Murdered U.S. civilian contractor (MERCENARY) in Iraq had links to Cheney firm

Mercenaries, Mercenaries, Mercenaries

James Kitterman, the President of Janus Construction Corporation, which had contracts for the scandal-plagued new U.S. embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone and who was found stabbed to death on May 22, spent a number of years working for Kellogg, Brown & Root/Halliburton, the company once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kitterman's was found blindfolded and bound with his throat slit and with multiple stab wounds in an SUV parked inside the Green Zone. Kitterman, a former U.S. Navy chief petty officer, lived in Houston and was due to return to the United States a week after his murder.

Four American employees of Corporate Training Unlimited (CTU) of Fayetteville, North Carolina, including its president, were arrested by Iraqi law enforcement authorities under a new U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that strips U.S. contractors of immunity under Iraqi law. A fifth American, who works for another firm was also arrested by the Iraqis in connections with Kitterman's death. According to CTU's website, "In 2003, CTU provide PSD 'Personal Security Detail' service to Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR MER Baghdad) top executives."

According to the Fayetteville Observer, the same day that Kitterman's body was found another CTU contractor, Larry Young, was found dead in the Green Zone from what was "suspected" to have been a rocket attack.

CTU's president is Donald Feeney, Jr., and former Delta Force, was, according to the Fayetteville Observer, arrested along with his son, Donald Feeney III, and two other CTU employees, Micah Milligan and Mark Bridges. The fifth man, Jason Jones, is reported to have worked for "another firm."

Feeney's other son, John Feeney, told the Fayetteville paper that his father was in the Philippines when Kitterman was killed, adding the two were friends but never business partners. The son also stated that two of the CTU employees arrested with his father were at the U.S. embassy at the time of Kitterman's murder.

CTU has had contracts to train the Fayetteville police department in hostage rescue tactics and other emergency responses. CTU also was contracted to provide security for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves in Louisiana and Texas, as well as providing specialized training to the security forces of Peru and Ecuador.

Kitterman's brother, Cliff, told the New York Daily News after his brother's murder, "I know some things, but it's speculation right now."

The elder Feeney has been in the news before as a professional "kidnapper." His CTU firm, composed of ex-Army commandos, was paid $200,000 by a Texas woman to snatch her daughter from her Jordanian ex-husband from a school bus in an Amman suburb in January 1988. The kidnapping caused a diplomatic incident between the United States and Jordan and a U.S. diplomat at the embassy in Amman, believed to have assisted in the kidnapping, was recalled to Washington to answer questions. The Reagan administration was forced to apologize to Jordan over the kidnapping incident.

CTU was back in the news again in 1993 when CTU mercenaries, claiming to work for Sylvester Stallone's Carcolo film production company, lured a five year-old girl and her older step-sister away from their Icelandic mother as part of an elaborate hoax and were set to spirit them out of Iceland along with the five-year old's American father who had contracted with Feeney's CTU to conduct to kidnapping. The older girl was to be returned to her American father who was previously married to the same Icelandic mother. Both American fathers were ex-U.S. servicemen. The five-year old's parents had been divorced in 1991 and the older daughter's father had been divorced from her mother in 1986.

Arrested by Icelandic police at Keflavik International Airport were the elder Feeney, who was masquerading as Stallone's film director, and his American client James Grayson. The little girl was returned to her mother, who had been promised a role in the production of a Stallone movie and was slipped a knockout pill by Jacqueline Davis, who claimed to be Stallone's location manager and who was in cahoots with Judy, Feeney's wife. Davis and Judy Feeney were arrested by Luxembourg police after leaving Iceland. The Feeneys also used Swiss and German soil to perpetrate their kidnapping endeavor, an indication of what little regard the ex-Delta Force commando holds the laws of foreign nations from Iceland and Jordan to Iraq. CTU also snatched children away from the foreign ex-husbands of American mothers in Bangladesh, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.

The Kitterman murder does not stop with CTU. Kitterman, before starting Janus Construction in 2008, worked for Peregrine Development International, a Kuwaiti-financed firm whose president is Dennis Wright, Kitterman's former boss. Kitterman was known to be an "expert" in Iraq and served, according to Wright in an e-mail to The Washington Post, "more days on the ground in Iraq than any other American." Kitterman had been a contractor in Iraq since 2003, the year of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Part of that time was spent by Kitterman working for Kellogg, Brown and Root.

