Feral Jundi

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Industry Talk: The UAE Contracts With Erik Prince To Raise An Army–To Deal With Iran!

So this is what Mr. Prince was up to in the UAE?….and what a project! Lookout French Foreign Legion, here comes the UAE’s first Foreign Legion/PMC hybrid built by Erik Prince. (Vinnell Arabia eat your heart out. lol) There are many things here to talk about, so let’s get started with some of the stuff that jumped out at me.

First, the creation of this force was so that it can be used to deal with Iran, or whatever national interests of the UAE. The Iran angle is smart, because that makes a lot of folks in the west happy. (which could explain why there isn’t much ado from the US about this) It sounds like a blended work force of foreign forces (Americans, South Africans, Colombians, etc.) and Emirates troops, all answering to the laws of the UAE and to the Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Part PMC  and part Foreign Legion. But legally, here is a snippet from the contract:

Article 17
Compliance with the Laws, Regulations and Bylaws
The Second Party undertakes to comply with all the laws, regulations and bylaws in force in the State, and all provisions of the Decision of the Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces referred to hereinabove shall apply to this Contract, provided that the general legal principles in force in the State concerning contracts and contracting methods of the administration shall apply to any matter regarding which there is no specific provision in the said Decision or in this Contract.

The article below also had a quote from international trade lawyer Susan Kovarovics. I would certainly hope that if this Foreign Legion hybrid is within the best interest of the US, that they would have provided ITARs or similar blessings to Prince or any of the American trainers participating in this.  I kind of look at it like the Vinnell Arabia contract that has been going on for years in Saudi Arabia training the SANG.  But Susan is the expert here:

Susan Kovarovics, an international trade lawyer who advises companies about export controls, said that because Reflex Responses was an Emirati company it might not need State Department authorization for its activities.
But she said that any Americans working on the project might run legal risks if they did not get government approval to participate in training the foreign troops.

The contract is also very interesting in that it has a ‘Performance Bond’, which is a great thing to have in a contract. I have been pushing for similar performance bonds for US contracts, much like our early privateers were bonded before they were given a license. R2 had to put up ‘ten percent of the contract value’ as a bond. My fuzzy math says that is close to 53 million dollars! Quite the incentive to do well, and just imagine a modern military operating with a similar contract mechanism? lol

The amount of money this contract is worth and time period of it is also listed in the contract and stated in the article below. Here it is for anyone that is curious:

Contract Period June 2010 – May 2015
Total Cost $529,166,754.13

If Reflex Responses Management Consultancy LLC or R2 can deliver on this first test battalion, it sounds like the UAE is prepared to expand on the thing. The contract goes up to May of 2015, so a lot can happen between now and then.

Now as far as what they will be used for, who knows?  The article below says that this legion could be used to take a few islands off the coast and keep them out of Iranian hands? That this force could also be a deterrent to deal with Iran, which I think that is the real reason why the US would be ok with such a set up. Here is a quote on some of the possible tasks of this force:

Corporate documents describe the battalion’s possible tasks: intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations “to destroy enemy personnel and equipment.”
One document describes “crowd-control operations” where the crowd “is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons (clubs and stones).”
The foreign military force was planned months before the so-called Arab Spring revolts that many experts believe are unlikely to spread to the U.A.E. Iran was a particular concern.

Here is the part of the article that talks specifically about Iran. Pretty wild, and this kind of operation is certainly offensive in nature if they do it:

Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves.

Finally there is the future of this project, and more importantly, what Prince envisions. This is where the Foreign Legion turns into a hybrid type force.  It would be like Secopex training and providing logistics for the FFL, and offering the training facility to other private or government forces. Here is the quote:

But by last November, the battalion was officially behind schedule. The original goal was for the 800-man force to be ready by March 31; recently, former employees said, the battalion’s size was reduced to about 580 men.
Emirati military officials had promised that if this first battalion was a success, they would pay for an entire brigade of several thousand men. The new contracts would be worth billions, and would help with Mr. Prince’s next big project: a desert training complex for foreign troops patterned after Blackwater’s compound in Moyock, N.C.

