By Larry Johnson
closeAuthor: Larry Johnson
Name: Larry Johnson
Email: larry_johnson@earthlink.net
Site: http://NoQuarterUSA.net
About: Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm with expertise combating terrorism and investigating money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on counterfeiting, smuggling and money laundering.
Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management.
Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC's Nightline, NBC's Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world, including the Center for Research and Strategic Studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France. He represented the U.S. Government at the July 1996 OSCE Terrorism Conference in Vienna, Austria.
From 1989 until October 1993, Larry Johnson served as a Deputy Director in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He managed crisis response operations for terrorist incidents throughout the world and he helped organize and direct the US Government’s debriefing of US citizens held in Kuwait and Iraq, which provided vital intelligence on Iraqi operations following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Mr. Johnson also participated in the investigation of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103. Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership the U.S. airlines and pilots agreed to match the US Government’s two million-dollar reward.
From 1985 through September 1989 Mr. Johnson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. During his distinguished career, he received training in paramilitary operations, worked in the Directorate of Operations, served in the CIA’s Operation’s Center, and established himself as a prolific analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence. In his final year with the CIA he received two Exceptional Performance Awards.
Mr. Johnson is a member of the American Society for Industrial Security. He taught at The American University’s School of International Service (1979-1983) while working on a Ph.D. in political science. He has a M.S. degree in Community Development from the University of Missouri (1978), where he also received his B.S. degree in Sociology, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1976.See Authors Posts (889) on November 25, 2007 at 8:17 PM in Current Affairs
Here’s the story in a nutshell. A U.S. Army Colonel Ted Westhusing supervising U.S. security contractors may have been murdered to keep him silent about the fraud he witnessed. Westhusing allegedly killed himself in Iraq in 2005. Before deploying to Iraq he taught English at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But in Iraq instead of teaching poetry or writing, he supervised security contractors involved in training Iraqi police:
His formal title was director, counter terrorism/special operations, Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. He liked working closely with his Iraqi counterparts and seemed to get along well with the contractors from Virginia-based U.S. Investigations Services, a private security company with contracts worth $79 million to help train Iraqi police units that were conducting special operations.
Although the article linked above and here strongly imply that Westhusing killed himself, I have it from a source with firsthand knowledge that some military officers who were on the ground with Westhusing believe he was murdered to keep him from blowing the whistle on the corruption he witnessed. I have confirmed that these individuals are willing to tell all they know to Congressman Henry Waxman’s committee. Stay tuned.
Here’s the story in a nutshell. A U.S. Army Colonel Ted Westhusing supervising U.S. security contractors may have been murdered to keep him silent about the fraud he witnessed. Westhusing allegedly killed himself in Iraq in 2005. Before deploying to Iraq he taught English at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But in Iraq instead of teaching poetry or writing, he supervised security contractors involved in training Iraqi police:
Just ask Sibel Edmonds exactly how beneficial it is to tell all to Waxman’s committee…
Big questions about Westhusings death early on what took them so long to investigate?
Pat Tillmans comrades blow him away, how many of the young men who wrote that op-ed in the NYT’s about how they saw Iraq were dead in month of writing it? How many journalist have died under the guise of friendly fire?
Come on the Bush administration needs to be dropped down in the middle of Baghdad butt assed naked. Let them run for Saddams hole in the ground.
That would be justice and the whole world would celebrate
how many? I wondered if that would happen. Did it?
Covered in web dust. A description of the company bottom of article.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/June04/Stanton-Madsen0614.htm
Thanks Larry.
Thank you Larry, for sharing this. If I remember correctly, his wife did not believe that it was suicide, something about him telling her that he was fearful for his safety. I hope this will bring us the TRUTH…
This whole thing has gotten so very out of hand, and as you said, the fish rots from the head down. But will anything be done??? Waxman hasn’t called on Edmonds, and all we do is keep investigating another crime of treason, knowing full well who the cultprits are… but nothing changes. How can we fix that?
I would bet he is not the only one!
While I’m down with powder residue and the fact that it was his own pistol not being conclusive, what about the suicide note reportedly in his own handwriting?
Houston Chronicle
Who collected, compiled and did the analysis of the evidence? Maybe the same crew who did the first Pat Tillman investigation? This story always smelled.
What 100 million metric tons of unguarded munitions was not enough?
There press stories recently about a whole lot of weapons missing and officers under General Pretraues implicated?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2142774,00.html
Pertinent documents….
