BlackRain
11-30-2005, 01:47 PM
Profession: French mercenary in Iraq
LeMonde.fr
Updated 25.11.05|14h28
Londres, September 2004. The buildings of a company of safety, directed by a former officer of French infantry, are the theatre of a little particular hearings. Close-cropped hair, impressive physiques... All French, the men who ravel before a small assembly of recruiters have similar profiles: old of the Legion, the commandos or the paras. Inter alia feats of arms, they supported the president congolais Denis Sassou Nguesso, fought in Madagascar, or founded a school of krav-maga, the sport of Israeli combat, in the south of France... The company of safety, which recruits in the name of often American or British sleeping partners, proposes a 45 days to them mission, remunerated 7 000 pounds (10 200 euros), in order to protect from the significant sites in Iraq. All, of course, are eager to rejoin Baghdad -- where France refused to send troops to the sides of the American forces. The business is profitable, and the former French soldier has the dimension on this flourishing market.
According to the general direction of external safety (DGSE), which wrote several reports/ratios on the subject in mid-November, "37 French nationals would be currently employed by seven companies of safety deprived in Iraq" . For the French secret service, "reputation of the former French soldiers in fact of the recruits estimated by the foreign private military companies, which appreciate their practice of the crises, the quality of their contact with the local populations and their good knowledge of the mediums known as exotic" .
In October 2005, it is the American company Executive Security and Aviation Solutions (ESAS) which launched a recruitment campaign to France, in order to unearth about fifty guards of safety. Glenn F, [ be names of the former soldiers were voluntarily removed for their own safety ] an American, titular national of a chart of French resident, former deserter of the Legion, played the intermediaries, with the assistance of Peter H., another former légionary. It was enough, to be registered, to send by e-mail its CV to the electronic address of Glenn F.
The services supervise the universe of the French mercenariat narrowly. The former soldiers represent a fish pond of privileged advisors. They have access to very closed mediums. Moreover, the DGSE can thus anticipate possible coups d'etat, while announcing, here or there, the recruiting in great number of former soldiers, for more or less avowable causes.
Very snuffed on the market of safety in Iraq, the French mercenaries thus work for a half-dozen of companies, primarily Anglo-Saxon. Eights of them were engaged by Unity Resources Group (URG). URG quasi exclusively recruits former légionaries of the 2 E REFERENCE MARK (foreign regiment parachutists).
One their heads of teams, a 36 year old man, born in Czechoslovakia (become Czech Republic), had formed part, in September 2000, of the bodyguards of the General Robert Gueï, transitory president of the Côte.d'ivoire. One of its fellow-members, old of the Legion, was killed in a ambush, April 16. Since the beginning of the activities of the private companies of safety (SSP) in Iraq, the DGSE listed four died of French nationality. According to an estimate carried out by the secret service in June 2005, the losses of the companies of safety, all confused nationalities, would reach the figure of 238 people, for a total staff complement of 50 000 men, employed by some 400 companies.
Remain that the French quota in Iraq is reduced little by little. They were 63 in June 2005. They are thus nothing any more but 37. In addition to URG, one counts, for example, four French within the British SSP Erinys, eight others at Hart Group Ltd, four still within Aegis, and another at Kroll.
This downward trend seems especially due to the degradation of the conditions of safety, in particular in Baghdad. But the former French soldiers are also wary of the methods used by their employers. The DGSE points "serious dysfunctions within the companies: maladjustment of the means entrusted to the attacked teams, absence of assistance to the families at the time of death... ". With, moreover, "a hardening of the control of these SSP on behalf of the Iraqi State" .
Lastly, in Iraq like elsewhere, universalization has its side effects. In a very competing market, the agents of safety coming from country in the process of development find easily taking. Even if it means to allow Iraqi insurrectionists to infiltrate manpower of the SSP. Recruitments obey curious criteria sometimes.
The services of information stress that the American SSP engaged this summer "of former members of the Lebanese Forces (FL), appreciated for their hatred of the Moslems and their experiment of the guerrilla in urban environment" . Remunerations have what to give birth to vocations: 10 000 dollars per month, plus a strong allowance paid with the family in the event of death.
The only French company to evolve/move on the Iraqi market is called Allied International Consultants and Services (AICS). It protects in majority from the French-speaking journalists, and tries to impose its particular working methods. "One arrived on the spot in February 2004 , remembers his person in charge in Baghdad, Jean-Philippe L, itself former soldier.
