Sex, drugs, DynCorp, crooked staff and a link to Dubya

The FBI arrested Link Thomas Nelson Barnes III, (48) of DynCorp International, as he arrived at Dulles International Airport on September 20th 2005.

He was charged Link with distributing identity badges that control access to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to people not allowed to receive them, including an Iraqi woman he was dating. He could face up to 5 years in prison.

The 50 year old Irving, TX.-based DynCorp was awarded a $7.7 million Pentagon contract in March 2004 to establish a program with 50 staff to centralize ID badges being given out for the Green Zone by a variety of government agencies.

The badges are in different colours indicating level of access to the Green Zone. The highest access is blue. An FBI affidavit, filed in federal court in Alexandria, said Barnes gave a Mohammad Al-Tarawneh, a badge that provided the highest level of access to the Green Zone, two levels higher than he was cleared to receive.
The FBI affidavit alleges that. Barnes sidestepped security checks and issued top-access badges to an Iraqi woman he was dating and several members of her family, all of whom were entitled only to lesser-access badges.
Barnes, of Fort Worth, appeared in U.S. District Court in Alexandria yesterday and was released on a personal recognizance bond pending another hearing Thursday – for which there are no press reports – maybe he was a no – show ?

DynCorp are the Pentagon’s rent-a-cop business, they run the security show in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the US-Mexico border. They run the coca crop-dusting business in Colombia, and are responsible for all security on Air Force One and state aircraft.

In 2001 Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer alleging that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson "learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts." Johnston was fired, the men alleged to have bought and sold 13 /14 year old girls quietly left the company.

Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor ( A US citizen from Nebraska) filed a lawsuit in Salisbury,Britain, wher DynCorp had offices, in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. None were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia. DynCorp officials said they fired eight employees serving in Tuzla between 1999 and 2000. She was awarded £110,000.

DynCorp are just one of many privatised armies paid for by the Pentagon -- The Steele Foundation, which provided the security detail for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was briefly embroiled in controversy when Aristide accused it of withdrawing its agents under orders of the U.S. government when he was overthrown in February.

Sometimes you wonder who they report to - The BBC reported The US State Department rebuked DynCorp over the "aggressive behaviour" of guards hired to protect Afghan leader Hamid Karzai one of whom slapped an Afghan Minister.

DynCorp hires the pilots, mostly retired U.S. military flyers, who defoliate
coca and opium poppy crops in Colombia as part of a U.S.-Colombian operation called Plan Colombia. In Peru, a plane carrying an American missionary was accidentally shot down when a DynCorp pilot misidentified it as a drug-smuggling flight.


One of the interesting Former Chairmen and now a Director of Dyncorp is Herbert S. "Pug" Winokur, Jr., is described as Chairman and CEO of Capricorn Holdings, Inc., and Former Senior Executive Vice President, Penn Central Corporation.

As the Insiders' Insider, "Pug" Winokur has been such a permanent fixture in the Washington Old Boy Network that he's even mentioned in a 1978 book by Daniel Guttman called "The Shadow Government."

Historically Winokur's Capricorn Holdings ( and good ol’ boy Kenny Lay was /is a Director) was used as an investment vehicle in NHP, an apartment management firm headed by Roderick Heller III.

In turn, NHP's assets included oft-purloined and defaulted HUD Section 8 subsidy housing, a notorious and well-known vehicle for fraud and money laundering.

Winokur was also on the Board of Directors of Harvard Endowment Fund, which purchased 50 percent of NHP, making the prestigious Harvard a prototypical, but very low-profile, slum landlord. (See Bushwacked"

It should also be noted that George Bush Jr. attended Harvard Business School. Later, after Bush joined Harken Energy Corp and became a director, the largest stock position and seat on the board was acquired by Harvard Management Co.

Winokur was also on the Board of Directors of Enron.

Recent blogs on same topic here