All I can say is that ITG provides a quality course of instruction, and this particular course should be outstanding.( I have not attended this course for the record)  This is the kind of stuff that I have continued to harp on ever since I started this blog, and it is really cool to finally see some courses like this pop up. Good leadership requires a mastery of the basics, and a dedication to continuous improvement. A course like this will give you some solid cement for a foundation in security contracting and executive protection leadership.

     I am also giving a big Feral Jundi thumbs up to the International Training Group, and I can’t recommend their Executive Protection course enough. It is a course that has paid for itself in more ways that one over the years, and it has been an excellent foundation to my career as a security contractor.  Follow the links below to apply, and give them a call to learn more. -Matt

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The Detail Leader’s Course

Professional Executive Protection Leadership Training

Duration: 40 Hours

Contact Us For More Information

Toll Free: +1.866.904.4484

Next Course:

Detail Leader’s Course 8/30/2010

Los Angeles

Course Schedule & Pricing

 COURSE PREREQUISITES: The Detail Leader’s Course is designed to provide executive and dignitary protection professionals with the communications and management skills necessary for advancement within their field of endeavor and the knowledge necessary to successfully assume and excel in leadership positions within any protective services organization. It is about communication, planning, organizing and reporting of information, and developing personal leadership skills. This is NOT a basic training program. Students will be expected to understand protective methodology and be familiar with industry vernacular prior to attendance. The ITG® Executive Protection Agent’s Training Course and/or other similar training from a credible government agency or private sector training program will be considered prerequisites for this course.

STUDENT EQUIPMENT: All prospective candidates must bring a fully functioning laptop computer with Microsoft® Office software programs Word, Excel, and Power Point® installed. A drawing program of some sort is also required (the instructional staff will be utilizing Microsoft’s Visio®) to illustrate methodology during this training course. The 2007 versions of these programs will be used during the course. Personal Computers, not Macintosh computers are used by the instructors. Students may attend with MAC computers and/or earlier versions or other programs of relevant software but should be aware that they will be responsible for extrapolating the instruction and software commands to their particular software requirements. MAC users should insure that they are using the Intel® driven systems versus the older Motorola chip configurations and have the latest operating system updates. A computer mouse, mouse pad, and portable printer are highly recommended but not required.

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     Mr. Gaffney sounds like a star performer from his days at ITT and IAP, and DynCorp will be well served.  It sounds like Bill will still be involved with the direction of things with a seat at the board.

    So I just classify this as a reshuffling of some key leadership. Cerberus stands to do well with this arrangement, and will certainly be a powerhouse coming into the future. I just hope DynCorp is ready for WPPS in Iraq and their crisis management game is locked on. -Matt

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Dyncorp International President and CEO Announces Departure, Successor Named

August 20, 2010

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (August 20, 2010) - DynCorp International (DI) today announced that Steve Gaffney will become the company’s chief executive officer and president effective August 25, 2010, the date that current CEO and president, Bill Ballhaus, has announced that he will resign.  Mr. Ballhaus, who joined the company in May 2008, will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors as vice chairman and has accepted a position as a strategic advisor to DI’s new parent, Cerberus Capital Management L.P.

“Over the past two years the DI team has accomplished great things: we redefined our core values, strengthened our leadership programs, entered new business sectors and expanded our global footprint,” said Mr. Ballhaus. “The company is now in a position of strength and, while I am stepping down from my day-to-day role, I look forward to remaining actively engaged in DI’s future through my involvement on the Board and as a senior advisor to its owners.”

Mr. Gaffney, who already serves as chairman of DI’s Board of Directors and will operate out of the company’s Falls Church headquarters, joins DI from IAP Worldwide Services, Inc. (IAP), where he has served as CEO since January 2009.

“Bill and I have worked closely together over the past several months, discussing the company’s operations, management and future.  I look forward to continuing to work with Bill in his role as a key strategic advisor and on the company’s Board,” said Mr. Gaffney. “He deserves a great deal of credit for expanding the company’s global footprint and establishing a solid foundation of corporate goals and core values that will guide the company’s future success.”

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     This sucks.  Rest in peace to the fallen and my heart goes out to the families and friends of these Afghan guards. My only comment on this is that I am sure there will be many lessons for this security company, and they will certainly be re-evaluating the defense of their main camps.  But from the sounds of it, the Taliban conducted a classic raid designed to turn a surprised force inside out. These things take guts to perform, and require planning, surprise and violence of action to be effective. It sounds like they had that in this attack. (Running over fleeing unarmed guards with their cars though?)

