Polish MPs approve ‘technical agreement’ on US anti-missile base
RT | September 25, 2015
Poland’s lower house of parliament has given the green light to the country’s president to ratify a technical agreement on establishing a US anti-missile base in Redzikowo. Under the NATO-backed plan, the facility should be operational by 2018.
A total of 422 members of the Polish Sejm voted in favor of the bill, with three MPs against and five abstaining.
The agreement in question is a part of a much-debated NATO-backed plan that was first agreed on by the US and Poland in 2008. At that time, it was claimed that the base was necessary to counter the risk of a possible missile attack from Iran or North Korea.
The document outlines technical conditions for the US anti-missile base’s operation on Polish soil, such as restrictions on the height of the buildings that can be built around the base, the use of devices emitting electromagnetic waves, and flights of military aircraft over and around the future facility.
Washington wants to expand the European anti-missile defense (AMD) by putting land- and sea-based radar and interceptors in the village of Redzikowo near the northern Polish town of Slupsk.
The same agreement to host anti-missile bases for of AMD has already been signed with Romania.
The deal stipulates that both countries will host some 24 vertical-launch SM-3 missiles each. The construction of AMD components in Poland is set to start next year and be completed by 2018.
Washington’s plans to install anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe have been one of the biggest stumbling blocks in US-Russia relations.
In 2009, a year after Warsaw and Washington signed the agreement, President Barack Obama assured that the deal would be canceled if the issue with Iran over its nuclear program was sorted out.
However, despite the agreement with Tehran, which curbed its controversial nuclear program in exchange for the easing of international sanctions, the NATO-backed Europe AMD plan is set to go forward.
“The deal with Tehran doesn’t include missiles, therefore the threat remains,” John A. Heffern, US Deputy Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, told the Polish Rzeczpospolita newspaper in July.
The Polish government has repeatedly requested that NATO establish military bases in the country, claiming that it is necessary to counter what it calls “a Russian threat.”
Since Crimea’s reunion with Russia in March 2014 and the start of the military conflict in eastern Ukraine last spring, NATO forces have significantly stepped up their military exercises along the Russian border, and frequently carried out drills in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe.
Tactical retreat: NATO for the first time criticizes Ukraine’s government
German Economic News | 22.09.15
New sounds are being heard at NATO: for the first time, NATO criticizes not the arch-enemy Russia, but the Government in Kiev, which is funded by the EU, telling them to adhere to the Minsk agreements.
Whether Kiev can be trusted to adhere to anything, is another question: The country’s extreme right have imposed a blockade of Crimea [contrary to Minsk] — without the government obstructing them at all.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has called upon Ukraine to implement the peace plan for the war zone in Donbass. “It is extremely important that Ukraine continue to implement all aspects of the Minsk agreements,” he said on Tuesday in Kiev. No other solution to the conflict exists. Stoltenberg was attending a meeting of the Ukrainian Security Council, the first NATO chief to do so. He then signed an agreement on a planned NATO representative in Kiev.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko confirmed plans for a referendum on a possible NATO membership for the former Soviet republic. “De jure we are not a member of NATO, but de facto we are more than just partners,” stressed Poroshenko.
Since early September in eastern Ukraine, a ceasefire between government forces and the rebels is holding reasonably well. In fact, that is why the OSCE is concerned that the Donbass civilian population could be exposed to extreme cold during the winter, without being able to protect themselves. The water system has been destroyed virtually throughout the region, many areas are mined. The OSCE called on Ukraine a few days ago to withdraw their army, so that the residents in rebel-controlled areas with the worst damage can do at least makeshift repairs.
There is disagreement, however, over [two aspects of the Mink agreement] a desired weapons withdrawal from the front, as well as local elections according to Ukrainian law in the breakaway regions. The rebels showed a willingness to compromise, possibly to postpone their planned October 18 and November 1 elections till the end of February. In the Belarusian capital Minsk, the Ukraine Contact Group wanted to discuss on Tuesday the peace plan.