So will R2 be opening it’s doors for training to the world, much like how BW operated in the US?   If true, I could see something like this becoming a multi-billion dollar project for Prince and company. Just because it would be located in the middle east and cater to all the OPEC nations.  That is a pretty wealthy neighborhood to cater too, and this will be one to watch in the coming years. Also, if anyone at R2 or Thor Global Enterprises would like to add anything to the discussion, please feel free to do so in the comments or contact me directly. When these two companies actually set up an online website, I will make the edits. At this time, I have not been able to find anything other than a listing at IDEX 2011. (hint–if you guys are having a hard time recruiting enough folks for the project, then at the least you should have a website and recruitment page) –Matt

Edit: I would also like to mention that Eeben Barlow has reacted severely to this article because of the reporter’s false and libellous statements about Executive Outcomes. EO did not ‘stage coups attempts’, and the New York Times should do the right thing and make an edit or publish a separate correction to the article. Hell, if the reporters below would have actually took the time to contact Eeben on his blog or read some of his posts, he has actually stopped coups in the past and has been vehemently opposed to them.

Edit: 05/20/2011 Finally the NYT’s makes a correction. Hopefully an apology is sent as well. Here it is:

NYT Corrections
Published: May 18, 2011
FRONT PAGE
An article on Sunday about the creation of a mercenary battalion in the United Arab Emirates misstated the past work of Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm whose veterans have been recruited for the new battalion. Executive Outcomes was hired by several African governments during the 1990s to put down rebellions and protect oil and diamond reserves; it did not stage coup attempts. (Some former Executive Outcomes employees participated in a 2004 coup attempt against the government of Equatorial Guinea, several years after the company itself shut down.)

Edit: 5/29/2011- Eeben has posted a reaction to the correction, and you can find that here.

Edit: 6/7/2011- Here is another correction that the NYT’s has had to make. Very interesting.

New York Times
June 7, 2011
Correction
An article on May 15 about efforts to build a battalion of foreign mercenary troops in the
United Arab Emirates referred imprecisely to the role played by Erik Prince, the founder
of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit
troops. But Mr. Prince does not run or own the company Reflex Responses, which has a
contract with the government of the U.A.E. to train and deliver the troops, according to
the company president, Michael Roumi. An article on May 16 repeated the error.

 

R2 Logo

Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder
By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER
May 14, 2011
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.


Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.
The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.
In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.
The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.
“The gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help,” said one Obama administration official who knew of the operation. “They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”
Still, it is not clear whether the project has the United States’ official blessing. Legal experts and government officials said some of those involved with the battalion might be breaking federal laws that prohibit American citizens from training foreign troops if they did not secure a license from the State Department.
Mark C. Toner, a spokesman for the department, would not confirm whether Mr. Prince’s company had obtained such a license, but he said the department was investigating to see if the training effort was in violation of American laws. Mr. Toner pointed out that Blackwater (which renamed itself Xe Services ) paid $42 million in fines last year for training foreign troops in Jordan and other countries over the years.
The U.A.E.’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for Mr. Prince also did not comment.
For Mr. Prince, the foreign battalion is a bold attempt at reinvention. He is hoping to build an empire in the desert, far from the trial lawyers, Congressional investigators and Justice Department officials he is convinced worked in league to portray Blackwater as reckless. He sold the company last year, but in April, a federal appeals court reopened the case against four Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
To help fulfill his ambitions, Mr. Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, obtained another multimillion-dollar contract to protect a string of planned nuclear power plants and to provide cybersecurity. He hopes to earn billions more, the former employees said, by assembling additional battalions of Latin American troops for the Emiratis and opening a giant complex where his company can train troops for other governments.
Knowing that his ventures are magnets for controversy, Mr. Prince has masked his involvement with the mercenary battalion. His name is not included on contracts and most other corporate documents, and company insiders have at times tried to hide his identity by referring to him by the code name “Kingfish.” But three former employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements, and two people involved in security contracting described Mr. Prince’s central role.
The former employees said that in recruiting the Colombians and others from halfway around the world, Mr. Prince’s subordinates were following his strict rule: hire no Muslims.
Muslim soldiers, Mr. Prince warned, could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims.
A Lucrative Deal
Last spring, as waiters in the lobby of the Park Arjaan by Rotana Hotel passed by carrying cups of Turkish coffee, a small team of Blackwater and American military veterans huddled over plans for the foreign battalion. Armed with a black suitcase stuffed with several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of dirhams, the local currency, they began paying the first bills.
The company, often called R2, was licensed last March with 51 percent local ownership, a typical arrangement in the Emirates. It received about $21 million in start-up capital from the U.A.E., the former employees said.
Mr. Prince made the deal with Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates. The two men had known each other for several years, and it was the prince’s idea to build a foreign commando force for his country.
Savvy and pro-Western, the prince was educated at the Sandhurst military academy in Britain and formed close ties with American military officials. He is also one of the region’s staunchest hawks on Iran and is skeptical that his giant neighbor across the Strait of Hormuz will give up its nuclear program.
“He sees the logic of war dominating the region, and this thinking explains his near-obsessive efforts to build up his armed forces,” said a November 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi that was obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
For Mr. Prince, a 41-year-old former member of the Navy Seals, the battalion was an opportunity to turn vision into reality. At Blackwater, which had collected billions of dollars in security contracts from the United States government, he had hoped to build an army for hire that could be deployed to crisis zones in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He even had proposed that the Central Intelligence Agency use his company for special operations missions around the globe, but to no avail. In Abu Dhabi, which he praised in an Emirati newspaper interview last year for its “pro-business” climate, he got another chance.
Mr. Prince’s exploits, both real and rumored, are the subject of fevered discussions in the private security world. He has worked with the Emirati government on various ventures in the past year, including an operation using South African mercenaries to train Somalis to fight pirates. There was talk, too, that he was hatching a scheme last year to cap the Icelandic volcano then spewing ash across Northern Europe.
The team in the hotel lobby was led by Ricky Chambers, known as C. T., a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had worked for Mr. Prince for years; most recently, he had run a program training Afghan troops for a Blackwater subsidiary called Paravant.
He was among the half-dozen or so Americans who would serve as top managers of the project, receiving nearly $300,000 in annual compensation. Mr. Chambers and Mr. Prince soon began quietly luring American contractors from Afghanistan, Iraq and other danger spots with pay packages that topped out at more than $200,000 a year, according to a budget document. Many of those who signed on as trainers — which eventually included more than 40 veteran American, European and South African commandos — did not know of Mr. Prince’s involvement, the former employees said.
Mr. Chambers did not respond to requests for comment.
He and Mr. Prince also began looking for soldiers. They lined up Thor Global Enterprises, a company on the Caribbean island of Tortola specializing in “placing foreign servicemen in private security positions overseas,” according to a contract signed last May. The recruits would be paid about $150 a day.
Within months, large tracts of desert were bulldozed and barracks constructed. The Emirates were to provide weapons and equipment for the mercenary force, supplying everything from M-16 rifles to mortars, Leatherman knives to Land Rovers. They agreed to buy parachutes, motorcycles, rucksacks — and 24,000 pairs of socks.
To keep a low profile, Mr. Prince rarely visited the camp or a cluster of luxury villas near the Abu Dhabi airport, where R2 executives and Emirati military officers fine-tune the training schedules and arrange weapons deliveries for the battalion, former employees said. He would show up, they said, in an office suite at the DAS Tower — a skyscraper just steps from Abu Dhabi’s Corniche beach, where sunbathers lounge as cigarette boats and water scooters whiz by. Staff members there manage a number of companies that the former employees say are carrying out secret work for the Emirati government.
Emirati law prohibits disclosure of incorporation records for businesses, which typically list company officers, but it does require them to post company names on offices and storefronts. Over the past year, the sign outside the suite has changed at least twice — it now says Assurance Management Consulting.
While the documents — including contracts, budget sheets and blueprints — obtained by The Times do not mention Mr. Prince, the former employees said he negotiated the U.A.E. deal. Corporate documents describe the battalion’s possible tasks: intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations “to destroy enemy personnel and equipment.”
