The following is a consolidation of evidence of Lockheed Martin’s major role in U.S. Torture.
Torture, translated into Orwellian Newspeak is “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
The total incompetence, to mention nothing of illegality, of the U.S. Torture programme at Guantanamo and other offshore prisons is
in the 20 “Findings” of the U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture, see 2015-03-06 Bill C-51: Laws that do not apply to the Government and Police elites
The Torture in U.S. Prisons was well-documented in books and articles that spanned the decade leading up to the Senate Report in 2014.
The U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture, Finding #13 says:
Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
(apologies: some glitch. Item #13 might show as Item m.)
The NY Times tells us how much the “contract interrogators” were paid (or, at least a portion of the bill), but doesn’t name names. 2014-12-09 Five revelations about the CIA’s interrogation techniques
Two former military psychologists who had not conducted a single real interrogation were hired – at a daily rate of $1,800 (U.S.) each – to waterboard detainees. They later started a company that took over and ran the CIA program from 2005 until it was closed in 2009. The CIA paid the company $81-million.
WHICH COMPANIES GOT THE CONTRACTS? (by 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced (the torture) operations . . . )
The web is tangled. But not indecipherable.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It was NOT ONLY through Sytex that Lockheed Martin played a major role (#1) in the Torture. Read on.
LOCKHEED AND SYTEX
The Sytex Group, Inc. (acronym TSGI)
1. Lockheed Martin’s Press Release, purchase of Sytex: 2005-02-18 (U.S. Torture) Lockheed Martin Agrees to Acquire The SYTEX Group. News release.
Lockheed Martin has agreed to pay net consideration of $462 million . . .
2. Who is Sytex?
In approximately 10 years (1994 to 2004), annual Revenues went from $5mm to over $450mm
From the website of the company that brokered the purchase deal by Lockheed of Sytex, http://www.kmco.com/case_studies/the-sytex-group-inc-and-macaulay-brown-inc/
The Client
The Sytex Group, Inc. (TSGI), formerly headquartered in Doylestown, PA, provided information technology solutions and technical support services to the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies. TSGI, through its three operating divisions, was focused on technology engineering and systems integration; command & control, communications, computers and intelligence; information operations/information warfare; network security solutions; security assistance and training; and integrated logistics and business management systems.
The Opportunity
Syd and Sharon Martin co-founded the Sytex Group in 1988. Based on their extensive expertise, they founded TSGI with the goal of providing a broad range of technology services to the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies. Their strategy was to grow the business through a combination of strategic acquisitions and organic growth.
In 1994, Syd and Sharon began a search for an accounting and advisory firm to provide services to TSGI. Based on the nature of TSGI’s growth strategy, its rapid pace of change, its ownership, and its exit plans, Syd and Sharon were looking for a firm with significant expertise in advising fast growing companies, a focus on closely-held businesses, experience assisting companies with due diligence, extensive corporate and individual income tax expertise, and strong relationships in the banking community. After considering a wide range of firms, Syd and Sharon selected Kreischer Miller.
The Solution
Kreischer Miller assembled a multidisciplinary team of accounting, tax, technology, and executive search professionals to serve TSGI. The team included members with extensive government contracting and transaction support experience, ensuring that TSGI had access to the expertise needed to address the complex issues impacting TSGI during a period of rapid growth. Over the course of TSGI’s relationship with Kreischer Miller, TSGI’s business grew from $5mm in annual revenue to over $450mm, with more than 3,000 total employees. During that time, Kreischer Miller provided audit services; assisted TSGI in connection with multiple acquisitions; addressed federal, multi-state, and local tax issues for TSGI and its owners; advised TSGI regarding incentive programs for its employees; assisted in the hiring of key executives; and was very instrumental in planning for and obtaining financing needed for planned acquisitions.
The Outcome
After leading the company for almost 20 years, Syd and Sharon received an offer from Lockheed Martin to purchase TSGI. Again, Kreischer Miller’s transaction support and tax services professionals were there to support TSGI and its owners until the successful closing of the transaction.
3. 2011-01-11 (U.S. Torture) Lockheed Martin’s role, supplying Contract Interrogators through subsidiary Sytex
The article explains many of the connections. And ends with this emphasis on the broader scope:
The bulk of this $50 billion market is serviced by 100 companies. . . . At one end of the scale is Lockheed Martin, whose $40 billion in revenue and 52,000 cleared IT personnel [employees with high-level security clearances] make it the largest defense contractor and private intelligence force in the world.
Lockheed Martin executives have acknowledged their central role. At a 2005 meeting, Ron Romero—the company’s Director of Intelligence and Homeland Security Programs—noted that although “everyone talks about the Intelligence Community as ‘these guys in government,’” in fact “you [the contractors] are all part of the Intelligence Community. In fact, you probably make up the largest part of it [emphasis added].”
4. 2005-11-04 (U.S. Torture) Meet the New Interrogators: Lockheed Martin
Excerpts:
The issue of private contractors in interrogation did not come to light until mid-2004 . . .
It also emerged that no one knew what laws applied to private contractors who engaged in torture in Iraq or whether they were in fact accountable to any legal authority or disciplinary procedures. When the media began to question the role of the private contractors and the legality of their presence under unrelated information technology contracts from non-military agencies, the Pentagon swiftly issued sole-source (“no bid”) military contracts to CACI and Lockheed.
That CACI contract expired at the end of September this year. But before the company opted not to renew its contract, the company was already working with Sytex as a sub-contractor to supply new personnel to interrogate prisoners. . . .
Sytex, and thus Lockheed after the takeover, appears to have subsequently emerged as one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators. . . .
The scope of contracts for companies like Anteon and Sytex are difficult to determine because they have never been made public. . . .
Sytex itself also likes to keep a low profile. . . .
(Quote is from NY Times article) “Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation’s largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the Post Office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft” writes Tim Weiner.
The national security reporter for the New York Times explains how Lockheed gets its business: “Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed hold the posts of secretary of the Navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex, and director of the national spy satellite agency.”
“Giving one company this much power in matters of war and peace is as dangerous as it is undemocratic,” says Bill Hartung, senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York. “Lockheed Martin is now positioned to profit from every level of the war on terror from targeting to intervention, and from occupation to interrogation. . . .
Failed Experiment?
Apart from the monoply on war-related contracts to one single corporation, the increased outsourcing of interrogation to private contractors raises questions of accountability and of enforcement of regulations designed for the military.
Human rights groups are openly critical of this new trend. “The Army’s use of contract interrogators has to date been a failed experiment,” . . .
This article was written in 2005. How unfortunate that effective action was not taken then. The U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture, 9 years later, is helpful. It is hardly compensation – the Torture program (the contract interrogators) continued for another four years.