The alibi that CTU president Feeney had been in the Philippines when Kitterman was murdered is also noteworthy. Last year, KGL Investment Company of Kuwait, was selected by Clark International Airport Corporation, with the blessing of the scandal-plagued Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to build a major air transportation logistics complex at the former U.S. Air Force base at Clark on the island of Luzon. The project is worth some $2 billion. Selected by KGL to develop the project was Peregrine, Kitterman's old firm. Part of the development work is the construction of storage facilities for the Malampaya gas field, northwest of Palawan island. The work was contracted to KBR/Halliburton in 2001. KGL maintains operations in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

On August 25, 2008, the Manila Standard reported, "Mrs. Arroyo and KGL officials led by president Mark Williams, Evan McBride and Kevin Krucik will witness the laying of the time capsule by [Clark Airport President Jose] Luciano and project contractor Peregrine Development International represented by its president Dennis Wright."

CTU's website also links to the Clark Eagle Sooting Range and Club website, described as "a multi-million peso state of the art firearms training facility located 80 kilometers north of Manila via the newly refurbished North Luzon Expressway, within the massive Clark Freeport (formerly Clark Air Base) situated adjacent to Angeles City in the province of Pampanga." CTU describes the Clark Eagle Range as the "CTU Training Facility in the Pilippines [sic]."

The involvement of the Philippines with Feeney, CTU, and Peregrine is noteworthy and is a reminder of a murky story involving Cheney when he was Vice President.

On December 13, 2005, WMR reported: "Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, has some interesting partners in its work in occupied Iraq. On Dec. 11, WMR reported on links between Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root and a Viktor Bout-owned airline based in Moldova, Aerocom/Air Mero. Bout's airlines have also reportedly been involved in flying low wage earners from East Asia to Dubai and on to Iraq where they work for paltry salaries in sub-standard living conditions. Halliburton/KBR has sub-contracted to a shadowy Dubai-based firm, Prime Projects International Trading LLC (PPI), which 'trades' mainly in workers from Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and other poor Asian nations . . . In 2004, after a Filipino PPI worker was killed in a mortar attack on Camp Anaconda in Iraq, the Philippines government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered PPI, which is based at P.O. Box 42252, Dubai, UAE, to send overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) home from Iraq and Kuwait and banned it from further recruiting in the Philippines. Some of PPI's recruiting included running ads on the Internet. In addition to the other south Asian employees, the Philippine workers were employed by PPI under a Pentagon sweetheart umbrella contract let to KBR under the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) III program.

Although little is known about PPI, it reportedly has been linked to Halliburton/KBR for a number of years and has been associated with Halliburton contracts in the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Balkans during the time when Dick Cheney headed the firm.

Inside sources report that PPI has some high level financial partners, including the al Nahayan royal family of the United Arab Emirates and Vice President Cheney. And there are connections to President Macapagal-Arroyo's ordering the repatriation of hundreds of Filipino workers home from Iraq and Kuwait and the discovery that U.S. Marine Corps and FBI spy Leandro Aragoncillo, a Filipino-American who worked as a Marine security aide inside Cheney's office until early 2002 and who was arrested by the FBI this past October, had stolen dossiers from Cheney's office that were considered damaging to Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo. Macapagal-Arroyo was sworn in as President on January 20, 2001 (the same day George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were sworn in) after a popular revolution ousted Joseph Estrada. Macapagal-Arroyo, the daughter of past Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal.

Aragoncillo passed Cheney's reports on Macapagal-Arroyo, some of which were obtained from National Security Agency intercepts, to Estrada, a political opponent of Macapagal-Arroyo and an ally of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos. Estrada was planning a coup against Macapagal-Arroyo with U.S. support. Aragoncillo was linked to another U.S.-based Filipino spy -- former Philippine National Police officer Michael Ray Aquino -- who was also involved in passing Cheney's classified documents to Estrada. Aquino, who is wanted in the Philippines for involvement in murder, kidnapping, and drug trafficking, was also arrested by the FBI.

