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"CLP," ARMOR HOLDINGS - DSL,
JTR contributor's comment: Weapons
Lube Issued by Army May be Costing Lives in Iraq, Eyewitness News obtained a copy of a general's "lessons learned" report
which details weapons performance in Iraq. The report says soldiers repeatedly
stated that "CLP was not a good choice for
weapon's maintenance", claiming it "attracted sand to the weapon"
... Art Couchman, Father [reading from letter]: "'Dad, that Militec is working great!' ..." Art Couchman sent his son, a soldier in Iraq, a commercial lubricant called Militec. A firearms trainer for police in New York, Couchman became quite concerned when his son told him that the military-issued lubricant attracted dirt and sand to his gun. That's when Couchman sent him bottles of Militec. In a recent letter, his son thanks his dad for the shipment of Militec, calling the lube, "pretty amazing stuff." Art Couchman: "I think it could probably save some lives if they had more of this stuff." Even that "lessons learned" report put out by the Pentagon states that soldiers considered "Militec to be a much better solution for lubricating weapons" than the military's CLP. And now many are questioning why just as the war began, the military cancelled all troop orders for Militec. Brad Giordani, Militec: "They were unable to get the product after the orders were cancelled." The commercial lubricant's inventor says he knows why. Because the military invested millions of dollars developing CLP, Brad Giordani says Army bureaucrats feared their product would be outshined. Brad Giordani: "(The orders) were cancelled by civilians within the Defense Department that realized our orders were getting to be such large quantities that if they would have allowed these orders to go through we would now be the standard lubricant within the army." The Army declined an interview but in a statement to U.S. admits that in the middle of the war, it stopped filling orders for Militec. It doesn't explain why. The Army says Militec is now available, and further states that because of "mixed reports on the performance ... of lubricants" it plans to "rapidly evaluate ... and test" various products for possible future use. Colonel Kovacic says Militec is already proven in desert combat. And as long as CLP remains the government product of choice, he says, then that's what most troops will get, leaving the better lube on the shelf and soldiers lives on the line. Ret. Lt. Col. Robert Kovacic: "There's a better product. I say we give the kids the best we can give them. I'm telling you CLP is not the best weapons lubricant, they even said that in a report." For nearly seven months, the military blocked soldier's orders for the rival Militec. Only in October, in the middle of our investigation, did the Army again begin to fill orders for Militec." http://stock-number.com/Break_Free_CLP.php When the United States Military issued PD-48, a purchase description of properties for a single, multi-purpose product to maintain their weaponry, it became known as the "impossible specification" because of its severe requirements. The first product to meet the challenge - Break-Free CLP. Break-Free's flagship product, CLP is a unique formulation of synthetic oils and individual proprietary ingredients which synergize in combination to do three important tasks simultaneously: Effectively Clean, Lubricate and Protect metal. After years of rigorous testing, CLP actually exceeded the Military's requirements and was approved as a product to meet MIL-L-63460, a new specification. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=AH:US Break-Free is manufactured by Armor Holdings, stock symbol "AH" listed on the NYSE. Stock price doubled from $10 to $20 per share during the seven months in which US Army was ordered by as-yet unnamed civilians in the Pentagon to order only the CLP lubricant. http://www.armorholdings.com/corpprof/main_frame.htm Here is a list of the Board of Directors of Armor Holdings Board of Directors Warren B. Kanders, has served as the Chairman of our board since January 1996 and as our Chief Executive Officer since April 9, 2003. Mr. Kanders has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Clarus Corporation since June 2002 and as the Executive Chairman of Clarus Corporation's Board of Directors since December 2002. From October 1992 to May 1996, Mr. Kanders served as Vice Chairman of the board of Benson Eyecare Corporation. From June 1992 to March 1993, Mr. Kanders served as the President and a director of Pembridge Holdings, Inc. Burtt R. Ehrlich, has served as one of our directors since January 1996. Mr. Ehrlich has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Clarus Corporation since June 2002 and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Langer, Inc. since February 2001. Mr. Ehrlich served as Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Ehrlich Bober Financial Corp. (the predecessor of Benson Eyecare Corporation) from December 1986 until October 1992, and as a director of Benson Eyecare Corporation from October 1992 until November 1995. Nicholas Sokolow, has served as one of our directors since January 1996. Mr. Sokolow has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Clarus Corporation since June 2002. Mr. Sokolow has been a partner in the law firm of Sokolow, Dunaud, Mercadier & Carreras since 1994. From June 1973 until October 1994, Mr. Sokolow was an associate and partner in the law firm of Coudert Brothers. Thomas W. Strauss, has served as one of our directors since May 1996. Mr. Strauss