Thanks 99
Screenwriters, break out your pens! Documentarians, start the interviews! What’s holding you back? This is the story of a lifetime!
Where’s that Pat Tillman movie? People?
Thank you LJ.
99:
Those documents that you sited are so full of blacked out area’s it’s hard to make sense of them or come to any solid conclusions..
It should be called ‘ the freedom FROM information act’
This is another of the tragic episodes in the Iraq war..
Fill in the blanks.
I once had the “good” fortune to work with a heavily redacted bunch of FOIA documents in the House of Death case, only to find out once I’d finally made it all the way through that people had griped so hard about the redaction that a more complete set was made available. I got to see how close my concentration came to what was really there, and it showed that being willing to fight will yield more cooperation.
Looks as though it’s procedure to redact the snot out of all productions in response to original requests and leave it at that if nobody objects. It at least stalls our ability to deal with the facts, but more usually thwarts it entirely.
It sounds like things are about to get much uglier. It would be no surprise if the “Mercs For Profit” killed anyone threatening their golden egg.
I thought Blackwater was contracted to train the Iraqi police.
Oilwellian,
I wonder if that contract was written about the same time as a high ranking official from the Pentagon leaked to Newsweek, January 2004, that the Pentagon was planning to create death squads in Iraq–the Pentagon called it “The Salvador Option”.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek
It would be quite interesting to compare the timeline.
If I’m not mistaken John Negreponte was in country during the same time period. I’m sure it was just a coincidence. It is also probably of no meaningful connection that Blackwater was recruiting in Central and South America during the period. Just a thought.
Forgot to add that some of the “Recruits” are said to be graduates of SOA.
I recall this from when it first came up, but it wasn’t the first case of death in military contracting bureaucracy. I also recall a young black military lady with knowledge of contracts ending up dead, tho I can’t find the citation. Also these two links are precious, the first from 2005, the second from 2006:
http://www.custerbattles.com/press/pr040105.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/international/middleeast/10contract.html
There’s also the young woman in Afghanistan who told her family before she ‘killer herself’ that if anything happened to her, investigate. Of course, that one got labelled a hate crime in order to deflect from whatever she uncovered.
(What I posted above made no sense.)
She was shot in the back of the head and they said it was because she was gay. She worked in finance and she said she ‘made some enemies’ by uncovering something, received death threats.
Boston.com
I didn’t believe Westhusing killed himself.
Nor do I believe that Brian Freeman was killed by some insurgents.
He is the soldier who complained to Kerry and Dodd about what soldiers were expected to do.
He later complained to Dodd about contractor abuse.
Perhaps someone will ask questions about his death too.
HILLA, Iraq — Hours before getting killed the way he feared most, Capt. Brian S. Freeman looked up and smiled when Abu Ali dropped by his office.
After nearly six months of overcoming financial and bureaucratic hurdles in a war zone, Freeman told the Iraqi man, there were promising signs that a pair of U.S. visas — the last big step in getting Abu Ali’s 11-year-old son to the United States for lifesaving heart surgery — would be issued soon.
Hours later, shortly before sunset Jan. 20, armed men in GMC trucks stormed into the government building in Karbala, in southern Iraq. They killed an American soldier, handcuffed Freeman and three other U.S. soldiers, hauled them into the vehicles and drove off. Freeman and the other abducted soldiers were later slain by the attackers.
http://www.iraqwarheroes.com/freemanbs.htm
Colonel Westhusing “suicide note” was not a suicide note at all, it was pages taken from one of two very documented journals he was keeping on the corruption, that have disapeared after his death………the contractor that found him, took the gun and unchambered it and put in another area, he was never tested for residue. In the autopsy diagram of the room, 2 rubber gloves were found behind the dresser, and get this, if he shot himself behind his left ear, how come the gun was found very far in front of his feet, the contractor said, instead of behind him (he was laying on his back). An assistant next door heard a very heated argument coming from his trailer an hour before he was found dead……..he also told his brother, he would tell him all if he got home alive…..