One document describes “crowd-control operations” where the crowd “is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons (clubs and stones).”
People involved in the project and American officials said that the Emiratis were interested in deploying the battalion to respond to terrorist attacks and put down uprisings inside the country’s sprawling labor camps, which house the Pakistanis, Filipinos and other foreigners who make up the bulk of the country’s work force. The foreign military force was planned months before the so-called Arab Spring revolts that many experts believe are unlikely to spread to the U.A.E. Iran was a particular concern.
An Eye on Iran
Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves.
The Emirates have a small military that includes army, air force and naval units as well as a small special operations contingent, which served in Afghanistan, but over all, their forces are considered inexperienced.
In recent years, the Emirati government has showered American defense companies with billions of dollars to help strengthen the country’s security. A company run by Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser during the Clinton and Bush administrations, has won several lucrative contracts to advise the U.A.E. on how to protect its infrastructure.
Some security consultants believe that Mr. Prince’s efforts to bolster the Emirates’ defenses against an Iranian threat might yield some benefits for the American government, which shares the U.A.E.’s concern about creeping Iranian influence in the region.
“As much as Erik Prince is a pariah in the United States, he may be just what the doctor ordered in the U.A.E.,” said an American security consultant with knowledge of R2’s work.
The contract includes a one-paragraph legal and ethics policy noting that R2 should institute accountability and disciplinary procedures. “The overall goal,” the contract states, “is to ensure that the team members supporting this effort continuously cast the program in a professional and moral light that will hold up to a level of media scrutiny.”
But former employees said that R2’s leaders never directly grappled with some fundamental questions about the operation. International laws governing private armies and mercenaries are murky, but would the Americans overseeing the training of a foreign army on foreign soil be breaking United States law?
Susan Kovarovics, an international trade lawyer who advises companies about export controls, said that because Reflex Responses was an Emirati company it might not need State Department authorization for its activities.
But she said that any Americans working on the project might run legal risks if they did not get government approval to participate in training the foreign troops.
Basic operational issues, too, were not addressed, the former employees said. What were the battalion’s rules of engagement? What if civilians were killed during an operation? And could a Latin American commando force deployed in the Middle East really be kept a secret?
Imported Soldiers
The first waves of mercenaries began arriving last summer. Among them was a 13-year veteran of Colombia’s National Police force named Calixto Rincón, 42, who joined the operation with hopes of providing for his family and seeing a new part of the world.
“We were practically an army for the Emirates,” Mr. Rincón, now back in Bogotá, Colombia, said in an interview. “They wanted people who had a lot of experience in countries with conflicts, like Colombia.”
Mr. Rincón’s visa carried a special stamp from the U.A.E. military intelligence branch, which is overseeing the entire project, that allowed him to move through customs and immigration without being questioned.
He soon found himself in the midst of the camp’s daily routines, which mirrored those of American military training. “We would get up at 5 a.m. and we would start physical exercises,” Mr. Rincón said. His assignment included manual labor at the expanding complex, he said. Other former employees said the troops — outfitted in Emirati military uniforms — were split into companies to work on basic infantry maneuvers, learn navigation skills and practice sniper training.
R2 spends roughly $9 million per month maintaining the battalion, which includes expenditures for employee salaries, ammunition and wages for dozens of domestic workers who cook meals, wash clothes and clean the camp, a former employee said. Mr. Rincón said that he and his companions never wanted for anything, and that their American leaders even arranged to have a chef travel from Colombia to make traditional soups.
But the secrecy of the project has sometimes created a prisonlike environment. “We didn’t have permission to even look through the door,” Mr. Rincón said. “We were only allowed outside for our morning jog, and all we could see was sand everywhere.”
The Emirates wanted the troops to be ready to deploy just weeks after stepping off the plane, but it quickly became clear that the Colombians’ military skills fell far below expectations. “Some of these kids couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” said a former employee. Other recruits admitted to never having fired a weapon.
Rethinking Roles
As a result, the veteran American and foreign commandos training the battalion have had to rethink their roles. They had planned to act only as “advisers” during missions — meaning they would not fire weapons — but over time, they realized that they would have to fight side by side with their troops, former officials said.
Making matters worse, the recruitment pipeline began drying up. Former employees said that Thor struggled to sign up, and keep, enough men on the ground. Mr. Rincón developed a hernia and was forced to return to Colombia, while others were dismissed from the program for drug use or poor conduct.
And R2’s own corporate leadership has also been in flux. Mr. Chambers, who helped develop the project, left after several months. A handful of other top executives, some of them former Blackwater employees, have been hired, then fired within weeks.
To bolster the force, R2 recruited a platoon of South African mercenaries, including some veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African company notorious for staging coup attempts or suppressing rebellions against African strongmen in the 1990s. The platoon was to function as a quick-reaction force, American officials and former employees said, and began training for a practice mission: a terrorist attack on the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, the world’s tallest building. They would secure the situation before quietly handing over control to Emirati troops.
But by last November, the battalion was officially behind schedule. The original goal was for the 800-man force to be ready by March 31; recently, former employees said, the battalion’s size was reduced to about 580 men.
Emirati military officials had promised that if this first battalion was a success, they would pay for an entire brigade of several thousand men. The new contracts would be worth billions, and would help with Mr. Prince’s next big project: a desert training complex for foreign troops patterned after Blackwater’s compound in Moyock, N.C. But before moving ahead, U.A.E. military officials have insisted that the battalion prove itself in a “real world mission.”
That has yet to happen. So far, the Latin American troops have been taken off the base only to shop and for occasional entertainment.
On a recent spring night though, after months stationed in the desert, they boarded an unmarked bus and were driven to hotels in central Dubai, a former employee said. There, some R2 executives had arranged for them to spend the evening with prostitutes.
Story here.

