This is hot stuff: Some of my regular readers may remember back in March when I discussed and linked to a November speech by Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for African affairs in the context of a discussion of whether the US had any advance knowledge of the Equatorial Guinea coup plot. The October 4th International edition of Newsweek, just up on the web, is reporting that British security consultant named Gregory Wales went up to Whelan after the speech and set up a February meeting in which he tipped her off about the coming coup attempt.

The International Peace Operations Association has a lot more clout at the Pentagon than the name might suggest. Calling itself an "association of military-service provider companies," it's the closest thing in Washington to a lobbying group for soldiers of fortune. At the outfit's annual dinner last November, the guest speaker was Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for African affairs, from the policy directorate headed by Douglas Feith, the controversial under secretary of Defense. Whelan's topic: the U.S. government's increasing use of private military contractors, especially in Africa.

That evening and its aftermath are raising awkward new questions about a botched coup attempt this year in sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer. . . .

The Pentagon insists it had no advance knowledge of any plot against Obiang. Nevertheless, the audience at Whelan's speech included a British security consultant named Gregory Wales—now one of six defendants in a lawsuit filed by Obiang's attorneys in London against the alleged plotters. Wales gave Whelan his card after the speech, and later called to request a face-to-face chat. The meeting came in mid- to late February, according to a Defense official, who says, "Mr. Wales mentioned in passing, as part of a larger unrelated discussion of African issues, that there might be some trouble brewing in Equatorial Guinea. Specifically, he had heard from some business associates of his that wealthy citizens of the country were planning to flee in case of a crisis." The official adds that Wales's mention of Equatorial Guinea was "such a general remark about one troubled country in a troubled region, there was no reason to follow up on it, and Ms. Whelan did not."

This is one of the few journalistic attempt to trace the US roots of the coup attempt. I wonder what will come of it.

Here's an entertaining development in the Equatorial Guinea coup plot scandal:

Equatorial Guinea's "appalling human rights record" was a strong motivating factor in Mark Thatcher's reluctance to answer questions from the country's prosecuting authorities, one of his lawyers said on Monday.

This from a man who does business in Sudan.

From CNN:

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An Afghan court has found three Americans guilty of torturing Afghans in a private jail, a case that comes on the heels of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq.

Jonathan K. "Jack" Idema, a former Green Beret and the alleged ringleader of the operation, received a 10-year jail term on Wednesday.

Brent Bennett, an Idema associate, got a 10-year jail term and Edward Caraballo, a journalist, received an eight-year-term. The court sentenced four Afghan accomplices to lesser terms.

The person I'm currently most intrigued by in the Equatorial Guinea Coup scandal is 20-something computer expert James Kershaw. He is either cooperating with South African police, or has fled, depending on which current news story you read.

According to testimony, he was the mystery voice on the other end of the telephone that recruited Raymond Stanley Archer, fresh from guard duty during the Aristide coup, for the alleged Equatorial Guinea coup project.

The IOL write-up on Kershaw is even more intriguing:

A key witness in the Scorpion investigation may be James Kershaw, described as Mann's right-hand man.

Kershaw, a computer expert in his late twenties, is believed to have played a central role in recruiting mercenaries, buying arms and ammunition and collecting money from "investors".

Kershaw is believed to be in possession of "the Wonga List" - details of rich and influential people who allegedly bankrolled the coup attempt.

The Daily News has learned that Kershaw is preparing to give crucial evidence in South Africa in any future trial of Thatcher. The decision by Kershaw to do a deal with the police means the secret list is likely to be in the hands of the Scorpions.

Kershaw, who was born in South Africa but holds a British passport, has been named in court by a number of arrested mercenaries as one of the recruiters in the coup attempt.

Has he disappeared? Or did he temporarily disappear to confer with his attorney? I can't say, from this distance.

The story of Archer's recruitment is especially interesting. I wonder how Kershaw knew to contact Archer, since the man had  been without a job for less than a week, and how Kershaw knew Archer's cell phone number even though Archer says he knew nothing about Kershaw prior to the contact. Kershaw must know some really interesting people.

In a mystery novel, Kershaw would turn up dead now since, potentially, so many powerful people have so much to lose through his testimony and cooperation. If he has fled, I do wonder if he's in Dallas.

UPDATE: Here's another interesting IOL piece which discusses both James Kershaw and some of Thatcher's other projects.

About Kershaw:

But it has been learned that the keeper of the secrets - accountant and computer expert James Kershaw - has become a witness for the prosecution in South Africa and the explosive list of names is said to be in possession of the police.

The list could provide key evidence in any trials against the men accused of involvement in the coup plot.

A number of the men arrested as suspected mercenaries have named Kershaw, 24, in court as one of the recruiters in the alleged plan to depose President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

He allegedly made a down payment of $90 000 in Harare, Zimbabwe, and also allegedly gave last-minute instructions, by telephone, to the team.

Kershaw decided to co-operate with the authorities after seeking legal advice.

It is believed that he met officials recently in South Africa.

According to a source close to those involved in the controversy: "James is co-operating with the South African authorities and will give evidence on behalf of the state. He is young. He got caught up in something he could not really control."

Regarding Thatcher, this new article says that Nick Du Toit testified regarding Thatcher's mining operations in Sudan. The mention of Sudan in this context rings alarm bells for me. It is a country that companies with any concern for human rights avoid.

Thatcher, who is alleged by the South African police to have financed the coup plot, has strenuously denied culpability.

Attention, however, is now focused on his other supposed business ventures in Africa.

Nick du Toit, a South African on trial in Equatorial Guinea with other men arrested on suspicion of being mercenaries, claims Thatcher wanted to buy helicopters for use in Sudan.

Giving evidence in court this week, Du Toit said: "In my business I also sold military helicopters and I had some available. Thatcher had a mining operation going in Sudan and he wanted two Mi-8 helicopters for Sudan."

Sudan. The very last thing Sudan needs is Mark Thatcher.

Here's an important bit I missed back when we had relatives visiting: The Pentagon wants $500 million in order to train "a network of friendly militias" to govern the ungovernable places. This bizarre bit of military privatization may be the single worst piece of policy to come out of GWB's presidency. I mean, if you were setting out to replicate the "successful" terrorist Osama bin Laden, I certainly could not come up with a more effective way.  This is exactly the means by which the US created Osama bin Laden, and now Wolfowitz wants to expand the program.

Certainly this is a recipe for Reagan-style proxy wars in which hundreds of thousands of people who live in inconspicuous places die. But worse than that, it is a design for an ongoing source of deadly terrorist enemies.

Wolfowitz shouldn't just be fired. He should be arrested.

Kathryn Cramer at August 26, 2004 06:45 PM | Link Cosmos | Purple Numbers  | Edit

Somewhat to my surprise, I find the answer to the timing of the Mark Thatcher arrest: he was getting ready to move to the US where presumably his attempts to liberate the oil of Equatorial Guinea from oppression would be more appreciated.

Over the past week, Thatcher had sold four vehicles, put his house on the market, reserved flights to the U.S. for his family and enrolled his two children in American schools, ThisDay, a Johannesburg-based newspaper reported today, without saying where it got the information. Ngwema confirmed the report in a telephone interview.

I'll bet they were moving (back) to his wife's home state of Texas.