According an informed source within The Carlyle Group business consortium, Col. Ted Westhusing, the Army’s top military ethicist and professor at West Point, did not commit suicide in a Baghdad trailer in June 2005 as was widely reported in the mainstream media five months later. At the time of his death, Westhusing was investigating contract violations and human rights abuses by US Investigations Services (USIS), formerly a federal agency, the Office of Federal Investigations (OFI), which operated under the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
In 1996, OFI, which conducted background investigations for civil service personnel, was privatized. The 700 government employees of OFI became employee-owners as part of USIS. In January 2003, the New York investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe, described by a Carlyle insider as a virtual shadow operation for The Carlyle Group, bought USIS for $545 million. With 5000 current and former employees of USIS sharing $500 million, the deal made them wealthy with the stroke of a pen. However, upper management within USIS became much wealthier than the rank-and-file. Insiders report that the twelve top managers at USIS became multimillionaires as a result of their cashing in of their Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Many of these instant millionaires already had a close relationship with The Carlyle Group.
Carlyle had been a shareholder in USIS since 1999 and with the buy-out deal via the Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe deal, Carlyle became the major shareholder.
USIS continues to have a virtual exclusivity deal to perform background security investigations for OPM. The company bills itself as “one of the largest Intelligence and Security Services companies in North America.”
With the Iraq invasion, USIS obtained lucrative Pentagon private security contracts in Iraq. At a 2004 job fair in Falls Church, Virginia, USIS was advertising for “interrogators” and “protection specialists” for “overseas assignments.” While he was in Iraq training Iraqi police and overseeing the USIS contract to train police as part of the Pentagon’s Civilian Police Assistance Training Team, Westhusing received an anonymous letter that reported USIS’s Private Services Division (PSD) was engaged in fraudulent activities in Iraq, including over-billing the government. In addition, the letter reported that USIS security personnel had murdered innocent Iraqis. After demanding answers from USIS, Westhusing reported the problems up the chain of command, Gens Fil and Petraues, whom he met with on a regular basis. After an “investigation,” the Army found no evidence of wrongdoing by USIS.
That decision signed Col. Westhusing’s death sentence. USIS and Carlyle have powerful allies in the administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Princeton roommate of Carlyle Chairman Emeritus and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. Former President George H. W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker, and former British Prime Minister John Major are Carlyle international advisers. George W. Bush was formerly employed by a Carlyle subsidiary and the Bin Laden business cartel was a one-time investor in the firm.
Westhusing, who, according to friends and colleagues, showed no signs of depression, left a suicide note the Army concluded was in his handwriting. However, Westhusing’s family and friends have thrown cold water on the Army’s investigation.
WMR can report that based on information obtained from Carlyle insiders, Col. Westhusing’s death was not caused by suicide. The fact that Westhusing was investigating one of the most politically and financially powerful firms in the world resulted in higher-ups wanting him out of the way. According to the Los Angeles Times, all of the witnesses who claimed Westhusing shot himself were USIS employees. In addition, a USIS manager interfered with the crime scene, including handling Westhusing’s service revolver. The USIS manager was not tested for gunpowder residue on his hands.
After Westhusing’s murder, USIS management sent a vaguely-worded memo to employees about how to respond to derogatory information in the media or rumors about USIS. Management’s attention, described as “psychotic” in nature, was on USIS’s upcoming IPO (initial public offering), according to a well-placed source.
USIS also owns Total Information Services of Tulsa, Oklahoma,a commercial personal data mining operation.
Damn. Don’t get in the way, and if you do. It’s curtains for you. Psychopathic thugs and criminals are in control of our nation.
The Army closed its case. But the questions continue.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to teach his students better. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.
So it was only natural that Westhusing acted when he learned of possible corruption by U.S. contractors in Iraq. A few weeks before he died, Westhusing received an anonymous complaint that a private security company he oversaw had cheated the U.S. government and committed human rights violations. Westhusing confronted the contractor and reported the concerns to superiors, Fil and Petraues, who forwarded it to Army internal affairs, who launched a short, Tilman-like investigation. Fox guarding the hen house, that type of investigation. If you get what I mean……Colonel Westhusing was not satisfied and pursued it further, thats when the curtain came down…..think of the credibility Colonel Westhusing would bring to these corruption issues if he was allowed to speak to others about them as he was doing, he was going home in three weeks, an ethics professor who believed truth was uncorruptable, an Honor Board leader at West Point…….they were not going to let him get away.
In e-mail to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. has come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.
And they were hiding allot…….which he was confronting his Generals with…………..you saw the result.
I think it’s document 4 that talks about the responses to Westhusing’s charges. It’s sad/amusing to read some of the things that lower chain of command wanted to be known up the chain, such as (paraphrased): “You want a war but you want to outsource it. You can have either but not both.” And some things that actually support the complaints in the anonymous letter to Westhusing.