10 Comments

  1. Hi Matt,

    If this is true, good luck to Eric Prince and his team. I wish them well in this endeavour.

    However, the NYT for some apparent reason added a scurrilous comment about EO and I have written to them asking for proof of their comment as I reserve the right to legal action should they be unable to prove this.

    The inability of the 2 journalists to do even basic research is staggering and I will now view every NYT article with a certain amount of disbelief.

    Thanks for always letting us know what is happening out there.

    Rgds,

    Eeben

    Comment by Eeben Barlow — Sunday, May 15, 2011 @ 10:56 AM

  2. It blows me away as well, and I made the edit with a link to your post about the matter. The New York Times should work quickly to correct the article, because like you said in the letter, this is factually incorrect and libellous. It is public record on your blog or your book as to what is the real story, and yet folks continue to think they can get away with saying this stuff.
    I also saw their reply you posted on the blog. Hopefully a correction will come soon.

    Comment by Feral Jundi — Sunday, May 15, 2011 @ 11:17 AM

  3. Here is an article that got a quote from State about this. It seems like they are 'looking into ITAR' violations.
    —————-

    US studies legality of American-led private army

    By James Drummond in Abu Dhabi

    Published: May 15 2011 19:47 | Last updated: May 15 2011 19:47

    The US state department said on Sunday that it was examining the legality of
    an American-led private army that is being established in the United Arab
    Emirates.

    Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater private security company, is
    establishing a counter-terrorism force of up to 800 foreign mercenaries in
    Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, The New York Times reported
    on Sunday.

    Mr Prince has been hired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown
    prince of Abu Dhabi, to recruit an American-led force of mainly South
    American former soldiers, through a company called R2, with a view to
    countering a perceived threat from Iran and bolstering domestic security,
    the report said.

    "The department is aware of the R2 venture and is currently looking into it
    to make sure there are no potential International Traffic in Arms
    Regulations concerns," a state department spokesman confirmed on Sunday. The
    regulations govern the sale of defence services as well as defence
    equipment.

    Members of the new force have been trained since last summer by former
    special forces soldiers from the US, South Africa and European countries in
    a camp outside Abu Dhabi, the newspaper said.

    "There have been a lot of rumours and a lot of conjecture that there would
    be some type of additional security force for the UAE," said Theodore
    Karasik, director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

    "There are many former military personnel who are now retired and are
    looking for new sources of employment. Private security companies are being
    set up throughout the region."

    However, the establishment of the R2 force raises the question of whether
    American-led foreign soldiers could be used to subdue local political
    unrest, such as the pro-democracy movements in neighbouring Bahrain.

    Mr Karasik said that, while the force was located in Abu Dhabi, it would
    probably serve all of the seven emirates that form the UAE.

    A spokesman for the crown prince could not be reached for comment, while an
    official who works in the crown prince's office said he had no information
    on the project.

    Court papers released in the US in August last year first indicated that Mr
    Prince was moving with his family to Abu Dhabi, apparently to escape
    persistent scrutiny of Blackwater's record in Iraq and elsewhere.

    A former Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges over the
    killing of at least 14 people in Baghdad in 2007. Last month, a US court
    reinstated charges against five people involved in the incident. Mr Prince
    has since sold Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe. The company denies
    wrongdoing.