There is a really juicy piece by Keith Dovkants of the Evening Standard on the This Is London site. One again, Thatcher was under mother's wing:

Margaret Thatcher was on sparkling form. Despite her frailty, she insisted on meeting all the guests at her son's lavish Christmas party. There were more than 70 of them, gathered around a sumptuous buffet laid out by the swimming pool at Mark Thatcher's sprawling mansion in Cape Town's Constantia suburb. 

The guests, some of whom had flown in from London, were charmed by the iconic 78 yearold ex-prime minister who, according to one, displayed an irrepressible cheerfulness. 

Baroness Thatcher might not have been so genial if she had known she was meeting the key plotters in a highly illegal plan to overthrow the president of an oil-rich African country. And she would have been distinctly unhappy if she had known that her beloved son Mark was to be accused of being at the heart of the plot - something he has strenuously denied. 

The article also discuses the matter of Mom's old friend, the disgraced Lord Archer:

Our investigation reveals that Mann, 51, sought money to finance the coup from individuals in his influential social and business circle. Leaked legal documents show a payment of $134,980 (£74,000) was made to Mann's company, by a "J.H. Archer", four days before Mann was seized.

The initials are those of Lord Archer, the disgraced Conservative peer and bestselling author who is an old friend of Baroness Thatcher. His friendship with Eli Calil, a London-based businessman who has been accused of being involved in the coup attempt, goes back even further - more than 30 years.

Soon after Mark Thatcher's arrest yesterday, Lord Archer's lawyers sought to quell speculation that the peer might have been involved in bankrolling the mercenary operation and said in a statement that he had "no prior knowledge". His lawyers also denied he had issued a cheque for the amount shown on the bank statement from Mann's company. When it was pointed out the sum was paid by credit transfer, his legal spokesman said Lord Archer "considers the matter closed". 

Here's another good bit from the article:

Barrie Penrose is researching a book on the attempted coup. He said: "If this had worked, it would have been one of the poshest coups in history. Simon Mann, the well-connected Old Etonian ex-SAS officer, went around his well-heeled friends asking them if they wanted to invest in a little project. How much he told them about what he was planning is not clear. Some doubtless knew the full story, but others probably did not." 

And why should an accused cannibal be allowed to sit on 10% of the world's oil reserves in darkest Africa and keep the profits for himself? Aren't the well-heeled and well-connected entitled to take it from him? Isn't that what having a title is all about?

So this seems to be the peak of Sir Mark's career -- combatting his "distinct lack of brains, charm and business acumen" with a deep sense of entitlement, to scale the heights. Wow. What a guy.

MEANWHILE, more arrests are imminent.

UPDATE: Josh Berthume tells a joke I wish I'd thought of:

HERE IS A JOKE FOR MY BRITISH READERS:  Mark Thatcher claims he wasn't trying to overthrow the government, necessarily, its just that "Equatorial Guinea has so much that needs privatizing."  Zing!     

ALSO, I've been wondering where Mark Thatcher was intent on moving to. He and his wife appear on the client list of Harold Leidner a landscape artist whose website claims he did 15 of the 100 most expensive yards in Dallas. This could be from back when the Thatchers used to live in Dallas, or it could be the Mark Thatcher, sandal inventor. But a journalist should enquire whether Mr. &  Mrs. Thatcher have any current projects with the firm.

AHA! I was right! According to the Guardian, the Thatcher family was bound for Dallas:

Police in South Africa, where Thatcher has lived since 1995, have information that the 51-year-old businessman had put his $3.3 million home up for sale and had booked flights for his American wife and two children to Dallas, police spokesman Sipho Ngwema said. Thatcher's two children had already been enrolled in schools in Dallas.

Next question: Who are Thatcher's buddies in Dallas?

Regarding the Texas connection, the Evening Standard remarks:

In 1987 he married Diane Burgdorf, the daughter of a millionaire Texas car dealer he met while working as a salesman for Lotus. Settled in Dallas, he created a complex web of companies, helped along by the contacts he had made through his mother. His ability to alienate people also continued. Neighbours were left aghast at the occasion he stormed into a house across the street and ordered the woman who opened the front door to move her car from outsidehis house. At a get-to-know you party he refused a name tag, saying: "If they they don't know who I am by now they never will." 

But he also made friends. Intriguingly,a 1994 newspaper article reported among his powerful Texan allies were  one George W Bush Jr, then running for state governorship.

As is remarked upon in the Scotsman, Dallas is also home to Triton Energy:

Dallas-based Triton Energy, which has close ties to President George Bush, Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco have together invested more than US$5billion in Equatorial Guinea's burgeoning oil production, predicted soon to provide five percent of US oil needs.

Triton has been an important source of Bush campaign funds:

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans is a key link to many of the Bush money sources. . . .  Evans then became Bush's national finance chairman, and from that post organized the pioneers -- a group of more than 100 individuals who pledged to each raise $100,000. In addition to Kenneth Lay, and the Kinders of Enron, the pioneers included executives of First Energy Corp., Texas Oil and Gas, CSX Transportation, Occidental Chemical, Triton Energy Corp., Reliant Energy, the Texas Utilitites Co., Vaughn Petroleum, Sanchez Oil and Gas, and Jerry McCutchin Drilling Co.

And by the way, where's Maggie? Fobes has just ranked her number 21 on their newly released list of the World's Hundred Most Powerful Women. Their article on the list begins:

"I don't mind how much my ministers talk," Baroness Margaret Thatcher once said, "as long as they do what I say." The former British prime minister long ago defied the conventional wisdom that women can gain power only by studiously working behind the scenes to forge consensus. That's why she and 99 other leaders in politics, business and social causes have made it to our first ever ranking of the world's most powerful women.

Kathryn Cramer at August 26, 2004 06:45 AM | Link Cosmos | Purple Numbers  | Edit

Check out this story in the Guardian:

Police Arrest Son of Margaret Thatcher         

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - South African police arrested Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, early Wednesday on allegations he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, police said.

Police spokesman Sipho Ngwema said Thatcher was arrested at Cape Town home and is expected to be charged with violation of the Foreign Military Assistance Act.

``We have evidence, credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted coup,'' said Ngwema. ``We refuse that South Africa be a springboard for coups in Africa and elsewhere.''

Police raided Thatcher's home in the upscale suburb of Constantia shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday armed with search warrants. Investigators searched his records and computers for evidence.

Investigators believe Thatcher helped finance a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

``We believe Mr. Thatcher assisted in finance and logistics,'' said Ngwema, who declined to elaborate.

I wonder what took them so long. Given the timing, I assume the arrest in connected to information revealed in one of the two ongoing trials of mercenaries, one in Zimbabwe and the other in Equatorial Guinea. It could also be connected to the recent raid on the PMF  International Intelligence Risk Management.

(Thanks to Charles Stross & Chris Williams!)

PS: There are several amusing graphics of Mark Thatcher on the cover of the magazine Private Eye from the 80's here.

UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting that the arrest was precipitated by Nick Du Toit's testimony in the Equatorial Guinea trial. I would think that this, by itself, would not be sufficient for the arrest, since Du Toit is testifying trying to save his own life under extremely coersive circumstances. It occurs to me that this may be part of the deal South Africa made to gain assurances from EQ that if convicted, the mercenaries would not be executed.

FURTHER UPDATE: Sir Mark had his shoes, jacket, and cell phone stolen while awaiting his bail hearing. Now he's under house arrest, though out on bail.

MEANWHILE, Jack Straw, who is in Cape Town is "keeping mum" on the subject of Thatcher's arrest.