On the other hand, they also did not want precipitious withdraw, God bless their optimistic souls. Of course if this stuff hadn’t been outsourced to the criminal and incompetent, who’s to say we wouldn’t be much better off right now?
i had this in my files..
West Point Officer’s 2005 Suicide A Painful Reminder of Corruption in Iraq
TPMmuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Officer’s 2005 Suicide A Painful Reminder of Corruption in Iraq
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004022.php
Officer’s 2005 Suicide A Painful Reminder of Corruption in Iraq
By Spencer Ackerman - August 28, 2007, 4:27PM
With the Pentagon’s inspector general set to arrive in Iraq in a few weeks to personally investigate allegations of corruption in, among other places, the training of Iraqi security forces, it’s worth remembering that suspicions of wrongdoing in the command led one officer to take his own life out of apparent shame. In a suicide note left on his bed in Baghdad, Lt. Colonel Ted Westhusing wrote, “I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves.” Westhusing, 44, killed himself on June 5, 2005.
Much about Westhusing’s case remains a mystery. According to a definitive Los Angeles Times exploration of his death published in November 2005, the committed Christian and West Point graduate began working for the training command, known as MNTSC-I, in January of 2005. General David Petraeus, who now leads U.S. forces in Iraq, commanded MNTSC-I in 2004 and 2005. Westhusing’s primary responsibility was to oversee a private company, USIS, which held a $79 million contract to train Iraqi special forces, and Petraeus told him he had exceeded “lofty expectations.”
In May, however, someone — apparently a USIS contractor — slipped him an anonymous four-page letter contending widespread corruption within the company and the command. Journalist Robert Bryce obtained the letter (pdf) earlier this year for a piece in the Texas Observer:
Recently I was told that USIS… is only missing 4 weapons. Now, we just spent the last 9 months with almost 200 weapons missing so I wondered how we went from 200 to 4. The missing weapons are common knowledge within the camp and no one seems to be trying to hide it. The take on it is that the Iraqis are stealing them and it is not our problem. This is not true. A lot of weapons were signed out by instructors and never returned. …
Our Log guys have lost total control over what is issued. If you try to match up what USIS is charging the government, the inventory on camp and what has been issued to Iraqis it will not even be close.
The provenance of the letter is unknown, and it alleged even more serious charges — including contractor murder of Iraqi civilians. Westhusing initially wrote to a commander, Major General Joseph Fil, that USIS was “complying” with the terms of its contract, and that the “evidence suggests the other allegations are not true as well” barely a week before his death. Investigators came to much the same conclusion, though questions about missing weapons were recently corroborated by a Government Accountability Office report disclosing that MNSTC-I lost nearly 200,000 rifles and pistols during 2004 and 2005.
Westhusing — who friends describe as having fallen victim to depression that spring — somehow came to believe the claims to be substantiated, perhaps out of a general sense of despair in his mission. He began to make ominous statements about his fate to family members. His wife later told (pdf) Army investigators that Westhusing told her, “The contractors are corrupt, the Iraqi [sic] were untrustworthy.”
On June 5, at a USIS meeting at the military complex surrounding Baghdad International Airport, Westhusing expressed anger at construction delays, funding shortfalls and delays in training Iraqis. He excused himself during a noontime break. When a colleague went looking for him, he found Westhusing face-down on the floor in a pool of blood. There was gunpowder residue on his hands; after a three-month investigation, Westhusing’s death was ruled a suicide.
Investigators discovered a note in his trailer that “lashed out” at Petraeus and Fil, and ended, “I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being dishonored any more.”
Now, another MNSTC-I official, an Air Force lieutenant colonel named Levonda Joey Selph, faces questioning by criminal investigators for unspecified wrongdoing. Recent government reports have hinted at serious problems with the command’s contracting process, leading Lieutenant General Claude “Mick” Kicklighter, the Pentagon inspector general, to travel to Iraq in the coming weeks to helm a broad anti-corruption investigation. Whether it can rectify the problems Colonel Westhusing came to believe exist throughout the contracting process in Iraq remains to be seen. But hopefully it will bring a sense of closure to his wife, Michelle, who said in a sworn statement to Army investigators, “I think Ted gave his life to let everyone know what was going on.”
also in my files..but check out what she did …….