    Another source close to the private security industry pointed out that this
    was not the first time that the UAE had hired former overseas soldiers.

    The UAE, which has an indigenous population of 1m out of total of over 8m,
    has large numbers of foreign advisers and trainers across its police, army,
    air force, navy and coastguard. The source said that there was currently an
    influx of mainly Australian former soldiers.

    The UAE is a close ally of the US and shares the same suspicions of the
    government in power in Iran. Last month, UAE special forces, acting in
    conjunction with the US fifth fleet, successfully raided a ship in the
    Indian Ocean which had been seized by Somali pirates, freeing the crew.

    Elements of the UAE air force are also engaged in supporting the Nato-led
    no-fly zone over Libya while another special forces unit has served
    alongside Nato in Afghanistan.

    The UAE government has though suspended talks with Dassault of France over
    supplying additional Mirage fighters because of allegations carried in
    French newspapers that Abu Dhabi had a defence relationship with an Israeli
    private security company.

    Asked whether Mr Prince's force was likely to have an offensive or a
    defensive role, Mr Karasik said: "It depends on the level of performance.
    There are some very capable forces in the UAE. But there is always that need
    for additional forces for specific tasks." http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4144461c-7f20-11e0
    z1MSyHx83D

    Comment by Feral Jundi — Sunday, May 15, 2011 @ 5:09 PM

  4. Re the recruitment issue raised – could the UAE be following the Bahraini example and bringing in a load of Pakistanis to be the security forces? One of the main complaints of the opposition in Bahrain was that the leadership was actively recruiting in Sunni countries for people to come to work in the police. They would be loyal to the regime in suppressing any dissent and share some identity traits with them. It also fits in with some of the wider recruiting patterns in that part of the world – Filipinos, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis make up a group larger than Emiratis.

    Comment by Chaz — Monday, May 16, 2011 @ 4:22 AM

  5. Here is the official response of the UAE government.
    ————–

    Statement by General Juma Ali Khalaf Al Hamiri, Head of HR and Administration, GHQ, UAE Armed Forces

    May 16, 2011 – 12:31 –

    Abu Dhabi, 15 May 2011 (WAM) – General Juma Ali Khalaf Al Hamiri, Head of HR and Administration, GHQ, UAE Armed Forces, has made the following statement: The United Arab Emirates armed forces have been through an accelerated and extensive process of development and Emiratisation since their creation at the founding of the UAE four decades ago. The result is that the UAE armed forces have been able to make meaningful and significant contributions in theatres of operations such as Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently Libya.

    At the heart of the successful approach has been strong alliances within the international community and in part the sourcing of expertise through the private sector. International contractors providing planning, training, development and operational support have been integral to the successful development of what is a robust military capability of over 40,000 Emirati personnel at a high state of readiness.

    Importantly these third parties have also played significant roles in supporting the UAE Armed Forces in training Iraqi and Afghani security forces with the aim of contributing to the stability of both countries.

    The UAE armed forces currently engage a number of third parties, such as Spectre, which delivers academy training capabilities; Horizon, a pilot training partner and R2 which provides operational, planning and training support.

    As you would expect of a proactive member of the international community, all engagements of commercial entities by the UAE Armed Forces are compliant with international Law and relevant conventions. .

    Comment by Feral Jundi — Monday, May 16, 2011 @ 3:55 PM

  6. Howsit,

    I cringe when I read poor journalism, for my own reasons. I cringe when I hear anything produced by companies owned by Rupert Murdoch, as well. That said though, modern media really does keep its ears in the back pocket. It will only listen to a complaint of libel when you hit that back pocket. As much of a frustration as it will be, Eeben Barlow does have legitimate right and ample supporting documents to proceed with a lawsuit and certainly win. And I believe Eeben when he says it isn’t about the money. While it is of course more about his credible reputation being tarnished, it is about the money with NYT. Sue them, and they will hesitate to disparage Eeben again.

    I think that if Eeben doesn’t get the repsonse he wants, then hit them in the back pocket. And then publish the hell out of the ruling so it isn’t ‘under rug swept’.