A FURTHER THOUGHT: Earlier this month there were reports that author/poltician Jeffrey Archer was one of the coup's investors. I wonder if the Thatcher case will shed any light in the matter. (This probably means nothing, but at least one attorney at the firm that represents Archer formerly worked for the firm that represents or represented the PMF Sandline.)

Kathryn Cramer at August 25, 2004 08:09 AM | Link Cosmos | Purple Numbers  | Edit

On Equatorial Guinea, the trial of mercenaries alleged to have plotted a coup in coordination with Simon Mann, currently standing trial in Zimbabwe, has begun. I have been trying to get a clear picture from news reports of what has been happening, but reports conflict. IOL explains:

Reporting of the case is difficult as South African journalists have been denied entry to the country and an agency report on Monday suggested Du Toit had agreed to the main charges.

Nick Du Toit and others have not let been asked to plead on charges. Du Toit has apparently been extensively crossexamined. IOL reports:

Alleged mercenary Nick du Toit denied in an Equatorial Guinea court on Monday that he had organised an attempted coup, said South Africa's ambassador Mokgethi Monaisa.

When the prosecutor put it to him his denial was inconsistent with a confession he had allegedly signed in prison in Malabo, Du Toit said his evidence in court was right and he knew nothing about a confession.

Du Toit's denial of the main charge against him was relayed to the Cape Argus by Monaisa, who is attending the trial.

Whereas South Africa's News 24 reports:

Du Toit told the court on Monday, when the trial opened, that he was in charge of logistics for an attempted putsch to oust the long-time leader of the oil-rich central African nation.  . . .

The South African told Equatorial Guinea's attorney general on Monday that he had accepted the job at the request of Simon Mann, the alleged leader of 70 other suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe days after Obiang announced the coup had been thwarted.

The mercenaries held in Zimbabwe were allegedly due to join Du Toit and the others in Equatorial Guinea to carry out the coup.

Du Toit, who served with the South African special forces in the apartheid era, was evasive on Monday when questioned about his exact role, in particular whether he was involved in the planned attack on a police barracks.

"It was more than six months ago," he said. "I don't remember any more but I think so."

He also said his co-accused were not aware of what was being planned and that he had just asked them to meet people at the airport.

The state prosecutor said on Monday he is seeking the death penalty for Du Toit and prison terms ranging from 26 years to 86 years for the other defendants.

Here's the Guardian's take on the testimony:

Prosecutors said the leaders planned to oust President Obiang using arms obtained in Zimbabwe and soldiers recruited in South Africa. The plotters allegedly hoped to replace him with Severo Moto, an opposition figure living in exile in Spain.

Mr du Toit repeated much of his previous confession in court today, saying he was to have been paid $1m for supplying information on the whereabouts of the president and other coup targets. He was also to have arranged for vehicles for the mercenaries, he said.

"I was told he [Mr Moto] would land in an aircraft 30 minutes after the main force had landed," Mr du Toit said in his opening testimony.

The defendant said that the alleged coup leader, British ex-SAS officer Simon Mann, had told him that the Spanish government would recognise the Moto government. "It had the blessing of some American higher-up politicians," he told the court. . . .

The criminal charges were read out to the largely English-speaking defendants in Spanish only, after an electronic translation system failed, and they had access to lawyers during only three hours shortly before the trial.

It will be interesting to see whether any evidence is offered other that the testimony of the prisoners trying to save their own lives.

Kathryn Cramer at August 24, 2004 11:34 AM | Link Cosmos | Purple Numbers  | Edit

I realized when I woke up this morning that when writing my post Is This World a Little Too Small?I had misread IOL's discussion of Raymond Stanley Archer. His testimony at the N4610 trial does not so much suggest that he worked for the American security company the Steele Foundation (which guarded Aristide prior to his removal from power), but rather that he was with Aristide after or perhaps even during.

One of the 70 alleged South African mercenaries on trial in Zimbabwe was guarding deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide days before he was taken into custody. . . . He said he had arrived back in South Africa three days earlier after an assignment as a bodyguard to Aristide . . . when a man whom he identified as James Kershaw contacted him on his cellphone.

Not much time passes between Aristide's last day in power, February 28th, and Archer finding himself in jail in Zimbabwe on March 7th. And according to Archer, he was at home in South Africa for three days in between. (Here's an Aristide timeline.)

On March 1st, Aristide was flown directly from Haiti to Central African Republic in a US chartered jet. He does not leave CAR for Jamaica until March 15th, by which time Archer is already in jail.

So there are only a few possibilities here: (1) I was right in the first place; Archer worked for Steele even though Steele's usual folks are former US special forces. (2) Archer was in Haiti and then in CAR with Aristide. Or (3) Archer was with Aristide only in CAR. Of the three possibilities, number 3 makes the least sense, because Archer is finished with the job and home by March 4th. And if he worked for Steele (1), wouldn't there have been fuss about American involvement if one of the men on N4610 had been employed by a US private military firm less than a week earlier? What looks most likely is that Archer's assignment was to help get Aristide out of Haiti to CAR; that he was part of the group that escorted/abducted (depending on your source) Aristide from Haiti.

Another question: who hired him to "guard" Aristide? If it wasn't Steele, it looks to be either the US government or a subcontractor. The US chartered the plane that took Aristide out of Haiti. Presumably whoever chartered the plane also took care of personnel needs. Was it the US Department of State? Colin Powell's choice of pronouns immediately after the fact suggests as much:

Mr Powell insisted: "He was not kidnapped. We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that's the truth."

Aristide's phone calls to the outside world immediately following his flight were apparently placed on a cell phone that had been "smuggled" into his room, so I doubt he did the booking, (unless of course Archer worked for Steele).

So this leaves us with a number of questions: First of all, how did a man who would have been vetted for security work either by a reputable US security firm or by the US government end up on N4610? Secondly, were any of the 10 men Archer said he recognized among the N4610 bunch similarly vetted? And had they had similar recent employment? And finally, who is "James Kershaw"?

The darkest interpretation of this odd linkage is that Archer is some kind of coup specialist, experienced at escorting heads of state from their home countries into exile.

UPDATE: In the comments on a nearby post somone who claims to have worked for Steele identifies Archer as a former Steele employee. Thanks!

I've been reading the coverage of the N4610 trial, waiting for something interesting to happen. The defense has concluded its arguments; the mercenaries will not be extradited to Equatorial Guinea.

But here's an interesting bit: Mercenary accused 'guarded' Haiti's Aristide:

Harare - One of the 70 alleged South African mercenaries on trial in Zimbabwe was guarding deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide days before he was taken into custody.

Raymond Stanley Archer told a makeshift court in Zimbabwe's maximum security jail on Thursday that he was having lunch with his ex-wife in Johannesburg when he got a phone call offering him a job to guard a mine.

He said he had arrived back in South Africa three days earlier after an assignment as a bodyguard to Aristide - who has since been granted temporary asylum in South Africa - when a man whom he identified as James Kershaw contacted him on his cellphone.

"He said if I could get to the airport within an hour, I could have the job. I met the rest of the accused and flew out. I had met about 10 of them before.

"As far as I was concerned, we stopped in Harare to refuel."

Now, I know it's a Small World After All, but wasn't a San Francisco-based company provinding Aristide's security? Wasn't it the Steele Foundation? Did Raymond Stanley Archerwork for Steele? How peculiar.

MEANWHILE, Derek Davids (aka Johnathan Constable), chief executive of International Intelligence Risk Management, has been released by South African police following a raid of his company's offices for suspected mercenary activity.