The Anglo-Saxons, it is true, proceed differently. They are very visible, very aggressive. Us, one works more the profile, one is more discrete. And especially, one tries to work with the Iraqis." AICS engages of the Iraqi assistants, often of former soldiers trained in France in the years 1980, to negotiate with the heads of tribe.
"One cannot compete with the Anglo-Saxon boxes, notices Jean-Philippe L, one collects only the crumbs. Never an American company will call upon us. Then one tries to dissociate oneself." AICS escorted a team of the BBC to the border koweïtienne, when Erinys, in same time, carried a contract of 40 million euros with the Iraqi ministry of oil. This British SSP ensures the protection of American engineers working within the GULF Regional Division, and makes safe a danger zone controlled by the rebellion, close to Al-Qaim. A 38 year old French still worked very recently for Erinys. He had occupied the post of commander of the sector of the refinery of Bayji, before being erased. He was, according to services' of information, threatened of death.
Another SSP at a peak, Aegis, which counts former soldiers and diplomats of high row in his board of trustees, "gained", it, a contract of 293 million dollars launched by the Pentagon. Among its men of elite, a 28 year old French, who belonged to the mercenaries present in Côte.d'ivoire, near the forces legalists, of 2002 to 2003. This term of "mercenaries" irritates AICS. "One does not make a mercenariat , ensures Jean-Philippe L, one does not make the war. One gains when one does not draw a shot. I do not ask my men to be of Rambos ".
Living in the center of Baghdad, mumbling some Arabic words, dissimulating their weapons as well as possible, the men of AICS play the chart of modesty. And cultivate a certain art of living with the Frenchwoman. "My men, I find them in France, thanks to the word of mouth, specifies Jean-Philippe L. There is a fish pond of old of Iraq, from which one draws, with the liking of the needs. I want types which are not excited, sympas with the customer." And conscious of the risks.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elemonde%2Efr%2Fweb%2Farticle%2F0%2C1%2D0%2C36%2D714196%2C0%2Ehtml
French Mercs Critical of American, South-African, British, and private Mercs
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elemonde%2Efr%2Fweb%2Farticle%2F0%2C1%2D0%402%2D3218%2C36%2D714197%4051%2D627391%2C0%2Ehtml
LeMonde.fr
Updated 25.11.05|14h28
Londres, September 2004. The buildings of a company of safety, directed by a former officer of French infantry, are the theatre of a little particular hearings. Close-cropped hair, impressive physiques... All French, the men who ravel before a small assembly of recruiters have similar profiles: old of the Legion, the commandos or the paras. Inter alia feats of arms, they supported the president congolais Denis Sassou Nguesso, fought in Madagascar, or founded a school of krav-maga, the sport of Israeli combat, in the south of France... The company of safety, which recruits in the name of often American or British sleeping partners, proposes a 45 days to them mission, remunerated 7 000 pounds (10 200 euros), in order to protect from the significant sites in Iraq. All, of course, are eager to rejoin Baghdad -- where France refused to send troops to the sides of the American forces. The business is profitable, and the former French soldier has the dimension on this flourishing market.
According to the general direction of external safety (DGSE), which wrote several reports/ratios on the subject in mid-November, "37 French nationals would be currently employed by seven companies of safety deprived in Iraq" . For the French secret service, "reputation of the former French soldiers in fact of the recruits estimated by the foreign private military companies, which appreciate their practice of the crises, the quality of their contact with the local populations and their good knowledge of the mediums known as exotic" .
In October 2005, it is the American company Executive Security and Aviation Solutions (ESAS) which launched a recruitment campaign to France, in order to unearth about fifty guards of safety. Glenn F, [ be names of the former soldiers were voluntarily removed for their own safety ] an American, titular national of a chart of French resident, former deserter of the Legion, played the intermediaries, with the assistance of Peter H., another former légionary. It was enough, to be registered, to send by e-mail its CV to the electronic address of Glenn F.
The services supervise the universe of the French mercenariat narrowly. The former soldiers represent a fish pond of privileged advisors. They have access to very closed mediums. Moreover, the DGSE can thus anticipate possible coups d'etat, while announcing, here or there, the recruiting in great number of former soldiers, for more or less avowable causes.
Very snuffed on the market of safety in Iraq, the French mercenaries thus work for a half-dozen of companies, primarily Anglo-Saxon. Eights of them were engaged by Unity Resources Group (URG). URG quasi exclusively recruits former légionaries of the 2 E REFERENCE MARK (foreign regiment parachutists).