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/03/kin_say_soldier_hinted_at_concerns/
or
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/03/kin_say_soldier_hinted_at_concerns/
Family of soldier killed in Afghanistan say she raised concerns before her death - The Boston Globe
Kin say soldier hinted at concerns
Senators, Delahunt ask for Defense Department probe
By Michael Levenson and Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | October 3, 2007
The Massachusetts National Guard soldier from Quincy who died Friday in Afghanistan asked her relatives to press for answers if anything happened to her while she was deployed, according to her family.
“She did say to us that she had concerns about things she was seeing when she was over there,” Ciara Durkin’s sister, Fiona Canavan, said in an interview with WGBH-TV. “She told us if anything happened to her, that we were to investigate it.”
Questions surrounding Durkin’s death prompted US Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy and US Representative William D. Delahunt yesterday to call for the Defense Department to thoroughly investigate the death of Durkin, a Quincy resident.
In a letter, Kerry urged Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates “to deploy your staff on this matter immediately, so that the answers and circumstances around Specialist Durkin’s death are uncovered, expeditiously and thoroughly.”
Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat, said his staff met yesterday with Army officials to find out how Durkin died. Kennedy’s office said he had spoken to Army Secretary Pete Geren yesterday to relay the family’s concerns.
The Defense Department says it is investigating Durkin’s death, which it described as a “non-combat-related incident.” Durkin’s family says Army officials have told them she was found with a single bullet in her head, lying near the church where she worshipped on the secure Bagram Airfield.
The Army has not publicly disclosed whether a weapon was found near her body.
The Massachusetts National Guard initially reported that Durkin was killed in action, though a Guard spokesman later said the term meant only that Durkin was serving in Afghanistan at the time.
“When confusing information comes in, which is contradictory, it raises the level of anxiety during a very difficult time,” Kerry said in an interview yesterday. “It’s very important to know what the facts are.”
Canavan said yesterday that the family is trying to be patient as the Army investigates. An Army liaison has met with the family every day, Canavan said.
Yesterday, the military told the family that investigators have interviewed every member of Durkin’s unit “all day, every day.”
Canavan expressed gratitude to Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, saying, “We feel like somebody’s got her back.”
“It’s just a matter of when are you going to let us know if somebody accidentally killed her or purposefully killed her,” Canavan said. “We’re not letting it go. . . . We’re not for one minute accepting anything at face value.”
Canavan said the family was wondering whether someone might have targeted Durkin because she was gay.
“Ciara was a lesbian, and that’s bound to come out,” Canavan said. “It is possible that someone over there found that out, and, you know, maybe they were very homophobic.”
The Adjutant General of Massachusetts, Major General Joseph C. Carter, pledged his support for the family.
“It is my focus to support the family by seeking the answers they need regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of Specialist Durkin,” Carter said in a written statement. “Along with the Durkin family, we are anxious for answers and are anticipating the conclusion of the investigation.”
Durkin, the eighth of nine siblings, was born in Ireland and moved to Massachusetts at age 9. After working in information technology for a healthcare company, she enlisted in the Guard two years ago.
Her family says she admired military discipline and wanted to serve her country.
Kerry said the Durkin family desperately needs answers to three questions:
Why has the Army not responded to the Durkin family’s request for an independent autopsy?
Why, after not responding to the family’s request for an independent autopsy, did the Army fail to contact the Durkin family with the Army’s autopsy results? The family was told to be available to receive a phone call between 1 and 3 p.m. on Oct. 1, and the Army never called.
Why has the Army refused to make Durkin’s will and paperwork available to her family, so they can respect her wishes as they plan her funeral and burial?
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Withington, a Defense Department spokesman, said yesterday that Gates had not received Kerry’s letter but that the Pentagon would respond.
“We do feel there’s a great lack of information but we’re trying to be patient with them,” Canavan said of the military. “They keep telling us they’re taking time so they get it right.”
i guess you could say i have been watching this stuff closely..i have many in my files..and hard copies..
then there is this…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16contract.html?ei=5089&en=f38c8519216efbe1&ex=1350187200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1192594371-OmvGsvwQSE/G+O9DKiDjcQ
——————————————————————————–
October 16, 2007
Top Air Force Official Dies in Apparent Suicide
By ERIC SCHMITT and GINGER THOMPSON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The second-highest-ranking member of the Air Force’s procurement office was found dead Sunday in an apparent suicide, Air Force and police officials said Monday.
The civilian official, Charles D. Riechers, 47, came under scrutiny by the Senate Armed Services Committee this month after reports that the Air Force had arranged for him to be paid about $13,400 a month by a private contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, while he awaited clearance from the White House for his selection as principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. He was appointed to the job, which does not require Senate confirmation, in January.
Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office in Loudoun County, Va., west of Washington, said friends found Mr. Riechers’s body at his home on Sunday night. Mr. Troxell said results from an autopsy would be made public on Tuesday, but two military officials said Mr. Riechers had apparently killed himself by running his car’s engine in his enclosed garage.
A retired Air Force officer, Mr. Riechers (pronounced REE-kers) had a record of accomplishment in aviation and electronic warfare and had received commendations for his role as a manager in Pentagon purchasing. The Air Force’s procurement programs have been handicapped for years by accusations of favoritism, inefficiency and technical shortfalls, and Mr. Riechers’s new role in the procurement office was supposed to have been repairing the damage.
Instead, his death appears likely only to call renewed attention to those problems.
Commonwealth Research, registered as a nonprofit organization in Johnstown, Pa., paid Mr. Riechers for two months as a senior technical adviser while he awaited final approval to the Air Force post. During that time, he worked for Sue C. Payton, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, on several projects for which the service had contracted with Commonwealth Research for technical assistance.
Payments to Mr. Riechers totaling $26,788 were confirmed by Mary Bevan, a spokeswoman for the Concurrent Technologies Corporation, the parent of Commonwealth Research, or C.R.I.
Those payments were first reported on Oct. 1 by The Washington Post. In an interview with The Post, Mr. Riechers said: “I really didn’t do anything for C.R.I. I got a paycheck from them.”
The Air Force has defended the arrangement as routine. The matter raised enough questions, however, that the service asked the Defense Department’s inspector general several months ago to review the propriety of such consulting arrangements. A spokesman for the inspector general said Monday that the review was still under way.
In addition to the recent questions focusing narrowly on Mr. Riechers, the Pentagon and the Justice Department are conducting criminal investigations into the possibility of bribery and other offenses involving some $6 billion in contracts to provide essential supplies to American troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.
Criminal activity aside, Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, said at a hearing this month that far too many weapons acquisitions had been plagued by “cost increases, late deliveries to the war fighters and performance shortfalls.”
Mr. Levin said 25 of the Pentagon’s major defense acquisition programs had experienced cost overruns of at least 50 percent. And he expressed concern about an “alarming lack of acquisition planning across the department.”
Last year, the Pentagon canceled a $23 billion deal to lease tankers from Boeing, after the disclosure that the Air Force’s top procurement officer, Darleen Druyun, had favored Boeing in contracts before being hired by the company.
In May, Mr. Riechers told the northern Virginia chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association that the Druyun scandal was an “aberration,” not representative of the Air Force’s acquisition system, and that restoring credibility to that system was one of his top priorities.
Responding to questions about Mr. Riechers’s death, an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward W. Thomas Jr., said Monday that the arrangements the Pentagon made with C.R.I. helped to provide short-term contractual work as consultants for people awaiting final clearance for senior civilian government positions.
Colonel Thomas said that under an existing contract with Commonwealth Research, Mr. Riechers had provided technical advice to the Air Force on several programs, including the use of bursts of microwaves as a crowd-control technique, employing remotely piloted craft in United States airspace and modernizing the C-130 transport plane.
“The Air Force wanted to get him working on Air Force issues, and this was a good way to do that,” Colonel Thomas said, adding that the service stood behind the agreement.
Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, said that whether or not Mr. Riechers’s suicide had anything to do with the payments he received from Commonwealth Research, it would cast a further shadow over the Pentagon’s beleaguered procurement system and its most important contractors. Concurrent Technologies has extensive contracts with the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and other federal departments.
Mr. Riechers was a retired lieutenant colonel with 20 years of operational, acquisition and staff experience, according to the Air Force. He had logged more than 1,900 flight hours, with 90 hours of combat and combat support time in B-52G and EC-130H aircraft. He had a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic University.
Margot Williams contributed reporting from New York.
also from my files..
http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=1386&z=132
This is a snip from an interview published in “The Lone Star Iconoclast” with a former US Captain and military intelligence officer, Eric May
MAY: There was a West Point professor of ethics, Colonel Ted Westhusing, who in 2005 volunteered to serve in Iraq. He was posted under Petraeus’ command and was assigned duties as an oversight and quality control officer in the Iraqi training program. One of the specific companies he oversaw was USIS. Before long Col. Westhusing began to make reports that there was widespread corruption in the program, that the mission wasn’t being achieved, and that all that seemed to be happening was that money was being flushed around. He said it was illegal and immoral and he wouldn’t put up with it. He was told to shut up and stand down by Petraeus and others in his chain of command. A devout Catholic man, with a wife and a family back home, he began to write letters to them saying that he couldn’t tell the whole story of corruption now, but would when he returned from Iraq.
