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Drone Inc.: Marketing the Illusion of Precision Killing  An investigative report on the contractors and technologies used in the remote control drone war. Written by Pratap Chatterjee and Christian Stork, published in August 2017. Read More

In a city that has been rocked by the Enron collapse and subsequent prosecutions, the indictment of Houston oil executive David Chalmers Jr. and a Houston-based Bulgarian oil trader serves notice that the probe of irregularities in the U.N.-supervised oil-for-food program will likely ensnare more energy industry figures before it is finished. Read More

The U.S. Government has defended its decision to award a £293 million Iraq Security contract to British mercenary Tim Spicer, in reponse to concerns raised by the family of Belfast man Peter McBride, who was shot dead by Scots Guards soldiers under Spicer's command in 1992. Read More

While the Iraqi army seems to be getting up to speed, the training of the 142,000-member police force is moving more slowly and fraught with bigger problems than reports by U.S. officials might suggest. The eventual goal is to have Iraqis training all of their security forces, but private contractors expect to continue working well into 2006. One small but revealing reason says one trainer: students suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. "They are the main targets of insurgents," he says. "It makes it difficult to maintain their attention span." Read More

Billing disputes with contractors in Iraq have sparked major questions about Pentagon reforms of the 1990s that streamlined acquisition programs but also cut down on oversight of performance and billing. Read More

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction. Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and drawing up plans to pick up the pieces. The White House now has an office that keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list" and assembles teams made up of private companies, NGOs and members of thinktanks - some will have "pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Read More

Appearing in federal court, David B. Chalmers Jr., head of Houston-based BayOil (USA), and his business associate Ludmil Dionissiev pleaded innocent to charges they fixed oil prices and paid illegal surcharges as part of a scheme to ingratiate themselves with Saddam Hussein's regime and thereby profit from Iraqi oil sales. Read More

Demand for private security services are expected to skyrocket in the wake of the mounting unrest in Thailand's three southernmost provinces and the recent bombings in Hat Yai. Read More

A controversial British firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd., responsible for a sweeping $293 million contract in Iraq could not prove that employees received proper weapons training or that it had vetted Iraqi employees to ensure they did not pose a threat, according to a government audit. Read More

With more hired guns in Iraq than in any other U.S. conflict since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, armed contractors admit their role is cloudy and controversial. They're driven by money and a lust for life on the edge, but also by a self-styled altruism. They do shoot to kill, but they aren't legally considered combatants. Read More