     The other point to bring up is this whole deal about companies using subcontractors who refuse to use local workers for projects in that locality.  Boy, that is rule number one in a new area you plan on doing construction or other types of work at, and that is always hire local.

     If you hire the locals, they are more likely to protect their cash cow job, and drop some hints that maybe the Taliban (their cousins and uncles) might want to attack that day or night.  Or the work force just doesn’t show up one because their cousins and uncles said not to go to work that day.  Using locals for work projects is the way to go, and the project lead on this should have known better.

     It would also help if the reconstruction team that handed out the money for this road project, also paid attention to what villages might be pissed off if they built a road through their area, and was not included in the project.  Or at least throw in a school or whatever to appease them, while making the case of why a road would be a good thing in their area. It sounds like no one talked these folks, to include the government or the reconstruction team for that area.

     The other option is that maybe these locals did talk with everyone, and because they were Taliban supporters, they will never be happy about anything the government or reconstruction teams tell them. -Matt

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Taliban Attack Afghan Guards in Deadly Raid

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK

August 20, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters in a rural area near the Helmand River staged an audacious nighttime raid early Thursday, swooping down on several hundred sleeping Afghan private security guards who were securing a road construction project, and killing at least 21, according to guards who escaped.

The attack was striking not only for its scale and viciousness but because it took place in the Helmand River Valley, where thousands of British troops have been stationed for the past three years and where now American troops have entered to try to rout the Taliban.

News of the Taliban raid emerged Friday, as Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, met with President Hamid Karzai for the second time in four days to discuss corruption among members of the Afghan government, some of whom have been implicated in several major cases. Support for the nine-year war, and for Mr. Karzai, is ebbing in the United States, while Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has signaled that, if anything, the troops would need more time on the ground to accomplish their mission.

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     I liked this article, and it is a concept that all of the companies need to really wrap their heads around in today’s times.  It is all about crisis communication, and it sounds like Mr. Levick is the guy to talk to about doing this kind of thing.  What is cool is that he has plenty of contractor history to learn from and he is also reaching out to individuals in the industry like Doug to get a feel for what’s what.

     This article also goes well with the interview Mr. Levick did with Doug Brooks, so I recommend watching that if you can.

     Now something I would like to hear from the author is how he would have dealt with the Nisour Square incident differently than how BW and State dealt with it back then?  Most of all, how would his firm handle the crisis management for such an incident if it happened again in the near future? He briefly touched on this contractor army that DoS plans on using in Iraq, but I would have liked to hear some details on how a true crisis management expert would handle the complexities of this industry’s incidents that tend to get so much attention.  We need all the help we can get, because no easy solutions have materialized and companies are still getting sucked into crisis that not only embarrasses them, but embarrasses their clients as well. These incidents also negatively impact the war effort, and it is certainly important for companies to not cause that kind of harm.

     As to an example of current crisis communication, DynCorp actually sent me a company release about the auto accident in Kabul.  But because of the speed of information spread in Kabul and online, and how the negative aspects of the news spread, I just don’t know how you can stop the impact of such a thing?  Or maybe DynCorp did all they could and this was the way to do it? They certainly responded quickly online to those of us trying to cover this stuff, and at least attempted to fill any information gaps that biased media or even the enemy was trying to fill with their own versions of the story.  I wonder how he would rate DynCorp’s crisis management and communications, both in Kabul and online? How would you guys rate it? Interesting stuff. -Matt

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Stability Operations Industry: Opportunity and Risk

Richard Levick

August 18, 2010

For one not uncontroversial sector of the defense industry, President Obama’s recent reaffirmation of a timetable for Iraqi troop withdrawal means new business opportunity, accompanied by heightened scrutiny — and predictably severe penalties for failure to comply with professionally, as well as politically, dictated operational standards.

The industry in question is called “stability operations,” a broad term that denotes activities by private contractors to support military, peacekeeping missions and disaster relief. To ensure safe and secure environments outside the United States, their multifarious deliverables include protecting vital infrastructure, training indigenous military and non-military forces, responding to emergencies, body-guarding key personnel, overseeing project logistics, assuring medical provisions, demining hazard zones — and so forth.