Petraeus ordered Col. Westhusing to accompany him to USIS company headquarters at Baghdad Airport a few weeks before the colonel was to return home. It was a final showdown, and ominously Westhusing’s bodyguard had been dismissed. The colonel had written and carried a letter that said, “death before dishonor” and he was sticking to his guns, he wasn’t going to back down. He spent the morning in a very heated argument with the USIS people about their corruption, with Petraeus there, and refused to budge from his principles. In my opinion, Col. Westhusing epitomized everything admirable about a good West Point officer, one who had learned from his Academy days that he would neither lie, cheat, nor steal, nor tolerate those who did. Around noon, the meeting broke up for lunch, and Col. Westhusing went into another office. The next thing we know he is dead from a bullet through the head, with the USIS security chief’s fingerprints all over the gun, and the dubious excuse that the security chief had heard the shot, found the pistol, then picked the pistol up to make sure nobody else got hurt by it.
Every detail of that most suspicious story was brought out in the LA Times, but no one else in the U.S. media did any further investigation into it. Smelling a rat, another cover-up, a la Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, I called the West Point and Department of the Army public affairs offices, and both asserted that Westhusing’s death had been a “suicide,” because the Army had conducted a “psychological autopsy.” I requested the credentials of the officer who had done the psychological autopsy, and was surprised to find that the officer in question was a reserve major who had no psychology credentials whatsoever. They refused to let me interview her. In other words, a rubber stamp report was written by a rubber stamp officer. These are the kinds of cover-ups the military has been conducting since 9/11, in one case after another.
It’s as if George Orwell has been writing everything in the U.S. media for the last five years. Nowadays, people are “suicided.” Suicide is supposed to be a noun, but it has become a verb, as in the phrase: “Write the wrong thing and we will suicide you, just like we suicided Col. Westhusing.” The Westhusing family doesn’t believe the colonel’s death was a suicide, though, and neither do I. I think the Army killed a man of conscience, then added ultimate insult to ultimate injury by labeling him, a devout Catholic, a suicide.
The people who are fabricating and repeating lies now are the kind I used to serve with when I was on general staff, train with when I was in military intelligence, or work with when I was in the U.S. media. I know that all of them have enough sense to know what’s going on. There’s not an absence of sense, but of courage in this crop of military and media professionals. Everyone has toed the line, and gone along with the official story — and that is the story of the entire Iraq war.
Petraeus is emblematic of everything wrong with the U.S. military. He will do anything, no matter how corrupt, to serve his political masters. He should never have been appointed to lead our forces in Iraq without first answering serious questions about what happened to Col. Westhusing.
http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=...
wow, that’s a name I know…Capt May. Had a run in with him down here in Houston some years back and still don’t know what to make of him. I support exposing these goons, but I sometimes feel like I trade a goon for goon when dealing with these matters. When I talk about 9/11 “conspiracy theories” with some folks, they are more dogmatic about it than the most biblethumping wonks I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing.
All that out of the way, this Westhusing case is a trip. How does a guy who goes home from Iraq in just days, decide he’d rather not wait? How does his suicide hold those he considered corrupt in contempt? I get the whole death before dishonor, but this doesn’t smell like an honorable death at all.
The old tradition of sepuku was carried out in formal ways, as far as I understand, and there was supposedly some honor it that form of suicide. But having read the supposed final note from Westhusing, it just doesn’t make sense. Maybe it really happened that way, because, like it or not, many things happen that don’t make sense.
I called my representative today to ask for inquiry, even though he’s not on the Oversight committee, I told him to caucus with Waxman others to get to the bottom of this. We’ll see if that helps.
Thanks Larry for this article, this is valuable stuff to deal with. I appreciate you. Be well.
gee, man…
that’s the natural order of things, isn’t it?
when you put people moved by mercenaries instincts in a hell like iraq… what else to expect than robbing and killing?
accountability, perhaps??
well, that leads us to another problem…
I haven’t gleened details of the suicide, but if he was shot in the head - how many shots?