Already former Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had shown himself to be unusually confident that the war in Ukraine can be contained for the time being. Americans and Russians seem to have reached initial agreement, to co-operate in Syria. And neither of the two great powers can win much right now in Ukraine. Furthermore, EU taxpayers have taken on the financing of Ukraine, providing breathing-room for the conflict there between the U.S. and Russia.
The NATO communication is a tactical measure, as shown, above all, by the announcement that a NATO Embassy will be established in Ukraine. Furthermore, the United States have just started the deployment of new nuclear weapons in Germany, which is regarded by the Russians as a provocation. The Bundestag had expressly rejected this development some time ago. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers it right — thus also needlessly complicating a possible mediating role for Germany in the Ukrainian conflict.
The biggest unknown, however, in the short term, is the unstable political situation within Ukraine. A few days ago a senior right-wing extremist was killed in an explosion. The right-wing extremists are plotting revenge. The civil war might shift to the Western Ukraine.
The regional power of the right-wing is also likely to escalate the conflict with Russia again: Right-wing extremists, whom the government of Ukraine allows to move freely even in the war-zone, refuse to comply with Ukrainian law, and have blocked the highways connecting Crimea to the East of Ukraine. This blockade, which is supported by anti-Crimean Tatars outside of Crimea, could cause supply problems before winter (see the video at the beginning of the article [It’s in English!]).
Translation by Eric Zuesse
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Ukraine and NATO sign agreements on strengthening defense and technical cooperation
RT | September 22, 2015
Ukraine and NATO “are more than partners,” Ukraine’s president said after a number of agreements were signed with the alliance during a visit by NATO’s Secretary General. Moscow criticized the move, saying NATO’s advance on Russia’s border is unwelcome.
“De jure, we are not a NATO member, but de facto we are more than partners. Ukraine is an eastern outpost of Euro-Atlantic civilization,” Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko wrote on his official Twitter account.
On Tuesday, Poroshenko announced that Ukraine and NATO had signed a joint declaration on strengthening defense and technical cooperation, as well as a roadmap for a partnership between Ukraine and NATO on strategic communications. The program is aimed at supporting Kiev in counteracting “Russian propaganda” and informing the society on what’s happening in Ukraine, Interfax reported.
The North-Atlantic alliance is also ready to discuss how it can boost Kiev’s military, particularly by potentially providing aid in restoring its naval forces, RIA Novosti reported, citing NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The NATO official also said that the Alliance is providing advisors to Ukraine’s defense ministry and army general staff, according to TASS.
Having chosen its “path in to the EU and NATO,” Ukraine is ready to reform its military and law enforcement forces, the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Aleksandr Turchinov, said after his meeting with NATO’s Secretary General. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Pavel Klimkin, announced that he and Stoltenberg had signed a bilateral document on the creation of a NATO diplomatic mission in Ukraine. NATO’s two existing offices in Ukraine have been united, and their functions and powers extended.
Partnership with NATO will also provide Kiev with the opportunity to get essential weapons, Poroshenko said on Tuesday.
“We are now exchanging information. We are partners, and it gives us an opportunity to receive protective weapons – not offensive, but defensive weapons, such as drones and electronic equipment,” the Ukrainian leader said at a joint briefing with Stoltenberg.
The Kremlin has warned that NATO’s further advance towards Russia’s borders will entail counter measures.
“We must not forget that NATO is an organization that has been created during the time of confrontation and for confrontation, that’s why it cannot change its nature,” the Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow, as cited by Sputnik.
“That is why any advancement by such an organization toward our borders will force us to take adequate counter-measures to safeguard own security, our national security,” Peskov said.
He added that Moscow regrets Kiev’s plans to pursue NATO membership.
When addressing Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Poroshenko claimed that more than 60 percent of Ukrainians support the plans to join NATO, while two years ago only 16 percent supported the move. A day earlier, at another joint meeting, the Ukrainian leader stated that his country was not ready to become a NATO member, nor was the Alliance ready to accept it. Ukraine would need to change in order to achieve its goal of NATO membership, Poroshenko noted, while promising more reforms.