During the Iraq War, unwanted attention fell on a few such companies amid allegations of fraud and abuse. Now that the West’s role in the war is largely ending, and the role of the industry in Iraq will grow apace, those past mishaps are going to have a strong continuing influence on public perception. Fairly or not, the bigger the future role of the contractors, the more mistrust they can expect to engender.

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     This is excellent news, and a no brain-er. By switching to an explosive like this, IED’s or RPG enemy attacks will have a less likely-hood of detonating these IMX-101 based munitions. I have no idea if they will put this in the smaller munitions, but the bigger artillery rounds will have it.

     That is good news for the guys who have to transport this stuff by air, land or sea. Even those that are posted at combat outposts where one rocket or mortar could land on an ammunition magazine, and potentially blow it and the base up.  Having these types of munitions will at least minimize the chance of ’secondary’ type deaths and injuries that can happen in these types of attacks. -Matt

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Goodbye to TNT: Engineers qualify safer, more stable explosive

By Tracy Robillard

August 11, 2010

The U.S. Army recently qualified a new explosive that has the same lethality as traditional TNT, but is safer for Soldiers because it is far less likely to explode if dropped, shot at or hit by a roadside bomb during transport.

The new formula, called IMX-101 (Insensitive Munitions Explosive 101), is proven to be safer and more stable than TNT, which ultimately eases the warfighter’s job when it comes to transporting, storing and loading ammunition containing the new explosive.

“It allows us to meet the lethality of TNT, while being more thermally stable,” said Philip Samuels, a chemical engineer with Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).

“We’re taking the conventional explosive and replacing it with a group of ingredients that are less sensitive.”

Anthony Di Stasio, ARDEC Project Officer, said, “Because it’s less sensitive, the Army can store more shells in a magazine, they can store more of it in one building at a closer distance to the Soldiers. It significantly reduces the logistics burden both here in the U.S. and overseas.”

Throughout the last four years, experts at ARDEC and Project Manager, Combat Ammunition Systems (PM CAS) have worked together to select, test and prepare a more stable explosive to meet the Department of Defense requirement for insensitive munitions.

The goal was to find a safer, less sensitive formula that could easily be fitted for use in the Army’s existing large-caliber projectiles.

In 2007, the Picatinny team began an open competition, soliciting TNT-like formulas from government, foreign, and private organizations under the Common Low-cost Insensitive Munitions Explosive (CLIMEx) program. The team received 23 submissions, and after a year of testing, they selected the top three formulas to advance to another round of system level tests.

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One American official said that more than 1,200 specific tasks carried out by the American military in Iraq had been identified to be handed over to the civilians, transferred to the Iraqis or phased out.

To move around Iraq without United States troops, the State Department plans to acquire 60 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, called MRAPs, from the Pentagon; expand its inventory of armored cars to 1,320; and create a mini-air fleet by buying three planes to add to its lone aircraft. Its helicopter fleet, which will be piloted by contractors, will grow to 29 choppers from 17.

The department’s plans to rely on 6,000 to 7,000 security contractors, who are also expected to form “quick reaction forces” to rescue civilians in trouble, is a sensitive issue, given Iraqi fury about shootings of civilians by American private guards in recent years. Administration officials said that security contractors would have no special immunity and would be required to register with the Iraqi government. In addition, one of the State Department’s regional security officers, agents who oversee security at diplomatic outposts, will be required to approve and accompany every civilian convoy, providing additional oversight.

*****

     I wanted to cut this portion out for the reader to focus in on. Does anyone see the possibility here for some real problems if the insurgents in Iraq wanted to target this ‘civilian leadership’ specifically? There is the potential here for multiple ‘Nisour Square‘ scenarios, because it will be this heavy duty contractor army that will be engaging with insurgents if they atttack. And no doubt, the bad guys will love to start a fight in highly populated areas, much like they did with the Nisour Square ambush.

     What I would like to hear is if State will stand by this ‘contractor army’ they have created, if in fact they had to actually use their weapons? I mean, you guys are arming them and giving them all of this military hardware to use? Because as much as the media, DoS, Iraq and the entire world would like to believe, civilian casualties happen in war zones, or non-permissive environments. (whatever we want to call Iraq now) It is unfortunate, but they happen. No one plans on a tragedy like this happening, except for the enemy.

