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Brussels to investigate US contracts in Iraq

national | miscellaneous | news report

Saturday April 12, 2003 14:51

by corruption gone global

corruption gone global

Brussels to investigate US contracts in Iraq
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Synd/StoryFT/FTFull&artid=1048313659147

By Tobias Buck in Brussels Apr 10 2003 19:19

The European Commission is examining contracts awarded by the US for reconstruction work in Iraq to find out whether they breach World Trade Organisation rules and discriminate unfairly against European companies.

The move could throw up a new irritant at a time when relations between Washington and Brussels are already severely strained by the highly critical stance adopted by many European Union members towards the war in Iraq.

Comments (2 of 2)

Dyncorp Wants You

by Dyncorp

Sat Apr 12, 2003 15:07

Dyncorp Wants You

also check out
http://www.policemission.com/iraq.asp

That plan appears to be almost ready. Half a world away from the bedlam in Iraq, just outside of Forth Worth, Texas, police recruiters are currently manning the phones for Dyncorp, a multi-billion dollar military Contractor. For Dyncorp the turmoil that is emerging in Iraq could mean a boom in business.

"When the area is safe, we will go in. Watch CNN. In the meantime fax us a resume if you want a job," Homer Newman, a Dyncorp recruiter told Corpwatch. But Chuck Wilkins, a company spokesman in Virginia, said: "The contract hasn't yet been awarded."

Yet a website has been offering Dyncorp jobs to "individuals with appropriate experience and expertise to participate in an international effort to re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq." The company is looking for active duty or recently retired cops and prison guards and "experienced judicial experts." Applicants must be US citizens with ten years of sworn civilian domestic law enforcement. The site even has a toll free number and a "cops.recruiting@dyncorp.com" email address for applicants.

The website explains that recruits will help "establish police stations and monitor activities determining the selection, screening and training processes for police officers, demonstrating police practices and techniques used by democratic societies advising local police on criminal investigation methods and monitoring their progress working side-by-side with police officers from around the world reporting humanitarian violation."

Dyncorp has plenty of experience in the rent-a-cop field in other hot spots: Armed DynCorp employees make up the core of the police force in Bosnia. DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai, while DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions over the coca crops in Colombia. Back home in the United States Dyncorp is in charge of the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. The company also reviews security clearance applications of military and civilian personnel for the Navy.

Oooh, investigated by Brussels, that's scary.

by Irish American

Mon Apr 14, 2003 03:36

Guess what? The USA is not ruled from Brussels the way Ireland is.