Petro Poroshenko signed a decree changing Ukraine’s non-aligned status last year, saying that his country would make the decision on whether to join NATO in the next five or six years. He promised to put the question up for a national referendum. NATO’s previous secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the process of reaching the criteria required to become an alliance member could take Ukraine a long time. Countries with outstanding territorial disputes cannot become NATO members. However, Ukraine claims rights to Crimea, which became a part of Russia following a referendum on the peninsula in 2014.
U.S. Will Station New Nuclear Weapons in Germany Against Russia
By Eric Zuesse | Aletho News | September 22, 2015
Germany’s ZDF public television network headlines on Tuesday September 22nd, “New U.S. Atomic Weapons to Be Stationed in Germany,” and reports that the U.S. will bring into Germany 20 new nuclear bombs, each being four times the destructive power of the one that was used on Hiroshima. Hans Kristensen, the Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, says, “With the new bombs the boundaries blur between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.”
A former Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany’s Defense Ministry, Willy Wimmer, of Chancellor Merkel’s own conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, warns that these “new attack options against Russia” constitute “a conscious provocation of our Russian neighbors.”
German Economic News also reports on Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow these terror-weapons against Russia: “The Bundestag decided in 2009, expressing the will of most Germans, that the US should withdraw its nuclear weapons from Germany. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel did nothing.” And now she okays the U.S. to increase America’s German-based nuclear arsenal against Russia.
Maria Zakharova, of the Russian Foreign Ministry, says: “This is an infringement of Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” which is the treaty that provides non-nuclear states the assurance that the existing nuclear powers will not try to use their nuclear status so as to take over the world.
German Economic News says: “The federal government had demanded the exact opposite: The Bundestag decided in March 2010 by a large majority, that the federal government should ‘press for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany.’ Even the coalition agreement between the CDU and FDP, the German government in 2009 had promised the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel. But instead there will be these new bombs.”
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
British General Threatens ‘Mutiny’ Against Corbyn Leadership
Sputnik | 20.09.2015
An unnamed senior general in the British military threatened that a government headed by new Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn would face a “mutiny” from the military.
The general said that Corbyn could face “mass resignations at all levels” if he were to become prime minister. The statement is tied to Corbyn’s views on funding the British military’s Trident submarines or leave NATO.
“The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that,” the general told the Sunday Times.
According to the Guardian, previous attempts by the military to destabilize the British government took place in the 1960s and 1970s against Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
The Labour party’s new shadow Foreign Secretary previously said that the party would not back a withdrawal from NATO or scrapping the Trident program.
The fate of aircraft carriers is less clear, however, as the Guardian noted because there are members of the military who question their usefulness in modern warfare.
Iceland Counters US Military Claims of ‘Russian Flights’
Sputnik | 20.09.2015
Iceland’s foreign ministry countered US defense department claims that Russia has increased activity around the country and that it is interested in “military cooperation.”
The US government attempted to convince Iceland to accept a higher US military presence over what it called increased Russian military flights in the region, Icelandic media reported.
Iceland’s foreign ministry released figures showing that Russian military flights anywhere near the country’s airspace have actually decreased more than five times compared to 2007. None of the flights breached Icelandic airspace.
“The Russians have long done transit flights where they pass close by Iceland, but they’ve recently made several circumnavigation flights,” US deputy defense secretary Bob Work told DefenseNews earlier in September.
However, the US military’s claims do not match up with Iceland’s own figures, which show that Russia only made two flights anywhere near the country’s airspace in 2015.
“Iceland is interested in increasing military cooperation,” Work added.
Iceland’s foreign minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson countered, saying that interest in NATO air defenses in Iceland is coming entirely from the side of the US.
The US has recently increased its military involvement in Northern Europe, citing what deputy defense secretary Bob Work called “a resurgent Russia.”
