DynCorp International

DynCorp International[2] is a United States-based private military contractor (PMC) and aircraft maintenance company. DynCorp receives more than 96 percent of its $2 billion in annual revenues from the federal government.[3]

The company is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, but also has major operations in Fort Worth, Texas.

The company has provided teams for the U.S. military in major theaters, such as Bolivia, Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait.[4] DynCorp International also provided much of the security for Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai's presidential guard and trains much of Afghanistan's and Iraq's fledgling police force.[5] DynCorp was also hired to assist recovery in Louisiana and neighboring areas after Hurricane Katrina.[6][7] Recently, Dyncorp and the Department of State have been criticized for not properly accounting for $1.2 billion in contract task orders authorized by the State Department to be used to train Iraqi police.DynCorp traces its origins from two companies formed in 1946: California Eastern Airways, an air freight business and Land-Air Inc, an aircraft maintenance company. Two years after being organized, California Eastern Airways—- despite emerging as the second largest independent air carrier—- filed for bankruptcy in May 1948.[10]

[edit] Aviation Background

Land-Air, Inc., which is the predecessor to today's DynCorp International's Maintenance and Technical Support Services (MTSS) strategic business unit, reached a major milestone in 1951, when it was awarded the first Contract Field Teams (CFT) contract by the Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC). Contract field teams provide mission support and depot-level repair to U.S. military aircraft and weapons systems worldwide. This was a major innovation in aviation services. Under the Contract Field Teams system, teams of aviation-maintenance experts are deployed anywhere around the world to provide fast, flexible maintenance services to aircraft at their home bases.

DynCorp International and its predecessors have provided services under the CFT program continuously since being awarded that first contract, having been awarded one CFT contract in every round of recompetition, including the most recent round which will begin in October 2008.

[edit] Name changes

From 1951 to 2004 the company went through a number of name changes from Land-Air, Inc. in 1951 to California Eastern Airways, Inc., and in 1962, California Eastern Aviation, Inc., changed its name to Dynalectron Corporation, and then in 1987, Dynalectron changed its name to DynCorp. In December 2000, DynCorp formed DynCorp International LLC, and transferred to it all of its international business to this entity while DynCorp Technical Services LLC continued to perform DynCorp’s domestic contracts. In March 2003, DynCorp and its subsidiaries were acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for approximately US$914 million. Less than two years later, CSC announced the sale of three units of the business to a private equity firm, Veritas Capital, for US$850 million. The units sold were DynCorp International, DynMarine and certain DynCorp Technical Services contracts.[11]. In December 2004, DynCorp and CSC entered into an agreement to sell their equity interests in DynCorp International LLC, including its subsidiaries, Dyn Marine Services LLC, and DTS Aviation Services LLC, to DynCorp International Inc. In 2006, DynCorp International Inc went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DCP

Colombia

See also: Colombian armed conflict and Plan Colombia

Since the late 1990s, the United States has paid private contractors an estimated $1.2 billion, both to eradicate coca crops and to assist the Colombian army put down rebels that use the illegal drug trade to finance their insurgency.

DynCorp has been awarded under competitive bid more of this business than any other company. They help Colombia's national police destroy coca crops with aerial defoliants. Although Colombia remains a major drug producing country, the Government of Colombia (GOC) is completely committed to fighting the production and trade in illicit drugs. Colombia had a sixth consecutive record year for illicit crop eradication and continued its aggressive interdiction programs. In 2006, the U.S.-supported Colombian National Police (CNP) Anti-Narcotics Directorate (DIRAN) sprayed 171,613 hectares of illicit coca and opium poppy, and manual eradication accounted for the destruction of an additional 42,111 hectares of coca and 1,697 hectares of poppy.[12] Colombia is a party to the 1988 UN Drug Convention. According to experts familiar with this operation, the company's role goes far beyond crop spraying. DynCorp employees "are engaged in combatant roles, fighting in counterinsurgency operations against the Colombian rebel groups," says Peter W. Singer, a foreign-policy fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Corporate Warriors. "Indeed, the DynCorp personnel have a local reputation for being both arrogant and far too willing to get ‘wet,' going out on frequent combat missions and engaging in firefights." DynCorp has not responded to the allegation.[citation needed]

In this regard, concerning the company's activities and alleged abuses in Colombia, an extensive accusation was presented against DynCorp at the Hearing on Biodiversity of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, session on Colombia, which took place at the Cacarica Humanitarian Zone from February 24 to 27, 2007. [13]

The deaths of three DynCorp employees, whose helicopter was shot down in 1992 during an anti-drug mission in Peru, received a brief 113 word mention in the New York Times.[3]


[edit] Iraq

In February 2007 federal auditors cited DynCorp for wasting millions on projects, including building an unapproved, Olympic-sized swimming pool at the behest of Iraqi police officials.[14]

On October 11, 2007, a DynCorp security guard in a US State Department convoy killed a taxi driver in Baghdad. According to several witnesses, the taxi did not pose a threat to the security of the convoy.[15]

A US government audit report of October 2007 revealed that $1.3 billion was spent on a contract with DynCorp for training Iraqi police. The auditors stated that the program was mismanaged to such an extent that they were unable to determine how the money was spent.[16]


[edit] Gaza strip

On October 15, 2003, three DynCorp employees were killed in a bombing in the Gaza Strip. They were serving as security guards for American diplomats, supplementing the Diplomatic Security Service.[17]


[edit] Involvement in trafficking of child sex slaves

According to whistleblower Ben Johnston, a former aircraft mechanic who worked for the company in Bosnia, Dyncorp employees and supervisors engaged in sex with 12 to 15 year old children, and sold them to each other as slaves. Ben Johnston ended up fired, forcing him into protective custody. According to Johnston, none of the girls were from Bosnia itself, but were imported by Dyncorp from Russia, Romania and other places.

On June 2, 2000, members of the 48th Military Police Detachment conducted a sting on the DynCorp hangar at Comanche Base Camp, one of two U.S. bases in Bosnia, and all DynCorp personnel were detained for questioning. CID spent several weeks working the investigation and the results appear to support Johnston's allegations. For example, according to DynCorp employee Kevin Werner's sworn statement to CID, "during my last six months I have come to know a man we call 'Debeli,' which is Bosnian for fat boy. He is the operator of a nightclub by the name of Harley's that offers prostitution. Women are sold hourly, nightly or permanently."

Johnston is not the only DynCorp employee to blow the whistle and sue the billion-dollar government contractor. Kathryn Bolkovac, a U.N. International Police Force monitor hired by the U.S. company on another U.N.-related contract, has filed a lawsuit in Great Britain against DynCorp for wrongful termination. DynCorp had a $15 million contract to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia at the time she reported such officers were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex-trafficking. Many of these were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity, but none have been prosecuted, as they also enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.

DynCorp has admitted it fired five employees for similar illegal activities prior to Johnston's charges.[18] In the summer of 2005, the United States Defense department drafted a proposal to prohibit defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced prostitution and labor. Several defense contractors, among others Dyncorp, stalled the establishment of a final proposal that would formally prohibit defense contractor involvement in these activities.