Outsourced (48 page)
Authors: R. J. Hillhouse
The Department of Defense running spy networks around the world signals a major shift toward the militarization of intelligence and challenges the very existence of the CIA. It's very probable that the shift in leadership at the Pentagon is a reprieve for the Agency and may even signal the end of unilateral covert actions by the Department of Defense.
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With very little strategic planning, public debate, or Congressional oversight, American national security has been handed over to the private sectorâto small loyal companies run by longtime US government veterans as well as to large multinational firmsâcorporations with international clientele, foreign ownership, and with primary allegiance to their shareholders. With proper oversight, the private sector has consistently demonstrated its ability to deliver government services more effectively and more efficiently than the state, but we may be approaching the limits of government privatization as national security is put in question.
War and espionage have been transformed in the twenty-first century as the government has scrambled to respond to an unconventional enemy. Soldiers are spies. Spies are soldiers. And the War on Terror has been outsourced.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
OUTSOURCED
Copyright © 2007 by Tasopé International, LLC
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hillhouse, Raelynn.
Outsourced / R.J. Hillhouse.â1st hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-1-4668-0735-8
1. War on Terrorism, 2001âFiction. 2. Independent contractorsâFiction. I. Title.
PS3608.I44O89 2007
813'.6âdc22
2007226532
1.
James Bramford, “This Spy for Rent,”
The New York Times
, June 13, 2004; see also Walter Pincus, “Increase in Contracting Intelligence Jobs Raises Concerns,”
The Washington Post
, March 20, 2006; and Tim Shorrock, “The Spy Who Billed Me,”
Mother Jones
, January/February 2005.
2.
Greg Miller, “Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs,”
The Los Angeles Times
, September 17, 2006.
3.
Robert Little, “Outsourcing at NSA boots Md., security,”
The Baltimore Sun
, March 31, 2004.
4.
Little, “Outsourcing at NSA.”
5.
Alfred Cumming, Specialist in Intelligence and National Security, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, Memorandum to Senator Dianne Feinstein, “Congress as Consumer of Intelligence Information,” December 14, 2005,
http://feinstein.senate.gov/crs-intel.htm
.
6.
Dr. John Gannon, testimony before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 2, 2006,
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1858&wit_id=5282
.
7.
Walter Pincus, “Increase in Contracting Intelligence,”
The Washington Post
, March 20, 2006.
8.
Patrick T. Henry, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), Memorandum to the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, through the Secretary of the Army and Director of Army Staff, “Intelligence Exemption,” December 26, 2000.
9.
The primary author of the new manual claims to have received little guidance from the Army other than initial basic guidelines. See Jonathan Were, “Contractors Write the Rules,” Center for Public Integrity, June 30, 2004,
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/report.aspx?aid=334
. MPRI is now owned by Level-3 Communications, a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
10.
See Jason Peckenpaugh, “Army Contractor Count Stymied by Red Tape,”
GovExec.com
, June 3, 2004,
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0604/060304p1.htm
.
11.
Barry Yeoman, “Soldiers of Good Fortune,”
Mother Jones
, May/June 2003.
12.
Ellen McCarthy, “Contractors' Budget Work Criticized,”
The Washington Post,
June 30, 2004.
13.
The size of the private intelligence industry is unknown. However, private companies reportedly receive one half of the $40 billion US intelligence budget. See Congressman David Price, “Intelligence Authorization Act of 2007,”
Congressional Record
, April 26, 2006.
14.
Walter Pincus, “Lawmakers Want More Data on Contracting Out Intelligence,”
The Washington Post
, May 7, 2006.
15.
See
Intelligencecareers.com
, Job Number 282513 IC Job ID: 49033; and Job Number 300220 IC Job ID: 118587. The “HUMINT Collector” positions in Afghanistan require a minimum education of a high school diploma, five years' experience and training as a “strategic debriefer” and it pays $70,000 to $90,000 per year with benefits.