More importantly, Aquino's close friend, Estrada, is also a business associate of indicted GOP lobbyist/reputed gangster Jack Abramoff. Another high-level Filipino-American in the White House, Karl Rove's Assistant and Assistant to the President, Susan Bonzon Ralston, also served as Abramoff's personal assistant at the law firms Preston Gates & Ellis and Greenberg Traurig. Ralston has been called to testify before the grand jury and special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating Karl Rove's involvement in leaking the name of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the media.

Aragoncillo allegedly passed over 100 documents from a classified FBI computer system at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey while working there as an intelligence analyst for the FBI after he left the Marine Corps. It is significant that Aragoncillo admitted to spying while only working as an aide to Cheney and not when he worked for Vice President Al Gore during 1999 and 2000.

It now seems apparent that Aragoncillo and Aquino were part of an illegal Cheney covert operation to topple Macapagal-Arroyo in retaliation for her stopping PPI's recruiting efforts in the Philippines. That decision by Manila dealt a severe financial blow to the Halliburton/KBR LOGCAP profits in Iraq. It is also of note that Aragoncillo worked with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The fact that Kitterman was one of the longest-serving contractors in Iraq and was someone who worked for both KBR/Halliburton and Peregrine, and would have been privy to information about State Department contracts for the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, makes him yet another potential "ghost" who is knocking on Cheney's door.

On November 15, 2007, WMR reported: "The House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform interviewed or took deposition from 13 current and former State Department officials who all questioned the actions of Howard "Cookie" Krongard. the Inspector General of the State Department, whose brother, a former CIA Executive Director, serves on the advisory board of Blackwater USA, a State Department contractor under investigation by the State Department's Office of the Inspector General.

Also under investigation was Krongard's investigation of First Kuwaiti Trading & Construction Company, the contractor chosen to build the palatial U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Krongard, according to Justice Department officials, maintained that investigating the improper billing and theft of materials by the contractor was 'not the sort of thing the OIG [Office of Inspector General] did.'

In January 2007, the Department of Justice requested Krongard's assistance in investigating allegations against First Kuwaiti that it was engaged in contract fraud. According to the Democratic Majority report on Krongard, John DeDona, the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, and Deputy Inspector General Bill Todd were told by Krongard to 'stand down on this issue and not assist' the Justice Department in obtaining contract files, contract records, payment invoices, [and] inspection reports on the embassy construction contract . . . In July 2007, Krongard told Justice Department investigators that their requests for assistance in investigating the First Kuwaiti contract were 'very burdensome.' Krongard also rejected a request that the OIG's audit division conduct an audit of the First Kuwaiti contract. Krongard said no audit could be done until the construction of the embassy was completed. The embassy construction is currently delayed and over budget."

Kitterman was murdered a week before he was due to return to the United States. He obviously possessed information that, if it fell into the hands of investigators, could have sent some powerful people to prison. And that is the kind of information that would get someone killed. In this case, important information on corruption involving contractors all the way up to the former Vice President may have signed Kitterman's death warrant.

Operation Condor Part 2: George Bush Is Restarting Latin America's 'Dirty Wars'.

By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet

Two soldiers in Paraguay stand in front of a camera. One of them holds an automatic weapon. John Lennon's "Imagine" plays in the background. This Orwellian juxtaposition of war and peace is from a new video posted online by U.S. soldiers stationed in Paraguay. The video footage and other military activity in this heart of the continent represent a new wave of U.S.-backed militarism in Latin America.

It's a reprise of a familiar tune. In the 1970s and 1980s, Paraguay's longtime dictator, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner http://www.coha.org/2006/09/25/paraguay-–-us-post-stroessner-relations, collaborated with the region's other dictators through Operation Condor, which used kidnapping, torture and murder to squash dissent and political opponents. Stroessner's human rights record was so bad that even Ronald Reagan distanced himself from the leader. Carrying on this infamous legacy, Paraguay now illustrates four new characteristics of Latin America's right-wing militarism: joint exercises with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency training, monitoring potential dissidents and social organizations, the use of private mercenaries for security and the criminalization of social protest through "anti-terrorism" tactics and legislation.