Oh, this is tasty. From the Independent: UK to fund 'security advisers' for Sierra Leone:

Britain is to pay for a private security firm to provide intelligence training and advice to Sierra Leone, the West African country slowly recovering from a 10-year civil war.

The revelation will raise fresh questions over the Government's close relationship with the security firms after the Sandline arms-to-Africa scandal.

The Department for International Development (DfID) is offering a 12-month contract to provide "intelligence and security advice" to the government of Sierra Leone, headed by President Ahmad Kabbah.

As well as training, the winning firm will work "at the highest level" with the country's new security service and even draft an official secrets act.

Security industry sources said Control Risks, Erinys International and Aegis Defence Services are possible bidders.

A bid from Aegis would embarrass the Government. The company is headed by Col Tim Spicer, the former Scots Guard who was at the centre of the arms-to-Africa affair. His former company, Sandline International, tried to smuggle arms to forces in Sierra Leone in 1998 in contravention of a UN arms embargo and in apparent collusion with the Foreign Office.

A spokeswoman for Mr Spicer refused to say if Aegis would bid for the contract in Sierra Leone. A DfID spokeswoman said: "All applications will be judged on their own merits."

It seems to me that some in the British government are so hot to lose the post in postimperial power that they do not stop to contemplate what they are creating when they fund these companies. I especially like the part about the winning company getting to draft an official secrets act. My guess such a law would make it illegal for the Independent to report on such contracts.

Elizabeth had trouble sleeping and so was awake until after midnight -- I think she's teething. So I'm short of time this morning. But here are a couple of items I want to blog even though I have no time this morning:

• Bush's EPA thinks it's not a problem if the pesticide atrazine disrupts your hormones. From the Washington Post:

Herbicide approvals are complicated, and there is no  one reason that atrazine passed regulatory muster in this country. But close observers give significant credit to a single sentence that was added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year. 

Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption. 

and

• the freelance jailers are standing trial in Kabul: BBC: Americans appear in Kabul trial:

The BBC's Andrew North, who is in the courtroom, says Mr Idema sometimes flung up his arms in apparent frustration, saying he had no access to the evidence he needs to defend himself.

Mr Idema claims this includes videos, photos and documents which he says were removed by US FBI officers after his arrest.

He said FBI agents had been present at one interrogation he had carried out of a man he described as a "terrorist".

In juxtaposition, these two unrelated news stories seem like elements from a satirical novel. If I had time, I could collect more. (Well, actually, if you skim down the main page of this blog, you will find more.)  But I have to stop now.

Oh, I almost forgot this gem from the New York Times. Okay, so here we are busily encouraging private military enterprise, and contracting with the likes of Victor Bout and Tim Spicer, but whom does the FBI chose to investigate as potential terrorists? You might think it would be the guys with the weapons. Guess again: it's peace activists.

[NOTE, 12/13: I have included the comment section of this post when resrrecting it in Typepad.]
John Cramer (my dad, for those who came in late) responds to issues raised in the the New Scientist Letter Column regarding the Afshar experiment. This just in via email:

Dear Kathryn,

        I sent the following letter-to-the-editor to New Scientist:

=======================================================

A number of your readers have pointed out that Afshar's grid wires are
placed in just the positions that would form a diffraction grating creating
an image of pinhole 1 at the position of the pinhole 2 image.  Does this
destroy the purity of Afshar's "which-way" measurement?

I raised the same question with Afshar earlier this year, and the answer is
no.   Reason: the wires intercept no light and so cannot diffract.  He has
done a variation of his experiment using ONLY A SINGLE WIRE and recorded all
the light in the focal plane of the pinholes under three conditions: (1)
wire in, one pinhole; (2) wire in, two pinholes; and (3) wire out, two
pinholes.  Measurement (1) shows lots of scattering from the wire away from
the image points, indicating that with only one pinhole open the wire is
intercepting and scattering light  Measurements (2) and (3) show clear
images of the pinholes with nothing in between and are indistinguishable.

Conclusion: no light is scattered or intercepted by the wire in measurement
(2) because the interference pattern is present, and the wire is at an
intensity-zero position of the pattern.  A single wire cannot function as a
diffraction grating.   Bohr is still wrong.

John G. Cramer
Professor of Physics
University of Washington

Kathryn Cramer at August  6, 2004 01:13 PM | Link Cosmos | Purple Numbers  | Edit

The delay in the N4610 trial combined with Simon Mann's smuggled note calling upon powerful friend with connections in UK conservative circle for help provide rich opportunities for the UK's investigative journalists. The Observer has a fine example of what is to come:

Mandelson rented flat from oil tycoon in coup claim: The European Commissioner's alleged links with a millionaire accused of backing a putsch bid in Africa are prompting questions

Peter Mandelson, the twice-sacked minister who is to be Britain's new European Commissioner, rented a luxury London home from the Lebanese millionaire now accused of funding an illegal African coup.

Mandelson's links to Ely Calil - the British-based tycoon who was Lord Archer's financial adviser - will once again raise questions about the former minister's links to rich businessmen.

Mandelson was forced to resign as Northern Ireland secretary in 2001 after he was accused of helping one of the Hinduja brothers obtain a British passport.

Calil, who made his fortune trading oil in Africa, is being sued in Britain for allegedly funding a coup to overthrow the president of the oil-rich west African state of Equatorial Guinea.

The Observer has now established that while Mandelson was Northern Ireland secretary he rented a luxury flat in the prestigious Holland Park area which had been offered to him by Calil. The property was then owned by one of Calil's trust funds.

The N4610 trial doesn't resume until August 18th, which given plenty of time for journalists to crawl all over this and other conservative connections. Enjoy.

MEANWHILE, in the comments, Steven Kaye points out an Independent article:

Mercenaries in trouble spots to be regulated

New laws to regulate mercenaries and private security firms who supply armed guards in trouble spots such as Iraq and Afghanistan are being considered by the Government.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, is said to believe that the arguments in favour of a new law have been strengthened by events in Iraq. Ministers say the companies play a valuable role in keeping the peace but acknowledge the "new situation" must be addressed.

Ministers had argued a law would be unworkable, but the growing reliance on the companies in Iraq has prompted a rethink. Contractors employed by the US supervised interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison, where Iraqis were abused.

The article does not give any specifics about what regulations they are considering, but does contain a plum toward the end:

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "It is almost impossible to prevent the spread of the use of private military companies. It makes sense to ensure they are regulated."

It is NOT impossible to prevent the spread of the use of PMFs, but the UK lacks the national will. "Security services" are one of the top UK exports since the beginning of the Iraq war. Politicians lack the political will to turn off the taps even though the privatization of military force is a huge power give-away on the part of the government. They could stop it now if they wanted to. Later they won't be able to.

There was some discussion of regulation of PMFs in Parliament following the Sandline Affair. I don't know if anything came of it.

But for starters, there is an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention, International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989, that the UK should sign onto. That would be a step in the right direction. Then Parliament could pass laws aimed at bringing the UK into compliance (as in the case of New Zealand). Those are a couple of concrete steps the UK could take but almost certainly won't. Too much money is at stake.

ALSO, the Guardian's piece on the Mandelson connection quotes a few more intriguing details from Mann's jailhouse correspondence:

New documents suggest Thatcher had financial ties with Mann. A letter written by Mann and smuggled out of his prison cell in Zimbabwe shows that Mann was expecting Thatcher to make a $200,00 investment in a 'project', although he does not specify what project. 