     Of course no one wakes up one day and says ‘I want to kill civilians’, except for the enemy. When these types of incidents happen, it is extremely damaging to the psyche and to the morale of all involved. It is avoided at all costs, but sometimes this stuff happens. So that is why I continue to ask this question of ‘if you are going to ask these men to protect you in Iraq, and they have to use deadly force, are you going to back them up if they actually kill someone?’. Worse yet, are you guys going to back them up if a stray bullet in that fire fight accidently kills a civilian? Or will you be throwing your heroes into an Iraqi or American prison, for an accident they had no intention of committing?

     Finally, as the combat troops leave, and the ‘civilians’ take over, the realities of this war zone are still there. Only when the enemy has lost the will to fight, can you truly say the war is over. So in my mind, I totally think that Al Qaeda and company or any of the Iranian backed groups will continue to cause problems. Not only for Iraq, but for this civilian leadership and cadre left in Iraq. Contractors will be using military hardware like MRAPs and Blackhawk Helicopters, and taking over the various 1,200 military tasks in the country, but will they get the same treatment and legal protections that the military had when they were in Iraq? Because I certainly would hate to see contractors being thrown under the bus, like what happened with Xe, just for trying to do their job in a war zone. -Matt

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Civilians to Take U.S. Lead After Military Leaves Iraq

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

August 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — As the United States military prepares to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, the Obama administration is planning a remarkable civilian effort, buttressed by a small army of contractors, to fill the void.

By October 2011, the State Department will assume responsibility for training the Iraqi police, a task that will largely be carried out by contractors. With no American soldiers to defuse sectarian tensions in northern Iraq, it will be up to American diplomats in two new $100 million outposts to head off potential confrontations between the Iraqi Army and Kurdish pesh merga forces.

To protect the civilians in a country that is still home to insurgents with Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias, the State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000, according to administration officials who disclosed new details of the plan. Defending five fortified compounds across the country, the security contractors would operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress, the officials said.

“I don’t think State has ever operated on its own, independent of the U.S. military, in an environment that is quite as threatening on such a large scale,” said James Dobbins, a former ambassador who has seen his share of trouble spots as a special envoy for Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia. “It is unprecedented in scale.”

White House officials expressed confidence that the transfer to civilians — about 2,400 people who would work at the Baghdad embassy and other diplomatic sites — would be carried out on schedule, and that they could fulfill their mission of helping bring stability to Iraq.

    Interesting case, just because it kind of highlights some history about Operation Storm and the work MPRI was involved with. I wouldn’t mind hitting on this in a future ‘history’ or ’strategy’ post, because I am sure there are some very intriguing areas to explore when it comes to this operation.  It certainly sounds impressive.

    As to the case, I will not comment too much because I don’t know a lot about either side’s position.-Matt

Edit: 08/20/2010 - David Isenberg has far more to say about this, and the consensus he found is that this is a weak case. David also reported on MPRI back in the day, and interviewed the participants of Operation Storm.  So I tend to think he has this one nailed.

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U.S. Mercenaries Accused of Abetting Genocide

By ROBERT KAHN

August 18, 2010

     (CN) - A private U.S. defense contractor “trained and equipped the Croatian military for Operation Storm and designed the Operation Storm battle plan,” which killed or displaced more than 200,000 Serbs in 1995, in the largest European land offensive since World War II, the Genocide Victims of Krajina say in Chicago Federal Court. They demand billions of dollars in damages from MPRI, founded by U.S. military officers who were “downsized” at the end of the Cold War, and L-3 Communications, which bought MPRI for $40 million in 2000.”This is a class action brought by ethnic Serbs who resided in the Krajina region of Croatia up to August 1995 and who then became victims of the Croatian military assault known as Operation Storm - an aggressive, systematic military attack and bombardment on a demilitarized civilian population that had been placed under the protection of the United Nations,” the 40-page complaint begins.”Operation Storm was designed to kill or forcibly expel the ethnic Serbian residents of the Krajina region from Croatian territory, just because they were a minority religio-ethnic group. Defendant MPRI, a private military contractor subsequently acquired by Defendant L-3 Communications Inc., trained and equipped the Croatian military for Operation Storm and designed the Operation Storm battle plan. Operation Storm became the largest land offensive in Europe since World War II and resulted in the murder and inhumane treatment of thousands of ethnic Serbs, the forced displacement of approximately 200,000 ethnic Serbs from their ancestral homes in Croatian territory, and the pillaging and destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Serbian-owned property. The victims of Operation Storm and their heirs and next of kin herein claim that Defendants were complicit in genocide.” Read the rest of this entry »