In May of 2005, the Paraguayan Senate voted to allow U.S. troops to operate in Paraguay with total immunity. Washington had threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the U.S. troops entry. In July of 2005 hundreds of U.S. soldiers arrived in the country http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/dangl, and Washington's funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay doubled. The U.S. troops conducted various operations and joint training exercises with Paraguayan forces, including so-called Medical Readiness Training Exercises (MEDRETEs). Orlando Castillo, a military policy expert at the human rights rights organization Servicio, Paz y Justicia in Asunción, Paraguay, says the MEDRETEs were "observation" operations aimed at developing "a type of map that identifies not just the natural resources in the area, but also the social organizations and leaders of different communities."

Castillo, in his cool Asunción office, with the standard Paraguayan herbal tea, tereré in his hand, said these operations marked a shift in U.S. military strategy. "The kind of training that used to just happen at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, is now decentralized," he explained. "The U.S. military is now establishing new mechanisms of cooperation and training with armed forces." Combined efforts, such as MEDRETEs, are part of this agenda. "It is a way to remain present, while maintaining a broad reach throughout the Americas." Castillo said this new wave of militarism is aimed at considering internal populations as potential enemies and preventing insurgent leftists from coming to power.

But Bruce Kleiner of the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay said that the MEDRETEs "provide humanitarian service to some of Paraguay's most disadvantaged citizens." But this video ( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2508334792080014639&q=U.S.+military+paraguay&total=5&start=0&num=10&so=0&type ) by Captain William Johnson shows that there's more to the MEDRETE operations, with local Paraguayans being questioned as they receive treatment, as well as events and ceremonies aimed at strengthening ties between the military personnel of both countries. Often, heavily armed men are seen walking past lines of local families while they wait for medicine and questions. The lighthearted depiction of these joint military operations seen in the video is in sharp contrast with reports from local citizens.

A group of representatives from human rights organizations and universities from all over the world, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and a group from the University of Toulouse, France, traveled to Paraguay last July as part of the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) to observe and report on ( http://alainet.org/active/12453&lang=es ) the repression going on in the country linked to the presence of U.S. troops. The local citizens they interviewed said they were not told what medications they were given during the U.S. MEDRETEs. Patients said they were often given the same treatments regardless of their illness. In some cases, the medicine produced hemorrhages and abortions. When the medical treatment took place, patients reported that they were asked if they belonged to any kind of labor or social organization. Among the leaders of such organizations, dozens have been disappeared and tortured in recent years, just as they were during Latin America's "dirty wars" in the Reagan era.

While Orlando Castillo is adamant that the historic military links between Paraguay and the United States remain strong, the U.S. troops that arrived in 2005 have reportedly left the country. In December 2006, the Paraguayan Senate and executive branch, responding to pressure from neighboring countries, voted to end the troops' immunity. Paraguay would have been excluded from the lucrative regional trade bloc of Mercosur if it continued to grant immunity to U.S. forces.

Privatizing repression

Castillo sees private mercenaries, or paramilitaries, as another key piece of the new militarism puzzle. In Paraguay, the strongest paramilitary group is the Citizens Guard. "These paramilitary groups are made of people from the community. They establish curfews and rules of conduct, and monitor the activity of the community. They also intervene in family disputes and can kick people out of the community or off land ... this all very similar to the paramilitary activities in Colombia." Castillo said that while this activity is illegal, the police and judges simply look the other way. Many of the paramilitaries are connected to large agribusinesses and landowners and have been linked to increased repression of small farming families that have resisted the expansion of the soy ( http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093/the_multinational_beanfield_war/ ) industry, a cash-crop mostly for export. The shadow army of the Citizens Guard is as big as the state security forces: These paramilitary groups ( http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3441 ) have nearly 22,000 members, while the Paraguayan police force is only 9,000 strong and the military has 13,000 members.

The use of private security is on the rise throughout the Americas. Journalist Cyril Mychalejko reported that the Bush administration was recently incriminated ( http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/848/1/ ) in a scandal involving Chiquita Brands International Inc. and their funding of paramilitaries to repress a discontented labor force in Colombia. The paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Force of Colombia (AUC) is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. In 2003, a former executive at Chiquita told Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff that they were paying the paramilitary group. Chertoff looked the other way, allowing the company to pay an additional $134,000 to the AUC throughout that year.