Russia to Add Its 203rd Air Force Base — Its First Outside Russia
By Eric Zuesse | Aletho News | September 20, 2015
According to GlobalSecurity, Russia has 202 Air Force Bases, all in Russia’s various “Military Districts”; but now there is to be a 203rd one, and it will be in Belarus. If this actually happens, it will be a historic expansion of Russia’s armed forces abroad — something that for the U.S. to do would be inconsequential since the U.S. already has 41 Air Force Bases in foreign countries, surrounding Russia, East West and South. (Belarus isn’t even anywhere near the U.S.; it’s instead bordering Russia itself.)
On September 19th at 112.international (and then on 20 September at the subscription-only Financial Times), was reported (as headlined at 112), “Russia to Establish Air Base in Belarus.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Friday the 18th had signed a document, “To intrust the Ministry of Defense with the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out the negotiations with the Belarusian side and upon coming to an accommodation, to sign the agreement on behalf of Russian Federation.”
The anti-Russian Financial Times pretends that this is part of Russia’s aggression encircling NATO, instead of a response to NATO’s aggression encircling Russia, by the FT’s saying: “Belarus, which borders Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia [they don’t even mention that it borders Russia], would give Russia a new asset right on Nato’s borders. The Russian military already has a radar station and some fighter aircraft stationed in Belarus, but the new base would be the first to be built there since the end of the Soviet Union.”
The FT then says: “News that the air base would be built comes after the US and its allies were struggling to respond to what Washington says is a Russian military build-up in Syria. Russian involvement in Syria complicates existing international operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the jihadi group known as Isis.” This statement pretends that Russia is pro-ISIS and anti-Assad, while the U.S. is anti-ISIS and pro-Assad, but the FT thinks they’ve got lots of suckers (subscribers) and will exploit that asset for their aristocratic masters, who as advertisers are buying those suckers’ minds. The reality is that — as the people of Syria are well-aware — Assad and Russia are anti-ISIS, and the U.S. is the one that’s bombing the anti-ISIS forces (while the U.S. pretends to be focusing on bombing the pro-ISIS forces).
UPDATE: The FT’s online readership evidently isn’t as gullible as the FT’s editors expect. Though there was a bit of reader-comment in the nature of “They are building military bases around NATO, while Russia’s revenues are going down the tubes. Another stupid strategy from the Kremlin,” far more was in the nature of the following:
“How can more forces fighting ISIS be a negative?”
“Kathrin [addressing the newspaper’s Moscow correspondent, Kathrin Hille], please spare us this US propaganda drivel. We’ve really had enough. Start complaining again when Russia builds an air force base in Mexico. Until then……… shhhhh.”
“The extraordinary thing of all is that NATO, the biggest and most powerful military alliance in history with bases essential surrounding Russia, is never reported to be ‘flying close’ to Russia’s borders. They are undoubtedly the most scrupulous pilots on earth.”
“1. This is terrible news; how dare Mr Putin do this! Mr GWB must be recalled from his retirement to bomb Belarus back into the Stone Age. These Belarus guys learnt nothing from all that ‘Shock and Awe’.
2. Thank you FT/Nikkei, and the ever vigilant Ms Hille, for this timely warning.”
“The growing military and and economic relationship between Russia and China and the expansion of Russian presence, and presumably bases, in Syria is also a result of western policy, specifically American policy, that includes economic sanctions. In Ukraine and in the Middle East, neocon-Washington-driven policy has been a catastrophe.”
But, if the FT’s readers are really so smart, why do they then subscribe? Why do they subsidize propaganda, when there are a few authentic news sites (you’re reading one of them now) that are free? Readers can get the facts, and the honest and relevant context, without needing to subscribe to anything.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Meet Jeremy Corbyn, Britain’s new Leader of the Opposition
By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey – Pravda – September 13, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn has the Establishment on both sides of the Atlantic shaking in their boots. Representing a breath of fresh air, promising change and hope, the new leader of Britain’s Labour Party also represents a stand against austerity and a sensible economic policy which aims to stimulate the economy instead of stifling it.
