DynCorp
|
|
DynCorp is a U.S.-based private military contractor (PMC). The Reston, Virginia company has provided "contract field teams" for the U.S. military in major theaters, such as Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait. It is also active in the Chapare province of Bolivia, eradicating coca fields. DynCorp also provides much of the security for Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai's presidential guard and training Afghanistan's fledgling police force.
It has been one of the federal government's top twenty-five contractors. In March 2003 Dyncorp was acquired by an even larger government contractor, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for approximately US$914 million.
At the time of acquisition, DynCorp had 26,000 employees and 95% of DynCorp's revenues came from U.S. government contracts.
In December 2004 CSC announced that it had agreed to sell its DynCorp International and DynMarine units and selected DynCorp Technical Services contracts to private equity investment firm Veritas Capital for $850 million. The business units included in this sale represented approximately 37% of total DynCorp revenue of about US$2.525 billion at the time of the DynCorp acquisition by CSC.
Among the agencies it has worked with include the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department.
DynCorp has had its share of controversy, as private military contractors such as Carlyle Group and Halliburton have had increasing roles in U.S. military operations overseas. This has led to the question of whether PMCs can be held to the same standards of accountability as members of the U.S. military.
Critics accuse DynCorp of involvement in conflicts in Bolivia, where they are said to earn money with the smuggling of cocaine. In 1999, a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit was filed against DynCorp employees stationed in Bosnia, which found, "employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior and were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and participating in other immoral acts."
On October 15, 2003, three DynCorp employees were killed in a bombing in the Gaza Strip. They were serving as security guards for American diplomats, supplementing the Diplomatic Security Service.
External links
- DynCorp International home page (http://www.dyn-intl.com/)
- State Outsources Secret War (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20010604&s=vest20010523), article from The Nation
- Outsourcing the Pentagon (http://www.publicintegrity.org/pns/db.aspx?cinfo&coid=003242013), information on Dyncorp Pentagon contracts and lobbying from Center for Public Integrityde:DynCorp