Castillo's comments about the new U.S. military strategy for the region apply to all of Latin America. Carrying on the legacy of the School of the Americas, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) ( http://www.cispes.org/documents/Ilea%20flyer_march07_bilingual.pdf ) was recently opened in El Salvador, where similar training is going on to broaden the military's reach in the area.

Exporting the "War on Terror"

Anti-terrorism rhetoric and legislation is being mixed into this deadly cocktail in Paraguay, as it is across Latin America. The Paraguayan Senate is scheduled to pass an anti-terrorism law that will criminalize social protest and establish penalties of up to 40 years in prison for participating in such activities. A large march against the passage of the law took place in the country's capital on July 26.

The U.S.-based corporate media plays a part in what has become a war against labor movements and leftist politicians. Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, has regularly been portrayed ( http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_in_the_par_1.php ) in the American media as a haven and training ground for Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. Regional analysts ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060717/dangl ) believe this terrifying narrative has aided the Pentagon in its military plans for the country. Terrorism talk is similarly being used for political purposes elsewhere in Latin America. The U.S.A Patriot Act was used to revoke ( http://www.alternet.org/story/33005/ ) the U.S. travel visa for Bolivian human rights leader and labor organizer Leonilda Zurita shortly after leftist president Evo Morales came to power.

In Venezuela's national divide between pro- and anti-Chavez citizens, everything is political. CNN recently entered the fray when it aired footage that Venezuelan governmental officials said falsely linked Chavez to Al-Qaeda. The Venezuelan government has filed charges against CNN ( http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Rowdy_protests_continue_after_Chavez_TV_0529.html ) for the act. Information Minister William Lara said CNN showed photos of Chavez alongside those of an Al-Qaeda leader. He explained that "CNN broadcast a lie which linked President Chavez to violence and murder." CNN denied having "any intention of associating President Chavez with al Qaeda …"

In Nicaragua, the media has recently been used as a tool by Washington to promote its foreign policy agenda. A long time lab rat for U.S. imperialism, Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America and the site of a socialist revolution in the 1980s when the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. The specter of a Sandinista-led government still haunts the White House. In a 2001 presidential election in Nicaragua when Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was running for re-election, (right after 9/11) similar tactics were employed, and the media was a key tool. In an ad in the Nicaraguan paper La Prensa, Jeb Bush was quoted as saying ( http://www.therationalradical.com/dsep/jeb-bush.htm ) : "Daniel Ortega is an enemy of everything the United States represents. Further, he is a friend of our enemies. Ortega has a relationship of more than 30 years with states and individuals who shelter and condone international terrorism." The tactic worked, and the pro-free market, right-wing Washington ally Enrique Bolaños beat Ortega. In the lead up to the presidential election on Nov. 5, 2006, former U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North visited Nicaragua to warn voters not to elect Daniel Ortega. In the 1980s North was convicted of violating U.S. law to organize the Contra guerrillas against the Sandinista government. North reminded voters that the same terror could return to Nicaragua under a new Ortega administration. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., threatened another trade embargo and to prevent money sent from Nicaraguans in the United States from reaching their families at home. U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli said ( http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=460&Itemid=45 ) that if Ortega won the elections, the United States would "re-evaluate relations" with the country. The media was used against Ortega as well, with TV commercials showing corpses from the Contra war in the 1980s, warning citizens against voting for the left's choice. This time, however, the media campaign backfired, and Ortega won the election.

Paraguayan journalist Marco Castillo shook as head while contemplating this new landscape of repression. Dozens of social organization leaders and dissidents have been disappeared and tortured in recent years. "Impunity reigns," he said. "This is as bad as it was during the worst years of the Stroessner dictatorship."

Benjamin Dangl won a 2007 Project Censored Award for his coverage of U.S. military operations in Paraguay. He is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia ( http://www.boliviabook.com/ ) (AK Press, 2007).
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/58605/



"IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT, TELLING THE TRUTH WILL BE A REVOLUTIONARY ACT." - George Orwell

“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” - Eduardo Galeano