AEGIS "shoot 'em up gang" wins biggest DOD contract in Iraq

Press release from Aegis website today

AEGIS Wins Contract Renewal

Aegis Defence Services Limited, a security and risk management company, has won the renewal of the US Department of Defense's (DOD) contract to provide Reconstruction Security Support Services in Iraq.

This two year contract, the largest single security contract awarded by DOD, is anticipated to be valued up to $475 million.

Tim Spicer, Aegis CEO, stated, "We are very pleased to receive this award which we believe is a fine reflection of both our previous performance and our ongoing commitment to serve our client, the US Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Regional Division (GRD), to the best of our ability."

Since 2004, under the original contract, has Aegis provided a command, control, communication, intelligence and security framework to GRD - enabling the reconstruction effort to take place in as secure an environment as possible. During this period, Aegis has travelled over three million miles throughout Iraq and completed over 20,000 missions.

"We are delighted to continue supporting DOD. A secure environment will allow Iraq's critical reconstruction to continue and help create the conditions that will enable the country to re-establish itself as a self-supporting nation" Spicer said.

The announcement of the award means Aegis will have worked continuously in Iraq since the start of its original three year contract in June 2004.

Washington Post story today
Lord Patel post February this year

Pics above from the AEGIS "trophy" video shot by their security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians. The video, appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad. The Video is on Google Video and was there 5 minutes ago

Dottore John Reid - final evidence of insanity

"The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one."

Adolf Hitler . March 23rd 1933 proposing the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act)..or more formally Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation").

The home affairs and interior ministers of the G6 - the six largest EU nations - are meeting this weekend on the serene and beautiful island of San Clemente, Venice (pic) - US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and EU security chief Franco Frattini are also enjoying the italian sunshine.

Dottore John Reid the Home Secretary of the new slimmed down Home Office (I'll have that without Justice) is there - and he should fucking well stay there.

He gave a speech in which he called for human rights laws to be rewritten to "protect people against terrorism."

The current situation was "unacceptable", he said because politicians failed to protect citizens by following case law "to the letter" - which is what most legal johnnies not on the Government's payroll understand by the precept amd practice of legal precedents.

This Titan of Jurisprudence demanded of his illustrious colleagues that the international legal system needed "modernising", the distinction between armed conflict and criminal acts was he screamed, out of date... presumably meaning ... for example ... that the illegal and criminal invasion of Iraq ought not not to be tramelled by International agreements, solemnly signed and sealed in peace and without duress... and that any leaders who undertook such acts were ... well .. inoccent.

"We need to work to modernise the law - still protecting human rights and still providing equity and justice - but reflecting the reality of the conflicts and struggles we now face."

The right to security, to the protection of life and liberty, is and should be the basic right on which all others are based he read out.

"We need leadership to do this. It can't be left solely to the lawyers."

Well fuck me, we cannot leave law to the lawyers he said - presumably styling himself on the ageing Clemenceau who famously stated that ,"war was too important to be left to the generals .... " He also said when opening the Paris Peace Conference (he was then 77) , "We shall insist on the imposition of penalties on the authors of the abominable crimes committed during the war." .. and so laid the seeds of Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler and German nationalism.>

"Politicians must expose these issues and set a lead, so that we can protect the rights of all our citizens, including all those threatened by terrorism."

The freedom loving sould told his colleagues that Human rights laws have caused problems for the British government in its attempts to introduce anti-terrorism measures.These include emergency laws in 2001 which were defeated in the House of Lords (How dare they ?) , and courts overturning control orders which restrict the movements of terror suspects... (How dare they ?)

The sooner we lock this cunt up the better.

Simon Mann," the Jackal " , with his 15 minutes of infamy, near death in Mugabe hell hole jail

Mark Thatcher's old chum and mercenary soldier of misfortune, and neighbour at one time in Cape Town, Simon Mann 53, is reported in the Sunday Express to be "close to death in a hell-hole prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, after being tortured by the henchmen of mad and ageing dictator Robert Mugabe. He is due for release in May and his lawyers are fighting to stop his extradition to Equatorial Guineau - where no doubt a great deal more unpleasantness awaits him.

Attorney-general Jose Olo Obono assured a court in Harare that Mann would not be executed or tortured if Zimbabwe agreed to extradite him to Equatorial Guinea. Obono said the former British army officer would get an "open and fair trial." The extradition hearing has been adjourned until March 23.

He is currently is serving a 7 year sentence for his part in an attempt to oust another dictator, Teodor Obiang Nguema, head of Zimbabwe’s neighbour, Equatorial Guinea.

Old Etonian, ex SAS Mann is reportedly almost blind, suffering multiple organ failure and has a life-threatening intestinal condition caused by poor diet.

One of his colleagues Sean Abdinor, who arranged the air transport for alleged plotters is currently appearing in Pretoria Regional Court and singing like a canary as he testifies against 8 men (Raymond Stanley Archer, Victor Dracula, Errol Harris, Mazanga Kashama, Neves Tomas Matias, and Hendrik Jacobus Hamman.) accused of contravening the South African Foreign Military Assistance Act and their part in the failed coup.

He claimed this week that South African president Thabo Mbeki was regularly informed of the progress of an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea which was also sanctioned by the United States, Britain and Spain.

Another songster in court earlier in the same case ,Crause Steyl detailed again how he dealt with the boy Mark. They met to arrange financing from him for a helicopter to be used in the plot, at Lanseria airport near Johannesburg in December 2003 and he said the ace rally driver and man about town Mark suffered from numerous "nervous twitches" .
Agreeing to finance the helicopter it was initially decided to buy it, then it was changed to a short term charter. Thatcher gave Steyl US$275,000 (£145,000 at the time) to pay for the chartering of the helicopter, he explained

"He was concerned once the helicopter was acquired on whose name it was going to be registered — anyone but his,"

Cross-examined by Margie Victor, Steyl said he said he was flying Severo Moto, an opposition leader from the Canary Islands to Equatorial Guinea, who was accompanied by David Tremain, a British businessman, Greg Wales, and by Karim Fallaha, an associate of Ely Calil, a London-based Lebanese oil millionaire and very close friend of Peter Mandelson whom he is allegedly informed about the coup.

En route they landed in Mali to refuel when they received a message that 60 men - who were on their way to Equatorial Guinea had been arrested in Zimbabwe. Steyl testified that they returned to the Canary Islands where they were arrested by immigration officials. After a conversation with a customs official, their passports were handed back to them and they were allowed to go (presumably to the UK).

Another name that continues to crop up in the failed "Wonga coup" is that of Simon Mann's ex buddy Tim Spicer - Tim was of course colleague of Mann's and it appears the MI5/6/Foreign Office told Tim to warn off Mann , but Spicer said he wasn't aware of any planned coup so didn't warn him. Let's hope that Crause Steyl doesn' t mention Tim Spicer before the Iraqi contract gets awarded.