The first act by Jeremy Corbyn after being elected on Saturday September 12 as Leader of Britain’s Labour Party (winning in the first round with almost 60 per cent of first-preference votes) was to send an e-mail to all Labour Party members and supporters promising to include them and their wishes in his policy-making process, asking them to forward questions to place to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at Prime Minister’s Questions next Wednesday.
For Jeremy Corbyn, being Labour leader is about the opportunity to serve and to create viable public services. Indeed, his record presses all the right buttons for the socially leaning members of the public. And those who understand the first thing about economics.
Policy issues and some predictions
Let us take a look at the policies Jeremy Corbyn has supported and this will explain why he will cause concern and will be demonized by the media who will classify him as a dangerous radical who is unelectable and unstatesmanlike. The reason why, as we shall see, is that his policies go against the grain of government by proxy for the lobbies to which politicians today are connected and which place them in office or else close ranks around them when they are elected.
For a start, Jeremy Corbyn questions the pan-national weapons lobby called NATO, whose collective member states’ budget is a staggering one point two thousand billion USD each and every year – four times the amount it would cost to eradicate poverty, worldwide, forever. How Constitutional is it for any of the countries to have their foreign policy dictated by such a lobby? Predictably, the national security button will be pressed as enemies and dark forces are invented to justify NATO’s existence and new members are sought to bolster its budget and cater for the lobbies for which NATO is the cutting edge. Dictatorship of the Lobbies through the manipulation of fear.
Jeremy Corbyn opposed the war in Afghanistan (a foreign policy catastrophe in which the Taliban are paid not to attack), opposed the war in Iraq (another disaster which totally destabilized a sovereign state, murdered a million people and saw the creation of Islamic State), he opposed the war in Libya (another huge mistake) and opposes war in Syria. He is also Vice-Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a member of Amnesty International.
He was a campaigner against apartheid, worked to free the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, people wrongly convicted as IRA bombers. Needless to say, the media will have a heyday over this but then again, what is wrong with working to free people who have been wrongly convicted?
Jeremy Corbyn understands that austerity shrinks the economy, destroying jobs, taking away workers’ rights gained over the last century and favors an approach which combats tax evasion, bringing more money into the treasury. In fact, his policies would bring in an extra 100 billion pounds in the short term. He plans a public investment scheme to create housing and plans to take rail franchises back into the public sector and supports renationalizing the energy sector. Strongly opposed to tuition fees, Jeremy Corbyn wants to create a National Education Service. A service, not a business.
On foreign policy, he rightly saw that the Ukraine crisis was caused by NATO’s attempt to expand eastwards. As regards Israel, he realizes that no progress is going to be made until talks are held between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and he opposed sanctions against Iran.
Who is Jeremy Corbyn?
Born in 1949, he began his working career in the National Union of Public Employees, becoming an organizer for the Union. From here he went on to the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, was a member of a District Health Authority and was elected to Harringay Council, which he represented from 1974 to 1983 and was Secretary of the Islington Borough Labour Group.
He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Islington North in 1983 and has since been re-elected seven times. The Member of Parliament who claims the least expenses, he has served on the London Regional Select Committee, the Social Security Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee; he is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands, on Mexico and Vice-Chair of the Group on Latin America and on Human Rights; he is member of the Groups on Bolivia, Britain-Palestine, Great Lakes and the International Parliamentary Union, among others. He is a vegetarian, an animal rights campaigner and supports the LGBT community.
For those who wish to see a health service run by a fascination with the bottom line, in which the haves get treated and the have-nots get second class treatment, for those who wish to see the education sector turned into a business in which you get a degree if you can pay and if you cannot, then you don’t get a chance, for those who wish to see train services cancelled, energy bills skyrocketing, for those who wish to be afraid to step outside the home after six o’clock, Jeremy Corbyn is a direct threat.
The question is, is Britain ready for Jeremy Corbyn?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at timothy.hinchey@gmail.com
The ‘Enemy’ Within: US, NATO Want to Silence All Reporters They Dislike
Sputnik – 08.09.2015
The United States and its NATO allies treat information as a weapon designed to shape people’s perceptions across the globe and are ready to use any tool in their arsenals to silence those, who are critical of Washington and its friends, veteran war correspondent Don North warned.