This may seem a silly question, but apparently not. The French photographer embroiled in the Princess Diana murder (the one with white car) was found in burnt out car last year. According to the fire rescue attendee (who has subsequently disappeared, if I am correct?) 2 bullet wounds in the head were described. The fascinating thing about this case was, he not only was able to “cap” himself twice, but also miraculously managed to light and climb into a burning car. The lengths these suiciders go to!
On a more serious note, I remember the verdict and outcome of the committee that looked at events surrounding WACO. I don’t feel confident that justice will be done and Westhusing will not have died in vain. But Larry, I’m eternally hopeful.
Here’s a story about another Army officer who, unlike Col. Westhusing, was targeted in a corruption probe who also committed “suicide:”
Military Probe Focuses on Iraq Contracts
We are currently aware of three documented cases in which officers with a considerable amount of knowledge about military contractor fraud in Iraq, committed suicide before they could testify. This begs the question: are there any other “suicides” of officers or enlisted men that fall into this category? Please note that the Pentagon is extremely reluctant to release info on service men and women who commit suicide. Suicides are listed as “non-combat” deaths. I’ve heard any number of stories in which surviving family members spend months grilling military officials about the circumstances of their loved one’s death only to learn that it was “suicide.”
AF
Hey, suicide is in this season.
so is treason and with the season we have a reason….to impeach.
I wonder if anyone remembers the case of Juan Torres Jr., whose father believes he was murdered in Afghanistan after becoming aware of drug trafficking by US officers. Torres Jr. supposedly shot himself whilst in the shower; his father stated that a number of his son’s fellow soldiers contacted him confirming his suspicions.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers166.html.
Thank you. I couldn’t remember the name of the soldier.
Writers…get it together!
Everything there is being watched.
You may not be able to assertain who did exactly what, but the Army’s own paperwork will tell you who would have been within her presence at any given ‘o hundred hour…
the NSA can handle the rest.
By the way, there’s no statute on murder.
Sees yous wise guys in ‘09.
Bada Bing….
Col. Westhusing was wacked. The only question, for me, was it a free lance hit, or “legit hit” ordered by the bosses of the kleptocracy.
[...] Posted by go_disc_golf or maybe he knew too much and was offed. Did Security Contractors Kill Colonel Westhusing? : NO QUARTER [...]
Please contact Waxmans office. He has been sitting on this for awhile. It is important to get the Colonel’s death, his message and what he was reporting out to everyone.
To share your views, please contact Rep. Waxman’s offices in Washington or Los Angeles, or use the ‘Send a Message’ forms below.
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Yeah! Kick up a dust storm!
Recall also;
Help find the truth about the death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson.
Fixed URL:
iPetitions
In the case of Colonel Westhusing, who died with 3-4 weeks to go before he came home from Iraq, who could expose these corruptions/violations - with his credibility as a leading ethics professor at West Point and as an Honor Board Leader there as well to the American people and the media in a open forum? With his direct connections to the Army elite, Fil and Petraues who he worked directly with and whom he confronted with these allegations. And USIS as well. Then you add in the politics and Bush’s promotions of both these two men. You tell me…….you think they would have let him come home with his credibility?
by the way, Petraues hand picked Colonel Westhusing for this most critical position and Gen. Petraues was a West Point graduate.
Also, concerning Colonel Westhusing, he didn’t teach poetry or writing, he was a military strategist with an ethical mind who taught philosophy and ethics and the responsibility of the civility of war and how it could possibly be managed in the face of war’s most corruptive and merciless moments. Doesn’t anyone respect the code of honor, even in the face of war? or have we completely lost a sense of ourselves, our morality as Americans and what we used to represent. Col. Ted was all that.
I just learned of this yesterday while attempting to locate my old friend. Ted Westhusing was my company XO when I commanded a parachute infantry company in Italy and Ft. Bragg in the mid-80’s. He was #2 in his West Point class, but as down to earth a guy as you’ll ever meet. My wife and I attended his wedding to Michelle at the Main Post Chapel at Bragg. We stayed in touch until I retired 5 years ago, but I knew he was heading to WP as a permanent professor. There is no more career progression for guys who follow this path (they make full colonel, but are not in the competitive category for progression to flag ranks), and the only reason Ted found himself in Iraq is that he volunteered to go. The Ted I knew and loved as a brother in arms would not have put a pistol to his head. If it was, indeed, suicide, then Ted had changed dramatically from the man I knew all these years. Rest in peace brother. He was the best of the best.
__________________
Charter Indoctinated Tool of the RCMB
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This is a little late but it might proved and answer.
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