by Tom Griffin, 8 October 2004
Irish World
The controversial £293 Iraq security contract awarded
to former British Officer Lt Col Tim Spicer by the US
Defence Department is set to go ahead following an
official investigation.
Irish-Americans have demanded that the contract be
blocked because of Spicer's role as commander of the
Scots Guards in Belfast in 1992, when 18-year-old
Peter McBride was shot dead by two soldiers who were
subsequently convicted of murder but freed early after
a campaign in which Lt Col Spicer was heavily
involved.
The Aegis deal has also been opposed by rival US
security companies, and was formally suspended while
the US Government Accountability Office (GAO)
considered a protest by Texas-based Dyncorp
International.
Dyncorp "contends that Aegis lacked the requisite
responsibility to perform this contract due, in part,
to certain alleged activities of Aegis' principal
director and largest shareholder," the GAO said in a
ruling last month.
The GAO revealed that an un-named third bidder had
been rated higher than Aegis or Dyncorp but had sought
$462 million for the contract.
As a result, the GAO decided that Dyncorp would not
have won the contract even if Aegis had been rejected.
It ruled therefore that Dyncorp had no standing to
challenge the contract.
"With respect to the remaining two areas of DynCorp's
protest - its challenge to the evaluation of Aegis'
proposal, and its allegation that Aegis is not a
responsible contractor - we find that DynCorp is not
an interested party to raise either issue."
Washington-based lobby group the Irish National Caucus
(INC) pledged to continue its campaign against the
contract.
"I was not placing my faith in the GAO," INC President
Fr Sean McManus said. "Rather, I am basing my faith on
the political opposition to the contract that we are
mounting. I am hoping, also, that President Bush will
show some basic decency - and some sensitivity to the
feelings of Irish-Americans - and do the right thing
and cancel this outrageous contract."
The INC campaign has received support from senators
including presidential candidate John Kerry, Hilary
Clinton and Edward Kennedy.
Fr McManus has also been contacted by a South African
doctor and journalist, Dr Alexander Von Paleske, with
details of Lt Col Spicer's links in the African
mercenary world.
"Timothy Spicer had not only a shameful past in
Northern Ireland," Dr Von Paleske said. "He belonged
also to a mercenary group comprising Anthony
Buckingham, Simon Mann (now imprisoned in Zimbabwe in
connection with the planned coup in Equatorial Guinea)
and Michael Grunberg."
Spicer was chief executive of mercenary company
Sandline from 1996 to 2000. However journalist Michael
Bilton testified before parliament in 2002 that the
man 'in the driving seat' at the company was oil
entrepreneur Anthony Buckingham.
Buckingham is alleged to have been the only British
businessman in a 1995 delegation to Iraq to discuss
oil deals with Saddam Hussein. Members of the
delegation stayed at the Al Rasheed Hotel where the
floor was decorated with a picture of the elder George
Bush, intended as a calculated insult to the former US
president.
Ironically, Buckingham's company Heritage Oil has
co-sponsored training for Iraqi oil ministry officials
in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's fall.
In its latest quarterly report the company said the
training programme had "cemented ties with Iraq's
Ministry of Oil and is the first of its long term
commitments to the country."
Perhaps the greatest concerns centre on Sanjivan
Ruprah, former chief executive of Branch Energy, a
company founded by Buckingham.
"Ruprah, who was arrested in 2002 in Belgium, was one
of the worst international gun runners and close
associate of Viktor Bout, who supplied weapons to the
Taleban and Al Qaeda. Both are on a UN security
council travel ban list," Dr Von Paleske said.
"Spicer's activities in Sierra Leone (the arms to
Africa affair) are well documented, as well as the
involvement in Papua New Guinea. To give [a contract
to] this man, Spicer, whose gang boss had contacts to
Saddam Hussein and links to weapons suppliers to Al
Qaeda, and who was shamefully trying to protect
British soldiers who killed an innocent Irish man, is
an absolute scandal."