One their heads of teams, a 36 year old man, born in Czechoslovakia (become Czech Republic), had formed part, in September 2000, of the bodyguards of the General Robert Gueï, transitory president of the Côte.d'ivoire. One of its fellow-members, old of the Legion, was killed in a ambush, April 16. Since the beginning of the activities of the private companies of safety (SSP) in Iraq, the DGSE listed four died of French nationality. According to an estimate carried out by the secret service in June 2005, the losses of the companies of safety, all confused nationalities, would reach the figure of 238 people, for a total staff complement of 50 000 men, employed by some 400 companies.
Remain that the French quota in Iraq is reduced little by little. They were 63 in June 2005. They are thus nothing any more but 37. In addition to URG, one counts, for example, four French within the British SSP Erinys, eight others at Hart Group Ltd, four still within Aegis, and another at Kroll.
This downward trend seems especially due to the degradation of the conditions of safety, in particular in Baghdad. But the former French soldiers are also wary of the methods used by their employers. The DGSE points "serious dysfunctions within the companies: maladjustment of the means entrusted to the attacked teams, absence of assistance to the families at the time of death... ". With, moreover, "a hardening of the control of these SSP on behalf of the Iraqi State" .
Lastly, in Iraq like elsewhere, universalization has its side effects. In a very competing market, the agents of safety coming from country in the process of development find easily taking. Even if it means to allow Iraqi insurrectionists to infiltrate manpower of the SSP. Recruitments obey curious criteria sometimes.
The services of information stress that the American SSP engaged this summer "of former members of the Lebanese Forces (FL), appreciated for their hatred of the Moslems and their experiment of the guerrilla in urban environment" . Remunerations have what to give birth to vocations: 10 000 dollars per month, plus a strong allowance paid with the family in the event of death.
The only French company to evolve/move on the Iraqi market is called Allied International Consultants and Services (AICS). It protects in majority from the French-speaking journalists, and tries to impose its particular working methods. "One arrived on the spot in February 2004 , remembers his person in charge in Baghdad, Jean-Philippe L, itself former soldier.
The Anglo-Saxons, it is true, proceed differently. They are very visible, very aggressive. Us, one works more the profile, one is more discrete. And especially, one tries to work with the Iraqis." AICS engages of the Iraqi assistants, often of former soldiers trained in France in the years 1980, to negotiate with the heads of tribe.
"One cannot compete with the Anglo-Saxon boxes, notices Jean-Philippe L, one collects only the crumbs. Never an American company will call upon us. Then one tries to dissociate oneself." AICS escorted a team of the BBC to the border koweïtienne, when Erinys, in same time, carried a contract of 40 million euros with the Iraqi ministry of oil. This British SSP ensures the protection of American engineers working within the GULF Regional Division, and makes safe a danger zone controlled by the rebellion, close to Al-Qaim. A 38 year old French still worked very recently for Erinys. He had occupied the post of commander of the sector of the refinery of Bayji, before being erased. He was, according to services' of information, threatened of death.
Another SSP at a peak, Aegis, which counts former soldiers and diplomats of high row in his board of trustees, "gained", it, a contract of 293 million dollars launched by the Pentagon. Among its men of elite, a 28 year old French, who belonged to the mercenaries present in Côte.d'ivoire, near the forces legalists, of 2002 to 2003. This term of "mercenaries" irritates AICS. "One does not make a mercenariat , ensures Jean-Philippe L, one does not make the war. One gains when one does not draw a shot. I do not ask my men to be of Rambos ".
Living in the center of Baghdad, mumbling some Arabic words, dissimulating their weapons as well as possible, the men of AICS play the chart of modesty. And cultivate a certain art of living with the Frenchwoman. "My men, I find them in France, thanks to the word of mouth, specifies Jean-Philippe L. There is a fish pond of old of Iraq, from which one draws, with the liking of the needs. I want types which are not excited, sympas with the customer." And conscious of the risks.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elemonde%2Efr%2Fweb%2Farticle%2F0%2C1%2D0%2C36%2D714196%2C0%2Ehtml
French Mercs Critical of American, South-African, British, and private Mercs
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elemonde%2Efr%2Fweb%2Farticle%2F0%2C1%2D0%402%2D3218%2C36%2D714197%4051%2D627391%2C0%2Ehtml