has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Langer, Inc. since June 2002. Since 1995, Mr. Strauss has been a principal with Ramius Capital Group, a privately held investment management firm. From June 1993 until July 1995, Mr. Strauss was co-chairman of Granite Capital International Group, an investment banking firm. From 1963 to 1991, Mr. Strauss served in various capacities with Salomon Brothers Inc, an investment banking and brokerage firm, including President and Vice-Chairman. Alair A. Townsend, has served as one of our directors since December 1996. Since February 1989, Ms. Townsend has been publisher of Crain's New York Business, a business periodical. Ms. Townsend was a former governor of the American Stock Exchange. Ms. Townsend served as New York City's Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development from February 1985 to January 1989. Deborah Zoullas, has served as one of our directors since July 2002. Ms. Zoullas is a private investor. From December 1998 until December 2000, Ms. Zoullas served as the Executive Vice President of Sotheby's Holdings, Inc. and during 2000 served on its Board of Directors. From 1974 until 1996, Ms. Zoullas worked in various capacities within the Investment Banking Division of Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated. Ms. Zoullas is an Advisory Director of Morgan Stanley, a member of the Advisory Board of The Stanford Business School, a Director of the Helena Rubinstein Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of The Projects Committee of Memorial Sloan Kettering. Incorporated in 1996, Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings, Inc. is a global manufacturer and distributor of leading safety and security products serving law enforcement and military markets. Included in FORBES magazine's list of "200 Best Small Companies" in 2002 and a member of the S&P Smallcap 600 Index, Armor Holdings is a leading manufacturer of security products for law enforcement personnel around the world through its Armor Holdings Products Division and is one of the world's largest and most experienced passenger vehicle armoring manufacturers through its Mobile Security Division. In 1996, the Company initiated an aggressive strategy of acquiring leading brands in order to build market share and establish a global presence. Now, for some additional background on this lovely growth industry which the leading lights of NYC society profit from: http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/TheMercenaries.htm Another US group, Armor Holdings Inc., is indirectly becoming a major force on the African market. Last April, it pooled interests with Defence Systems Ltd. (DSL), with headquarters in Buckingham Gate, London, whose net revenues for 1996 amounted to $33.1m. DSL, founded in 1981 by ex-SAS officers, has a world-wide staff of 4,000 people and many clients in Africa. They include the Angolan parastatals Sonangol (oil) and Endiama (diamonds), a cement factory, four embassies (including the American) in Luanda and the main hotels. According to ex-DSL-security advisers, the company also has an arrangement to train the Angolan police. In Congo-Kinshasa, DSL's subsidiaries USDS and Sapelli SARL, whose soldiers carry Uzi rifles, are protecting the installations belonging to the SOCIR oil refinery of Congo-SEP (the Belgian oil company Petrofina's subsidiary), and the US embassy. Other DSL clients include De Beers, Shell, Mobil, Amoco, BP and Chevron; NGOs (CARE and GOAL), UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, UNAVEM and ONUMOZ. DSL claims also to have experience in Algeria, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Its French subsidiary, CIAS, is now trying to get a contract to protect the projected 1,100km pipe-line between the Southern Chad oil fields and the port of Kribi in Cameroon. http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2002/11/2643_comment.php For background on the history of Armor Holdings and its predecessor company. http://www.nexusmagazine.com/ProjectHammer2.html More background regarding personal links to British and South African arms dealers. http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=8328 Guarding the Oil Underworld in Iraq, When unidentified saboteurs struck the vital Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in northern Iraq recently, one in a number of recent attacks on the Middle Eastern nation's oil production and transport, the United States government announced that a company called Erinys would be brought in to train 6,500 Iraqis to guard oil pipelines, wellheads, and refineries, as well as water and electrical facilities. "We are deploying Iraqi resources to protect the facilities and the military will continue to hunt down those trying to attack Iraq's interests," said a coalition spokesman. Erinys' yearlong $39.5 million contract to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations, for which it beat out larger and more established competitors, will start this October. The Johannesburg-based company will be also offering its protection services to contractors Bechtel and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. According to Erinys' own publicity, the company is currently the exclusive providers of "guarding and protective services, secure warehousing, security escorts, visit logistics and protective escorts, transportation and logistics for land access from neighbouring countries." Handmaidens of Occupation But the coalition's relationship with Erinys is not exactly transparent. The coalition apparently contracted the company through an "oil security" solicitation issued on July 17, but