The letter states: 'This is a situation that calls for everyone to act in concert. It may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course investors did not think this would happen. Did I? 

'Do they think they can be part of something like this with only upside potential - no hardship or risk of this going wrong. Anyone and everyone in this is in it - good times or bad. 

'Now its bad times and everyone has to F-ing well pull their full weight. Anyway... was expecting project funds inwards to Logo [Mann's firm] from Scratcher (200)'. Scratcher is Mann's nickname for Thatcher. A spokesman for Mr Thatcher has denied that he had any knowledge of the coup plot. 

Does anyone know if Mann's letter appears anywhere on the Internet in its entirety?

As the N4610 trial unfolds, Simon Mann has pleaded guilty to a charge of "attempting to possess dangerous weapons" [CNN], and the lead defense attorney has resigned [Mail & Guardian, South Africa]:

The head of the defence team for 70 suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea has withdrawn from the case, his associates said on Wednesday.

Veteran South African attorney Francois Joubert, a specialist in security and terrorism cases, "is no longer a member of the defence team", said fellow lawyer Alwyn Griebenow.

He refused to give a reason. Joubert was not immediately available for comment.

The BBC has a profile of Simon Mann in which they quote from a letter he wrote:

If proven, the charges against them could lead to deportation, decades in detention or a possible death sentence.

Mr Mann, a veteran of several wars, is understandably unnerved.

In a letter smuggled out of his prison cell and quoted by British newspapers, the former British soldier says only "major clout" can save him. 

He says they would be doomed if they got "into a real trial scenario". 

I agree with Mann's assessment of his situation. I am of two minds about his trial. On the one hand, I believe everyone should have a fair trial and I am opposed to the death penalty, and Zimbabwe would not be high on my list of places I would choose to stand trial. But on the other hand, this trial is one of the few forces working against the pernicious trend toward military privatization.

Meanwhile, someone has been attempting to blackmail Margaret Thatcher's son regarding his relationship with Mann. The telegraph reports "The would-be blackmailers are believed to be linked to Afrikaner members of the alleged mercenary gang who have fallen out with Mr Mann since their arrest in Harare." I'm not sure I understand this quite. Are they saying that friends of the mercenaries imprisoned with Mann are angry at Mann and are trying to blackmail Thatcher?

The Telegraph further reports that a letter from Mann smuggled out of the prison was addressed to "Scratcher":

Mr Mann had smuggled a letter out of his Harare prison cell asking for help from "Scratcher", understood to be rhyming slang for Thatcher.

Is this the same letter quoted from above? How interesting.

UPDATE (via Polytropus): I think there's only one letter, described by the Guardian as a "confidential letter smuggled out of Mann's tiny solitary confinement cell to his wife and legal team":

A confidential letter smuggled out of Mann's tiny solitary confinement cell to his wife and legal team pleads for help from a host of friends including the two he calls 'Scratcher' and 'Smelly'. 

South African sources close to Mann's circle claim that Scratcher is none other than Sir Mark Thatcher, the controversial son of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Mark has a home close to Mann's in a luxury suburb of Cape Town and is now reputedly worth £60m from a string of ventures in America and the Middle East. 

And the nickname 'Smelly' is believed to refer to Ely Calil, the Chelsea-based millionaire oil trader, who is accused by the Equatorial Guinean government of helping to organise the coup from his home in West London. Calil is a friend and one-time financial adviser to the disgraced Tory peer, Lord Archer. 

Mann's letter, dated 21 March, states: 'Our situation is not good and it is very urgent. They [the lawyers] get no reply from Smelly and Scratcher [who] asked them to ring back after the Grand Prix race was over! This is not going well.' 

Later he writes: 'I must say once again: what will get us out is major clout. We need heavy influence of the sort that Smelly, Scratcher, David Hart and it needs to be used heavily and now. Once we get into a real trial scenario we are f****d'. (Even in solitary confinement in the notorious Chikurubi prison, Mann's upper-class British background apparently prevents him from swearing on the page despite the desperate situation he faces). 

But the reference to Hart has also intrigued British lawyers acting for Obiang. On behalf of the dictator, law firm Penningtons has launched a multi-million-dollar civil action for damages in Britain against Calil and Mann for conspiring to try to murder their client. 

Hart is the former Old Etonian millionaire adviser to Margaret Thatcher and was her chief enforcer during the 1984 miners' strike. He also served as a special adviser to Michael Portillo and Malcolm Rifkind when they were ministers under previous Tory governments. Hart is known to have excellent access to the US administration and worked closely with CIA boss Bill Casey in the early and mid-1980s. More recently he has worked as a middle man for a number of defence contractors. 

Here's the question that comes to my mind: Why does he think these people will be willing to help him? Because they're buddies and will do anything to get a friend out of trouble? When does this cross the line into a situation in which help is expected because there was some kind of prior approval and support? And whose approval and support might this be? Can this get any curiouser?

AND here's a tidbit I missed, in the paid sub part of the Financial Times:

Dyncorp seeks to overturn Iraq contract

Dyncorp, the Texas-based private military contractor, is seeking to overturn the largest private security deal in Iraq, claiming that the contract was improperly awarded.

The US army surprised many in the industry last month when it awarded a $293m (€237m, £158m) contract to co-ordinate private security companies in Iraq to Aegis Defence Services - a small UK start-up with no experience in Iraq. More controversially, the company is run by Tim Spicer, a former British army officer who was at the centre of a political scandal in the UK during the late 1990s.

Dyncorp, which lost out on the contract, has a long and close relationship with the US government, performing a range of tasks including guarding military compounds and training the Iraqi police.

Dyncorp has submitted a formal protest to the audit arm of the US Congress, the Government Accountability Office, which will rule on the dispute by September 30.

In its complaint, a copy of which was obtained the Financial Times, Dyncorp draws attention to Mr Spicer's past involvement in the "Sandline affair" of 1998, in which a company he was director of sold arms to Sierra Leone in contravention of a United Nations embargo.

IOL in South Africa has an interesting follow-up piece on the N4610 story and its unfolding in the courts, Government determined to put down dogs of war. The main thrust is whether South Africa, furstrated by the ineffectiveness of its anti-mercenary laws, is making an example of the merecenaries by being unwilling to help them get out of the jails of Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. But they also have an intresting historical summary which made me nearly snort the coffee I was sipping:

South Africa's history as a seedbed for mercenaries dates back to the 1960s when its men fought in the Belgian Congo but it took off in the early 1990s when the end of apartheid put many highly-trained soldiers on the market for lucrative work.

Of the myriad of security firms and "private armies" that emerged from South Africa, the most well-known is Executive Outcomes, set up by Simon Mann who is accused of being the leader of the group of 70 suspected mercenaries going on trial in Harare on Wednesday.

In the early 1990s, Executive Outcomes helped the Angolan government protect oil installations from rebels during the civil war but it went out of business when the government adopted its 1998 Foreign Military Assistance Act barring mercenary work.

Mann was later involved in setting up British-based Sandline International that helped the government in Sierra Leone obtain arms in 1995 in violation of a United Nations embargo.

Sandline closed shop in April of this year due to what it described as a "the general lack of government support for private military companies."

"Without such support the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished," said a Sandline statement posted on its website.

They should have quoted the entire Sandline exit line. The bit crucial to IOL's insinuation that that Sandline is in some way involved with N4610 is in the absence of effective international intervention. (For example?)

