Early 2003: Pentagon Gives DynCorp $22 Mil Contract to Train New Iraqi Police Force

The US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs awards DynCorp International a sole-sourced (no competitive bidding) $22 million contract to “re-establish police, justice, and prison functions in post conflict Iraq.” The contract will be bid out to competitors after one year. The contract raises a few eyebrows. The Reston, Virginia-based company has donated more than $160,000 to the Republican Party and its employees have been involved in a number of serious scandals. [Insight Magazine, 4/11/2003; New York Times, 10/4/2003] In Bosnia, for example, employees of the company were accused of operating a sex-slave ring of young women, keeping under-aged girls as concubines, and videotaping a DynCorp supervisor having sex with two girls. Although they were fired from their jobs, they were never prosecuted. [Los Angeles Times, 4/14/2002; New York Times, 10/13/2002; Insight Magazine, 4/11/2003] One of the whistle-blowers, Ben Johnston, told Congress in April 2002: “DynCorp employees were living off post and owning these children and these women and girls as slaves. Well, that makes all Americans look bad. I believe DynCorp is the worst diplomat our country could ever want overseas.” [New York Times, 10/13/2002] In Ecuador, DynCorp has been accused of allowing herbicides applied in Colombia to drift across the border killing legitimate crops, causing illness, and killing children. [New York Times, 10/13/2002] Commenting on the contract, an unnamed congressional aid tells Insight Magazine: “There are some strange things about how this contract was issued. [B]ecause why would CSC use an offshore subsidiary? Is it so they won’t have to pay taxes on this money? Also, why wasn’t this contract put up for bid? Why was DynCorp the chosen recipient?” [New York Times, 10/13/2002]