a leave of absence to go to Iraq in June. A Patrol spokesman says Thomas was working for the DynCorp company,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A Connecticut civilian hired to protect American diplomats was among at least five people killed Thursday when two insurgents detonated explosives-laden bags at a shopping bazaar and restaurant inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. The two lunchtime blasts marked the first time insurgents have penetrated the heavily protected area that is the seat of the Iraqi government and home to American officials. Iraq's most feared terror group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the midday blasts and said they were suicide attacks, according to a statement posted on a website known for its Islamic...

WASHINGTON - Four Americans killed in bombings in the Green Zone in Baghdad on Thursday were all employees of the private U.S. security firm DynCorp, a U.S. official said Thursday. Two State Department officials were injured, neither critically, along with another employee of the company, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The firm, Dyncorp, helps provide security primarily in areas where Americans work in the Iraqi capital. A spokesman for Computer Services Corp., the parent company, had no immediate comment. The fact that insurgents were able to penetrate Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone that contained U.S. and...

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 - "Don't be harsh to the people!" President Hamid Karzai beseeched his security detail, which was bearing down on an overly eager crowd with sticks and automatic weapons. "They will calm themselves!" Below the stage, white pigeons meant to symbolize peace were tentatively stepping out of their coop. Soon Afghanistan's president tried to do the same. "If you sit in your place, I will come say hello to each one of you," Mr. Karzai told the surging crowd, and then he marched off the stage toward the throng. He did not get far before his guards...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. government warned its citizens to keep a low profile in Kabul Monday after a car bomb hit a private American security company, killing up to 11 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital in two years. Three Americans died in Sunday's attack, according to Kabul's NATO-led security force. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast at the office of Dyncorp Inc., which provides bodyguards for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and works for the American government in Iraq. Security officials have issued repeated warnings in recent weeks that anti-government militants could ramp up attacks...

KABUL, Afghanistan - An explosion tore through the office of an American defense contractor in the heart of the Afghan capital Sunday, killing as many as six people and seriously injuring several more, officials and residents said. The victims included several apparent U.S. citizens. The blast hit the office of Dyncorp Inc., an American firm that provides security for Afghan President Hamid Karzai on behalf of the United States and works for the U.S. government in Iraq, said Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office. Downie said he and others at the scene pulled several seriously injured people —...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An explosion tore through the office of an American defense contractor in the heart of the Afghan capital Sunday, killing at least four people and seriously injuring several more, officials and residents said. The victims were believed to include Westerners. Hours earlier, a blast at a southeastern Afghanistan school killed nine youngsters and one adult, the U.S. military said. The child victims were said to be between the ages of 7 and 15, said Paktia Gov. Asadullah Wafa, adding that 15 other people were injured. Wafa said Saturday night's explosion at a Paktia province school was...