The trial of the mercenaries in Zimbabwe, which was to have opened today, has been delayed until tomorrow.

As the Iraq hand-over vibrates from tragedy to comedy I have to admit, the last thing in the world I expected was for the largest security contract for Iraq's reconstruction to be awarded to Aegis, a company run by Tim Spicer, a self-described "unorthodox soldier," an outside-the-box military thinker with a reputation and a published autobiography who sees himself as "an interesting animal" that the public wants to know about. I missed this story when it first broke in June (though DefenseTech and  USAmnesia were on task). Spicer was formerly the CEO of Sandline, though according to the corporate web site he stepped down in 2000 to pursue his own projects. Under his guidance, Sandline was involved in two scandals, one involving Papua New Guinea and one involving Sierra Leone. I will not wax hyperbolic here. Much fascinating reading awaits the reader who wishes to discover the details of the Sandline intrigues.

I have been mulling over Spicer's new contract for a little while, struck quite speechless by this novelistic development. Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute attributes the awarding of this contract to incompetence at the Pentagon, and surely some of that came into play. Indeed no wiser head bothered to type Tim Spicer into Google. But as we have seen from the Abu G scandal and the resulting release of memos, the current regime in the Pentagon is rather fond of unorthodox thinking, so I just can't see the Aegis contract as the pure result of incompetence and lack of background checks. In my humble opinion, Spicer got the job because of his no-more-Mister-Nice-Guy reputation, not in spite of it.

But let us not talk as if the contract had gone to Sandline itself. I started blogging private military firm in March with the advent of the N4610 affair. As of late March, Sandline was still in operation. But checking back with them, I see now Sandline closed its doors, at the height of the PMF goldrush, just a little over a month after N4610 and the load of mercenaries were detained:

On 16 April 2004 Sandline International announced the closure of the company's operations.

The general lack of governmental support for Private Military Companies willing to help end armed conflicts in places like Africa, in the absence of effective international intervention, is the reason for this decision. Without such support the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished.

Meanwhile, as Spicer sails toward new-found fortune, his "good mate" (An Unorthodox Soldier, p. 143) Simon Mann, awaits trial in Zimbabwe. Such is the Hand of Fate.

AND SPEAKING OF JAW-DROPPING MERCENARY STORIES, check this one out:

When Afghan police burst into the large suburban house in Kabul, they were not expecting to see three men strapped to the ceiling and hanging by their feet.

This was supposedly an import business, after all.

But as they released the men, and five other captives who were also in the house, officers realised they had stumbled upon a private jail where Afghan prisoners were being locked up and tortured.

(Via the Yorkshire Ranter. See also Josh Marshall.) Are private jails a growth industry? It would be a great gig for suburban housewives. We've got basements! We know all about discipline! We're home anyway! I should really get in touch with the CIA.

ALSO, Bruce Sterling, writing for Wired, is fun on the subject of our mercenary future. (Via Body & Soul.)

You may well be wondering what news is being papered over by the all Reagan all the time coverage recently. Well, here's an item of interest from the AP via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

HOUSTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is formally investigating allegations that a Halliburton Co. subsidiary was involved in paying $180 million in bribes to get a natural gas project contract in Nigeria. Vice President Dick Cheney was head of the oil services conglomerate at the time.

Most of the news stories tactfully refrain from mentioning Cheney, but these seem to be the very same allegations the French government took an interest in a while back.

Here is a terrific approach to the problem of what to do about errant private military firms. The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed suit. While it would have been nice if the Justice Department had made some effort to file criminal charges against civillian contractors involved in the torture scandal and maybe even make a few arrests, there are other avenues to justice. And even if the government chooses not to pursue it, laws against torture are on the books here. So I think this is an approach with some real teeth to it:

Two U.S. corporations conspired with U.S. officials to humiliate, torture and abuse persons detained by U.S. authorities in Iraq according to a class action lawsuit filed June 9, 2004, by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads. The suit, filed in federal court in San Diego, names as defendants the Titan Corporation of San Diego, California and CACI International of Arlington, Virginia and its subsidiaries, and three individuals who work for the companies.Ý It charges them with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and alleges that the companies engaged in a wide range of heinous and illegal acts in order to demonstrate their abilities to obtain intelligence from detainees, and thereby obtain more contracts from the government.

The lawsuit charges that three individual defendants, Stephen Stephanowicz and John Israel of CACI, Inc. and Adel Nahkla of Titan, directed and participated in illegal conduct at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.Ý Further it alleges that CACI International and Titan created a joint enterprise with a third party that became known as Team Titan.Ý The joint enterprise was hired by the U.S. to provide interrogation services in Iraq.

The action also brings claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), and the 8th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as other U.S. and international laws.ÝÝ

According to the Complaint, the plaintiffs in the case suffered at the hands of Defendants and their co-conspiring government officials.Ý Plaintiffs endured the following:Ý
€ÝBeing hooded and raped
€ÝBeing forced to watch their father tortured and abused so badly that he died
€ÝRepeated beatings, including beatings with chains, boots and other objects
€ÝBeing stripped naked and kept in isolation
€ÝBeing urinated on and otherwise humiliated
€ÝBeing prevented from praying and otherwise abiding by their religious practices

The Financial Times has a story on the suit: Contractors in Iraq face class-action lawsuit

The suit is noteworthy . . . in that it accuses the companies not merely of being negligent in supervising its employees, but of using torture as part of their business strategy.

Let's all give CCR money to pursue this. DONATE HERE!

(See also my post John Israel Has Been Found. Will Ashcroft Prosecute?.)

UPDATE: Fox News makes an interesting point about the suit, namely that it makes use of laws previously used to prosecute organized crime:

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, where Titan, the larger of the two defendants, is headquartered. It alleges violations of theÝRacketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (search), the 1970 law that often is used by government prosecutors to go after organized crime.

As I have remarked before, it is very difficult to distinguish an errant private military firm from organized crime.

I do wonder why SOS, John Israel's employer was not named in the suit. They should be.

MEANWHILE, memorial services shown on a big screen TV in the elemenatry school cafeteria. Peter took a very pragmatic attitude: Well, if he died and he has a son, then his son can have his stuff. I replied that yes, he had a son and that his son grew up to be a ballet dancer. I Peter found this a truly fascinating fact.

(I wonder if this son is dead, since he doesn't seem to be part of this celebration. From the media coverage, one would think George W. Bush was Reagan's son.)

From the coverage on the CNN web site, I can only imagine what their TV coverage is like. I'm really glad we don't have cable. Why, exactly, are pictures of a plane taking off carrying Reagan's corpse or of people standing in line newsworthy?

But since the Reaganfest will be on all week, my friend Ken Houghton is taking suggestions for music to mourn Reagan by. Here is his list so far:

1. Bonzo Goes to Washington, "Five Minutes"
2. Don Henley, "The End of the Innocence" (may replace with "If Dirt were Dollars" for the Fawn Hall reference)
3. Earth, Wind, and Fire, "System of Survival"
4. The Ramones, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg"
5. The Dead Kennedys's "California Uber Alles."

Further suggestions are welcome.

