War & Disaster Profiteering

Six Blackwater Security Consulting guards responsible for protecting U.S. diplomats were killed Thursday when their helicopter was shot down as it headed from Baghdad to Tikrit for a security detail, said company spokesman Chris Bertelli. Read More

Six US citizens, employed by the Blackwater Security Consulting firm, and two Filippino guards were among 11 killed when a Bulgarian commercial helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad. The deaths of at least 13 foreign security contractors in two days is the latest blow to Iraq's private security sector, which the interior ministry estimates employs 50,000 foreigners and Iraqis. Read More

An Australian man shot dead in Baghdad was well aware of the risks of working as a private security guard in Iraq, all of whom carry a $50,000 bounty on their heads, his stepmother said yesterday. 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

The victims of apparent insurgent ground fire include six American security guards, and another is killed in a bomb attack. Read More

Investigators said Aegis Defence Services could not correctly document that employees are qualified for weapons use and that many of its Iraqi workers have not been not properly screened for security jobs. Ageis had little prior experience in the Middle East before landing a $293 million contract in Iraq and its main shareholder, former British army officer Tim Spicer, has been at the center of several controversies, including an arms deal that broke a U.N. embargo in 1998 and questions raised by Irish Americans over his military record in Northern Ireland. Read More

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba says John B. Israel was trying to do the right thing for his adopted homeland when he signed on as a translator for U.S. Army intelligence at Abu Ghraib prison in October 2003. But he received incomplete training when he got there, fell in with an interrogator who didn't adhere to strict Army policy, and gave inconsistent answers when questioned about the abuses he may have witnessed. Read More

Longtime U.S. involvement in Colombia may be transforming and expanding from a "war on drugs" into a Washington-led, oil-company fueled destabilization campaign against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Read More

Insurgents firing missiles brought down a Russian-made helicopter north of the capital Thursday, killing 11 civilians including six American bodyguards for U.S. diplomats. The chartered flight was believed to be the first civilian aircraft shot down in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago. Read More

Testimony by John Israel, still considered classified, paints a picture of a contract intelligence translator receiving little training in military procedures before being pushed into service and who and minded his own business to the extent that he was oblivious to the abuses that were going on around him. Read More