Well almost tied to Lockheed Martin Corp.
Lockheed effectively scuttles merger with Titan
Lockheed Martin Corp. effectively scuttled plans to buy Titan Corp. for $1.66 billion, saying Thursday it refused to wait for the outcome of a federal probe into alleged overseas bribery.
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The deal ran into trouble shortly after Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Md., said in September that it would buy Titan for $1.8 billion, or $22 a share, in cash and stock. In February, the companies said the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating Titan's overseas payments.
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An unusual racketeering lawsuit filed in San Diego this month by human rights lawyers accuses Titan and another civilian contractor - CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va. - of conspiring to execute, rape and torture prisoners to boost profits from military payments.
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http://www.sanluisobispo.com/m... CCR FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST PRIVATE CONTRACTORS FOR TORTURE CONSPIRACY
Charges U.S. Corporations Conspired With Officials To Torture Detainees in Iraq
Synopsis
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. 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. Further it alleges that CACI International and Titan created a joint enterprise with a third party that became known as Team Titan. 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.
According to the Complaint, the plaintiffs in the case suffered at the hands of Defendants and their co-conspiring government officials. Plaintiffs endured the following:
• Being hooded and raped
• Being forced to watch their father tortured and abused so badly that he died
• Repeated beatings, including beatings with chains, boots and other objects
• Being stripped naked and kept in isolation
• Being urinated on and otherwise humiliated
• Being prevented from praying and otherwise abiding by their religious practices
CACI and TITAN are publicly traded corporations that provide interrogation and translation services to U.S. government agencies. According to the complaint, beginning in January 2002, and continuing to the present, the two companies began providing services ranging from interrogation and interpretation to intelligence gathering and security. The complaint reveals that both companies were increasingly dependent on government contracts for revenue. Titan, for example, developed a unit known as “National Security Solutions,” which added 21 percent to its revenue growth in 2003.
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http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/repor... Torture Incorporated Oliver North Joins the Party
By John Stanton and Wayne Madsen
The U.S. Army has employed as many as 27 contractors to run its interrogation operations, according to media reports. But while CACI and Titan are getting all the mainstream media play, it appears that far more than 27 contract employees were involved in recruiting and placing interrogators in various locations. Some of the firms involved in the Bush administration’s “TortureGate” include an odd assortment of telecommunications companies and executive placement firms that have jumped into the lucrative torture business in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq and at secret locations throughout Central Asia and North Africa.
Interrogators can earn up to $120,000 per year plying their trade and most are former military and law enforcement personnel. More ominously, these so-called “private military contractors” are nothing of the sort. They are paramilitary organizations that are funded by the US Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, and assorted other agencies through contract vehicles known as Basic Ordering Agreements or “BOAs” hidden throughout the vast US government bureaucracy. It now is well known that CACI got its money through a BOA with the Department of the Interior.
Ollie -- He’s Baaack!
On January 12, 2004, United Placements ran an advertisement for Army Interrogators.
“Job State: IRAQ, Job Number: 8. Interrogators: 30 Positions. Compensation to $120,000. Individuals must be trained Interrogators with at least five years of experience in interrogation. Individuals must be knowledgeable of Army/Joint interrogation procedures, data processing systems such as CHIMs and SIPRNET search engines. Knowledge of the Arabic language and culture a plus…Candidates must have documented in their resumes five years of Humint collection and/or interrogation experience. This is a requirement of the client. Some locations require individuals to work and live in a field environment with minimum medical facilities. Must possess the ability to work extended work hours in difficult surroundings for up to one year.”
United Placements’ lists none other than Oliver North--a member of Ronald Reagan’s NSC and focal point of the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s—as one of its two “Industry Associates.” North is currently the host of Fox News Channel’s “War Stories.” United Placement’s second “Industry Associate” is Intelligencecareers.com run by former intelligence analyst Bill Goldman.
http://colombia.indymedia.org/... Hmmmm I find this extremely interesting, Ollie and the Carlyle boys
are connected to junior's "Iron Triangle"
"One of the USIS investors is the omnipresent Carlyle Group, a multibillion-dollar venture capital firm with close ties to George H. W. Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major, and former Secretary of State James Baker, and past ties to the Saudi Bin Laden Companies, which has its tentacles into many of the Bush administration’s major foreign adventures. USIS also owns a subsidiary, Total Information Services, Inc., of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which ironically is similar to the name of the defunct Pentagon program to glean personal information from databases on U.S. and foreign citizens. That program, called the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system was headed by Iran-contra felon retired Admiral John Poindexter before he resigned. TIA, according to media reports, is alive and well in the offices of DARPA in Northern Virginia."