Just when I think I won't see much new about the N4610 plot any time soon, Charlie Stross sends me a link to a Guardian/Observer story that circles around from tales of civilian contractors in Iraq right back to N4610 just as neatly as a Garrison Keillor anecdote:

Mercenaries in 'coup plot' guarded UK officials in Iraq: Shocked MP demands a rethink of the way government awards its security contracts. Special report by Antony Barnett, Solomon Hughes and Jason Burke

Mercenaries accused of planning a coup in an oil-rich African state also worked under contract for the British government providing security in Iraq, raising fears about the way highly sensitive security work is awarded, The Observer has learnt.

The Department for International Development (DfID) signed a ��250,000 deal last summer with the South-African based Meteoric Tactical Solutions (MTS) to provide 'close protection' for department staff, including bodyguards and drivers for its senior official in Iraq.

Two of the firm's owners were arrested in Zimbabwe last March with infamous British mercenary and former SAS officer Simon Mann. The men are accused of plotting an armed coup in Equatorial Guinea.

MTS is based in Pretoria and run by former members of South African special forces. Its owners are Lourens 'Hecky' Horn, Hermanus Carlse and Festus van Rooyen. Horn, the firm's Iraq contact when the contract with Britain was signed, is now in Chikurubi prison in Zimbabwe with Carlse.  . . . 

MTS director Festus van Rooyen, who is based in Iraq, confirmed his company's contract with the department and the arrest of his former partners, but denied all knowledge of alleged wrongdoing. He claimed that MTS had worked for Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair and the Queen.

His fellow directors were on leave when they were arrested. 'I was shocked when I heard of their arrest. Activity like that is totally against company policy,' he said. 

Horn was in charge of the company in Iraq, including the British contract, until last February when he returned to South Africa to 'chill out on a hunting farm'. 

MORE HOT STUFF! Phil Carter discusses a new DoD memo in the hands of The Wall Street Journal:

Normally, I would say that there is a fine line separating legal advice on how to stay within the law, and legal advice on how to avoid prosecution for breaking the law.  DoD and DoJ lawyers often provide this first kind of sensitive legal advice to top decisionmakers in the Executive Branch (regardless of administration) who want to affirm the legality of their actions.  Often times, memoranda on these topics can be seen both ways, depending on your perspective.  I tend to think that the Yoo memorandum and Gonzales memorandum leaned more heavily towards providing advice about how to stay (barely) within the bounds of the law — not how to break the law and get away with it.  But this DoD memo appears to be quite the opposite.  It is, quite literally, a cookbook approach for illegal government conduct.  This memorandum lays out the substantive law on torture and how to avoid it.  It then goes on to discuss the procedural mechanisms with which torture is normally prosecuted, and techniques for avoiding those traps.  I have not seen the text of the memo, but from this report, it does not appear that it advises American personnel to comply with international or domestic law.  It merely tells them how to avoid it.  That is dangerous legal advice.

(Via Atrios.)

This just in from CNN: Bush: Tenet resigns as CIA director. I wonder what this is about. Did Tenet take the fall for Rumsfeld over Abu G? Or is this about the Chalabi-Iran code-breaking thing?  Or is this just another clearing of the decks for W part II? (CNN mentions something about pre-war Iraq intelligence. But if that is the real issue, a whole lot more resignations ought ot be forthcoming in short order, which I doubt.) Personally, I'm glad to see Tenet go. But this administration needs a bottom-to-top housecleaning. Can we have Rumsfeld next? (Pretty please? With Cheney on top?)

According to CNN's update a couple of minutes ago, Dep. Director John McLaughlin will be the interim director.

ALSO from CNN: Flashes and booms over Puget Sound, but CNN does not report them as UFOs. There is no truth to the rumor that the flashes were caused by the Bush administrations plans for a democratic Iraq burning up in the atmosphere as they returned to Earth.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting passage from the Financial Times, May 16th (by subscription):

The New Yorker magazine on Saturday quoted several intelligence officials blaming the Pentagon's political leadership for setting up a clandestine interrogation programme, first used in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. . . .

The story points to long-standing resentment within the CIA at the rival intelligence operations cultivated by Mr Rumsfeld, which has begun to undermine the US military's efforts to blame the Abu Ghraib scandal on a few errant soldiers.

Hmm. Maybe Tenet's camp was perceived as being a bit too chummy with Sy Hersh.

MEANWHILE, The Yorkshire Ranter has run several good posts on arms dealer Victor Bout and his associates.

Joel Brinkley (NYT) has tracked down John Israel (mentioned in the Taguba report). He denies not only any involvement with abuse or torture of prisoners but also having witnessed any. In his version, someone else in the scandal fingered him, inotherwords, he claims he was framed.

Given the timing of his departure from Iraq -- "a few weeks ago" -- it is fair to assume that, like Steve Stefanowicz, he too remained on the job at Abu G despite the Taguba report.

OK Ashcroft: the press has found the man for you. Arrest him. From the Washington Post, May 7th:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that killings or abuse of military detainees in Iraq that involved civilian contractors could be prosecuted by the Justice Department under several statutes, including civil rights violations and anti-torture laws.

Go to it, Jonnyboy! Prosecute!

Now why is it that we're having to rely on the press to find our alleged war criminals for us? What about, say, the FBI?

Brinkley has unearthed another interesting fact: Almost none of the translators working in Abu G had security clearances. Now, I do not consider a security clearance much of a moral vetting, but isn't this a HUGE security hole brought on by privatization? Shouldn't whoever in the military was in charge of staffing Abu G with translators without security clearances be at very least disciplined? Isn't the information gained from jailhouse interrogations supposed to be secret?

(Thanks, Mitchell and David.)

I just about jumped out of my chair reading Josh Marshall's new post discussing the NYT article C.I.A. Bid to Keep Some Detainees Off Abu Ghraib Roll Worries Officials.

In one of several cases in which an Iraqi prisoner died at Abu Ghraib in connection with interrogations, a hooded man identified only by his last name, Jamadi, slumped over dead on Nov. 20 as he was being questioned by a C.I.A. officer and translator, intelligence officials said. The incident is being investigated by the C.I.A.'s inspector general, and military officials have said that the man, whose body was later packed in ice and photographed at Abu Ghraib, had never been assigned a prisoner number, an indication that he had never been included on any official roster at the prison.

The memorandum criticizing the practice of keeping prisoners off the roster was signed by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and a James Bond, who is identified as "SOS, Agent in Charge." Military and intelligence officials said that they did not know of a Mr. Bond who had been assigned to Abu Ghraib, and that it was possible that the name was an alias.

An intelligence official said Monday that he could not confirm the authenticity of the document, and that neither "SOS" or "Agent in Charge" was terminology that the C.I.A. or any other American intelligence agency would use. A military official said he believed that the document was authentic and was issued on or about Jan. 12, two days before abuses at Abu Ghraib involving military police were brought to the attention of Army investigators.

SOS is SOS Interpreting, Ltd. of 99 Wall Street in New York City. As discussed in my most recent post on "John Israel," SOS was Israel's employer. In that post I also suggested that SOS had other employees in the prison, on the basis that their employment ads suggested that their interrogation people worked in teams. Given the NYT's suggestion that "James Bond, SOS Agent in Charge" is operating under a pseudonym, this amplifies my suspicions voiced in another post that "John Israel" is also a pseudonym.

James Bond indeed.

PS: I emailed the NYT on the 23rd trying to get them interested in checking whether SOS had more employees at Abu G and was told that they'd already covered it and given links to "Role of Private Firms in Iraq Questioned" by the Associated Press and "Translator Questioned by Army in Iraq Abuse" by Joel Brinkley (NYT), which do no such thing. I'm going to take this opportunity to tell the NYT I told you so. (Sorry to be so smug, but this may be my only chance!)