the details of this solicitation, and the subsequent award to Erinys, are unavailable from the Coalition Provisional Authority (the entity created by the United States government to oversee the occupation of the country). In Greek mythology, the Erinys were three goddesses, attendants of Hades and Persephone, who guarded the Underworld. Here on modern earth, the company has main offices in Johannesburg and Dubai, and opened a field office in Baghdad in May. A South African news report said Erinys is already providing security and risk management services to "two large multinational companies" operating in Iraq. While the company does not appear in international business directories and is only a year old, its website names five managers and directors, but does not identify its ownership structure: most of whom have been affiliated with Armor Holdings, a Florida-based security company and Defence Systems Limited, a British company which merged with Armor in 1997. A former British Special Air Services (SAS) officer, director Alastair Morrison was co-founder and CEO of Defence Systems from 1981 to 1999. Morrison is currently affiliated with Armor Holdings, in which he holds $2.1 million worth of stock. Fraser Brown, who directs Erinys' security operations, has worked for DSL/Armor since 1999. Jonathan Garratt, Erinys' managing director, has worked for DSL and Armor since 1992. The two other Erinys officials named on the website have no apparent ties to either company: Sean Cleary is a South African risk management expert while Bill Elder previously worked as Bechtel's corporate security manager. Private Security and Oil Protection Erinys' website touts "management experience" in providing security services for dozens of transnational corporations, such as Ashanti Gold and BP-Amoco. These companies' past security actions hint at what awaits Iraq. Last month, for example, the Ghanaian NGO, Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), released a report detailing alleged human rights abuses at an Ashanti gold mine. It relays eyewitness accounts of Ashanti Gold security personnel torturing, beating, and killing local small-scale miners between 1994 and 2002. WACAM further alleges that corporate security used guard dogs to feed on trespassers. Private security firms DSL and Armor have also long worked in oil-rich regions for multinational corporations that have been accused of complicity in human rights violations, like the Niger Delta and Angola. Guarding BP Pipeline in Colombia DSL was active in Colombia for many years, providing security training to protect British Petroleum's oil operations from Marxist rebels, who repeatedly dynamited Colombia's oil pipelines. With BP approval, DSL's subsidiary Defence Systems Colombia trained Colombian national police in counter-guerilla tactics, including lethal-weapons handling, sniper fire and close-quarter combat. These police, in turn, allegedly kidnapped, tortured and murdered opponents of BP's operations. An internal DSL fax dated October 1996 announced: "The effects of the training team are noticed in a positive manner." Another DSL fax states: 'The police morale is high and they have expressed their enjoyment of the training they have received. Good job to whoever was involved." But investigations by UK media and Amnesty International brought details of this relationship to light several years ago. "In recent years members of the local community involved in legitimate protest against the impact of the oil companies, including BP, have frequently been labeled subversive and subsequently been victims of human rights violations by the security forces and their paramilitary allies," charged Amnesty International in 1997. "The police are now ... getting more involved with patrolling activities that are the normal requirements of an infantry unit, which is definitely being seen by the population as another military force in the area," a former DSL employee told World in Action, a British documentary team. "The people are scared to death; you can see it on their faces." For example the documentary named Carlos Arregui and Gabriel Ascencio as being among six members of the El Morro association who were murdered after the group started campaigning over damage to their road. In 2000, the Guardian newspaper in London uncovered documents showing that that a senior DSL employee, Roger Brown, who was in charge of security for the 520-mile Ocensa oil pipeline in Colombia, in which BP is a major shareholder, was a key figure in a proposed pipeline protection project with the 14th Brigade and Israeli security company Silver Shadow, involving attack helicopters and the 'direct supply of anti-guerrilla special weaponry'. When this came to light, BP suspended Brown, who until recently continued to work for DSL. Riot Control The company's ability to provide one-stop shopping options for clients in search of a private army expanded in the late 1990's, when Defence Systems was bought up by Armor Holdings, riot control equipment manufacturers in Jacksonville, Florida. Armor Holdings was originally known as American Body Armor but changed its name after it was rescued from bankruptcy caused by the failure of the Saudi Arabian government to pay a major bill and lawsuits over the effectiveness of its signature product, bullet-proof vests. Through a subsidiary named Defense Technology of America in Caspar, Wyoming, Armor Holdings offers clients a wide array of riot control toys, such as those supplied to subdue crowds in the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle.
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