16.
Jenny Mandel, “Military Seeks Head Count of Contractors in Iraq,”
GovExec.com
, May 19, 2006,
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0506/051906m1.htm
; and Robert A. Burton, Associate Administrator, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Memorandum for Chief Acquisitions Officers, Senior Procurement Executives, “Request Contracting Information on Contractors Operating in Iraq,” May 16, 2006.
17.
Statement of William Solis,
Rebuilding Iraq. Actions Still Needed to Improve the Use of Private Security Providers
. (Washington: GAO, June 2006).
18.
Daniel Berger, “The Other Army,”
The New York Times
, August 14, 2005.
19.
In the summer of 2006, the US military had some 133,000 troops in Iraq.
20.
Peter W. Singer, “Warriors for Hire in Iraq,”
Salon.com
, April 15, 2004.
21.
Peter W. Singer, “War, Profits and the Vacuum of Law: Privatized Military Firms and International Law,”
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law
, Spring 2004.
22.
T. Christian Miller, “The Torment of Col. Westhusing,”
The Los Angeles Times
, November 27 2005; see also “Military Ethicist's Suicide in Iraq Raises Questions,”
All Things Considered
.
NPR
, November 28, 2006.
23.
The company has now replaced this with a more sanitized version, omitting mention of special operations and also excluding any mention of alignment with US interests. The version quoted can be found in the Internet archive at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040914020610/www.triplecanopy.com/company/mission.php
.
24.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater sent 150 heavily armed soldiers to patrol the disaster area under contract with the Department of Homeland Security. Many were fresh from Iraq and others waiting for security clearance to go to Iraq. See Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Down,”
The Nation
, October 10, 2005.
25.
Yeoman, “Soldiers of Good Fortune.”
26.
Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater USA Says It Can Supply Forces for Conflicts,”
The Virginian-Pilot
, March 30, 2006.
27.
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/securityconsulting/services.asp
, June 7, 2006.
28.
Seymour Hersh, “The Coming Wars. What the Pentagon Can Now Do in Secret,”
The New Yorker
, January 24, 2005.
29.
Barton Gellman, “Controversial Pentagon Espionage Unit Loses Its Leader,”
The Washington Post
, February 13, 2005.
30.
Barton Gellman, “Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld's Domain,”
The Washington Post
, January 23, 2005. From the 1980s until the creation of the SSB, the Pentagon has maintained a small spy unit, sometimes known as Gray Fox, that worked within the confines of traditional legal interpretations of Title 10.
31.
Gellman, “Secret Unit;” Thom Shanker and Scott Shane, “Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence,”
The New York Times
, March 8, 2006; and Barton Gellman, “Controversial Pentagon Espionage Unit Loses Its Leader,”
The Washington Post
, February 13, 2005. These espionage units are distinct from the equally highly classified teams of Special Forces operators that were created shortly after 9/11 to track down and eliminate high-level al Qaeda leaders. These hunter-killer teams, similar to the CIA's Phoenix program during the Vietnam War, frequently change their designations, but have been known as Task Force 20, 121, 5-25, 6-26 and 145 and have been implicated in abuse of prisoners. See Barton Gellman and R. Jeffery Smith, “Report to Defense Alleged Abuse by Prison Interrogation Teams,”
The Washington Post
, December 8, 2004; Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall, “Before and After Abu Ghraib, a US Unit Abused Detainees,”
The New York Times
, March 19, 2006; and Brian Ross, “Secret US Task Force 145 Changes Its Name, Again,”
The BlotterâABC News
, June 12, 2006,
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/06/secret_us_task_.html
.
32.
Eric Schmitt, “Clash Foreseen Between CIA and Pentagon,”
The New York Times
, May 10, 2006. See also Alfred Cumming, Specialist in Intelligence and National Security, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service,
CRS Report for Congress. Covert Action: Legislative Background and Possible Policy Questions
, November 2, 2006.