The BBC:

Two Britons were killed in Iraq on Monday in a rocket attack outside coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed that two British civilians had died and one had been injured.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the deaths were shocking and showed the risks civilians had to take in Iraq.

The Foreign Office later confirmed that one of the Britons who died was working for international business risk consultancy Control Risks Group.

What is Control Risks Group, you might ask. Is it an insurance company or something?

This April article by Paul McGeough describes the company's Iraq presence as a "1100-strong private army of former British SAS, Nepalese and Fijian soldiers also guards 500 British civil servants." Civilians indeed.

So, is the dead CRG man an SAS retread? Soldiers in a war zone are not civilians not matter who signs their paycheck.

The Telegraph now reports that only one of the two dead men worked for CRG, and that the other was an advisor to the CPA "paid by the foreign office."

My correspondent Mitchell, true to his word, has dug up the name of John Israel's employer out of a Washington Post article I skimmed too fast yesterday:

SIDELIGHT
Jay Evenson, the editor of the editorial page of The Deseret News in Salt lake City, and also the husband of a close friend of mine, makes an effort to meet his readers' demand for good news from Iraq.

The third civilian identified in the [Taguba] report, John Israel, is accused in the Army report of lying to investigators about seeing interrogations that violated the rules. Israel could not be reached to comment. He worked for a Titan subcontractor, SOS Interpreting Ltd.

"He was an employee of SOS -- I am not sure if he is at this point," said Bruce Crowell, chief financial officer of SOS Interpreting.

In its help-wanted ads, SOS describes itself this way:

Organization Profile: SOSI is a woman-owned, family operated company based in New York City. The company has been operating for 12 years with revenues over $30 million. Primary customers has been Federal/State law enforcement agencies and defense contracts and developing new partnerships with some of the biggest companies. We have contracts in several states in the nation, i.e., Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Boston, New York, Puerto Rico, and others. We are developing new partnerships because our ability to place cleared people in key contracts throughout the world. Our core competencies include: International Linguist Support/Translation and Interpretation Services, Foreign language training, Intelligence Facility Management, Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Psychological operations, counterterrorism, counter-narcotics, peacekeeping and civil affairs, force protection, private security, government program management & acquisition, telecommunications, satellite & high frequency radio communication systems and information technology & systems support, Administrative Outsourcing.

Company Benefits: Competitive salary, Medical, Dental, 401, Life Insurance, hazard duty pay, contract completion bonuses for some assignments.

Overview of Opportunities: Intelligence Collections and Analyst; Counterintelligence Agents and Analyst; HUMINT Collections; Linguist.

Company Locations: We maintain offices in New York City, NY; Reston, VA and have staffs throughout the US, South America & Caribbean Basin, Western & Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Here is a help-wanted ad from last September for SOS Arabic translators:

University or Organization: SOS Interpreting LTD
Rank of Job: Translator
Specialty Areas: Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Translation
Required Language(s): Arabic, Algerian Saharan Spoken (Code = AAO); Arabic, Standard (Code = ABV); Arabic, Mesopotamian Spoken (Code = ACM); Arabic, Gulf Spoken (Code = AFB); Pashto, Southern (Code =PBT); Pashto, Northern (Code = PBU); Pashto, Central (Code = PST)

Description:
SOS Interpreting LTD is looking to hire native arabic linguists that are fluent in reading, writing, and speaking Arabic, and English, for overseas positions. Candidates must be U.S. Citizens. We offer excellent salaries, and benefits.

The contact at SOS is listed as Mr. Raphy Kasselian, and the address of the company is in Fairfax, Virginia.(They also have an office in Manhattan on Wall Street.) Although applicants must be US citizens, there is no mention of a required security clearance. One of the things Taguba noted about John Israel that has lead to speculation that he was Israeli is that he lacked a security clearance. What it sounds like here is that in the general chaos that prevailed at Abu G, someone, whether in military intelligence or from the CIA, hauled in a translator that had no business setting foot in the prison. Or perhaps Titan's contract with the US government required translators to have security clearances, but not SOS's contract with Titan. (See below for a more speculative hypothesis.)

Another help-wanted ad gives more on the terms of employment:

SOS Interpreting, LTD, a professional translation and interpretation firm in New York, is seeking an individual who speaks fluent Uzbek and English to work as a full-time translator/interpreter. Must be a US citizen. Work involves extended travel to Uzbekistan and other locations in the US and abroad. Salary is $75,000 per annum plus 15% hazard duty pay while overseas ($11,250 per annum). Benefits include a comprehensive health plan, pension, paid vacations, and paid personal days. Interested persons should call Julian M. Setian, Executive Vice President, SOS Interpreting, LTD.

And from intelligencecareers.com here are more SOS ads.

I note from these ads that SOS seems to employ civilian interrogators in Iraq.

HUMINT Collectors For Iraq (JobNr 86107) . . .
Location of Position: Various Locations, (Iraq) . . .

Employment Type: full-time
Security Requirements: Secret

THIS POSITION REQUIRES US CITIZENSHIP AND MINIUMUM OF SECRET CLEARANCE
€ Works under the management of a Senior CI agent
€ Conduct interrogations of detainees
€ Write reports
€ When not employed as interrogator and producing reports, assist in the HUMINT reporting system maintenance to include Brigade Black/White/Gray list, support screening operations and conducts liaison of to support interrogation operations
Requirements:
€ Trained interrogator with at least 5 years experience in interrogation
€ Completion of interrogator school
€ Knowledgeable of Army/Joint interrogation procedures, data processing systems such CHIMs and SIPRNET search engines
€ Position requires former MOS 97E, 351E, or civilian/joint service equivalents. ASI0N and N7 desired
€ Knowledge of the Arabic language and culture a plus
€ Secret clearance
€ Position requires performance of work 12 hours/day, six days/week

A couple of things strike me about this ad. First of all, the interrogator "works under the management of a Senior [Counter Intelligence] agent." On the same web site, SOS has an ad for Senior CI Agent For Iraq (JobNr 86104). So we can assume that their civilian interrogators report to people who are also civilian contract employees. Secondly, I wonder where one goes to "interrogator school." Casting around a bit, I gather the answer to this question is Fort Huachuca, AZ. So, really, these folks are not civilians in the usual sense, but military retreads.

So, let's return to the question of John Israel, whom we now think is probably a US citizen. Here, I'm going to speculate for a minute. So, SOS's interrogators report to SOS's CI Agents; to whom do SOS's Arab linguists report in a prison setting? I would guess to either an SOS interrogator or to an SOS CI Agent. Superficially, it sounded like John Israel was just dragged in off the street out of pure carelessness, but if the Titan subcontract was a larger package, perhaps this whole three-tier SOS chain of command was imported, with the SOS guys bringing in their own interrogator even though he lacked a security clearance because he worked for their company and he was whom they had available to them. This implies that there are several other SOS employees whose names we ought to know, since a translator without a security clearance and perhaps without a military background would be at the bottom of the totem pole.

And by the way, how does a company specializing in translation get into the interrogation business anyway? This sounds to me like a gold rush phenomenon.

Finally, in the midst of this huge scandal, I wonder why Bruce Crowell, chief financial officer of SOS Interpreting, who spoke to the Washington Post, hadn't bothered to find out whether John Israel still worked for the company. Although we are getting warmer, John Israel remains a man of mystery.