    Comment by Morgan — Tuesday, May 17, 2011 @ 8:46 AM

  7. Would like to say thanks. Saw the UAE/Erik Prince contract in the crawl on local news. Fearing no verb(Google), Feral Jundi on top of the heap. Wanted to toss this information at a friend. They're hooked up with International. Navistar Defense makes some very capable vehicles. Compared to what the NYT's says is in the "motor pool"? No comparison.
    Also want to thank you for the laughs. The youtube video of a Dept of the Navy employee attempting to conduct PT with a squad of jundi kept popping into my head. OMGoodness! Of course, I could regain my composure, repeating, you're reading an article from the NYT's and they mentioned Richard Clark, slandered EO.
    Dept of State, NYT's, wasn't it all good for them back in the 90's? I better not get started, our political criminal class, their bureaucrats with LE powers drive me to distraction.
    Keep up the good work, thanks again.

    Comment by doux — Tuesday, May 17, 2011 @ 1:17 PM

  8. Head of Private Military Firm Denies Affiliation With Ex-Blackwater Chief
    June 6, 2011
    By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER
    WASHINGTON — The president of a company training foreign mercenary troops for the United Arab Emirates has told the State Department and members of Congress that Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide, plays no role in operating the business.
    In letters sent to lawmakers and Obama administration officials, the head of Reflex Responses, a company based in Abu Dhabi, said that Mr. Prince “has no ownership stake whatsoever” in the business.
    “He is not an officer, director, shareholder, or even an employee of R2,” wrote the company’s president, Michael Roumi, referring to the company by its common name.
    Mr. Roumi’s letters, dated May 18, were sent in response to inquiries by members of the House of Representatives after The New York Times reported last month that the United Arab Emirates had signed a $529 million contract with R2 to build the foreign battalion. According to American officials and former company employees, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi hopes to use the foreign troops to put down labor unrest in the country and defend the U.A.E. from terrorist attacks. One of Mr. Roumi’s letters was passed to a group of congressmen by Victoria Toensing, Mr. Prince’s lawyer.
    The Justice Department has opened an inquiry into whether the company may have violated United States laws prohibiting Americans from transferring military technology or expertise overseas. Investigators have interviewed at least one former R2 employee, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
    American officials and several former company employees said Mr. Prince was deeply involved last year with R2 and in recruiting contractors to train the foreign troops, The Times reported. Mr. Prince’s current relationship with the company remains unclear.
    Five former employees, speaking on condition of anonymity because they had signed confidentiality agreements, said Mr. Prince had overseen the hiring of American military and law enforcement veterans for the project, as well as European and South African contractors. They said he made occasional trips to the desert camp where the foreign troops, many of them Colombians, were being trained. And some of R2’s top managers had worked with Mr. Prince at Blackwater.
    The former employees said that Mr. Prince took pains to mask his role in the operation, and that his name did not appear on contract documents between R2 and the U.A.E. that were provided to The Times. R2’s origins and affiliations are unclear; most corporate records are not public in Abu Dhabi. R2’s commercial license lists two other companies as partners, and the name of a third business was posted outside the office suite R2 had been using in the last year.
    American laws governing the export of defense technology are murky, but American citizens involved in training foreign troops run legal risks if the State Department does not grant permits for the training. A State Department spokesman said the Obama administration was aware of R2’s operations, but would not say whether the company was operating with licenses from the department.
    Story here. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/world/middleeas

    Comment by Feral Jundi — Tuesday, June 7, 2011 @ 3:19 PM

  9. David Isenberg has some great commentary. Check it out.
    ———-

    PMC und Drang in the Persian Gulf
    By David Isenberg
    Posted: 06/24/11
    This post was originally written June 5.
    It's now been three weeks since the New York Times published its story on the United Arab Emirates business doings of Erik Prince, the man that lefty critics of private security contracting love to berate. So now that the reflexive PMC und Drang, to coin a phrase, has died down a bit, it is a good time to take a step back, draw a breath, and try to consider some the pros and cons of this latest development. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/pmc-

    Comment by Feral Jundi — Sunday, June 26, 2011 @ 12:30 AM

  10. […] Times was the group that originally broke the story about Reflex Responses and I put that up on the blog back in 2011. I haven’t heard much about it […]

    Pingback by Yemen: UAE Deploys It’s Colombian Mercenaries To Yemen « Feral Jundi — Wednesday, November 25, 2015 @ 8:54 PM

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