The US calls an activity, which involves combining psychological warfare, propaganda and public relations, “strategic communications,” the journalist explained in an opinion piece titled “US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War.”
Within this framework, reporters, who prefer to share information based on facts and not on bullet points prepared by the US State Department, are an enemy that has to be dealt with. They could be viewed as “spies” or “unprivileged belligerents” under the Pentagon’s revised “Law of War” manual.
The highly controversial document essentially equates some journalists to al-Qaeda terrorists and maintains that they “could be subject to indefinite incarceration, military tribunals and extrajudicial execution,” the journalist explained.
This trend of treating journalists as adversaries first manifested itself during the Vietnam War and has been a visible component of all America’s military campaigns ever since. It has been significantly reinforced during the Obama administration.
In the last seven years, “the concept of ‘strategic communication’ – managing the perceptions of the world’s public – has grown more and more expansive and the crackdown on the flow of information unprecedented. More than any of his predecessors, President Barack Obama has authorized harsh legal action against government ‘leakers’ who have exposed inconvenient truths about US foreign policy and intelligence practices,” North noted.
Not surprisingly, Washington’s response to foreign media outlets it dislikes involves a combination of propaganda and brutal force. Take Radio Television of Serbia during the Kosovo war or Al-Jazeera during the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq for instance. Both broadcasters were branded as disseminating false information and bombed: RTS headquarters were reduced to rubble in 1999 and al-Jazeera’s offices in Kabul (2001) and in Baghdad (2003) were hit by US missiles.
Given recent tensions between the United States and Russia, Washington’s latest media enemy of choice is obviously based in Moscow.
“Since RT doesn’t use the State Department’s preferred language regarding the Ukraine crisis and doesn’t show the requisite respect for the US-backed regime in Kiev, the network is denounced for its ‘propaganda,’ but this finger-pointing is really just part of the playbook for ‘information warfare,’ raising doubts about the information coming from your adversary while creating a more favorable environment for your own propaganda,” North explained.
The concept of controlling and manipulating information to achieve desired outcome transcends US borders.
“This growing fascination with ‘strategic communication’ has given rise to NATO’s new temple to information technology, called ‘The NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence’ or STRATCOM, located in Latvia, a former Soviet republic that is now on the front lines of the tensions with Russia,” North observed.
NATO overcharged by £460m for fuel during Afghan war, MoD investigates
RT | September 7, 2015
Military police are examining claims that a defense contractor overcharged the armed forces by hundreds of millions of pounds for fuel during the war in Afghanistan.
An audit by NATO, which ran the operations in Afghanistan, suggests the alliance was overcharged by £460 million (US$700 million) by contractor Supreme Group.
Britain is thought to have paid for about 10 percent of the fuel used in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, during the conflict, meaning it could have been ripped off by up to £46 million, sources told the Telegraph newspaper.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed an investigation was underway.
In December 2014, the Amsterdam-based Supreme Group’s food business was found guilty of overcharging the US military for supplies during the Afghan war and paid fines of $389 million, the most ever paid by a defense contractor.
Supreme won and ran lucrative contracts for British and US forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars and currently provides fuel for the Royal Air Force (RAF) and food to the MoD on a global scale.
“We are committed to getting the maximum value for money for the taxpayer and will always seek to recover any overpayments,” a spokesman for the MoD told the Telegraph.
“We are aware of the allegations of overcharging by Supreme and we have referred the matter to the Ministry of Defence Police Criminal Investigation Department.”
“The issue continues to be addressed by NATO through follow-on reviews and investigations into the matter by Allied Command Operations,” a NATO spokesman told the paper.
“Part of unduly paid costs have already been recovered. The recovery process continues. This however remains a complex and lengthy process, whose specific details cannot be revealed until its completion.”
Outsourcing services previously controlled by the military has increasingly become a part of the MoD’s cost cutting measures.
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By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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