New, Improved Mercenaries

Share this

"A private British firm that won a $293 million contract from the Pentagon for coordinating security in Iraq is headed by a retired British commando with a reputation for illicit arms deals in Africa and for commanding a murderous military unit in Northern Ireland," reports Charles M. Sennott. The firm is owned by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former British military officer. Spicer's past work includes a "psychological campaign" against the inhabitants of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, who were complaining about environmental destruction from a copper mine on their island. To clean up his image following the Bougainville fiasco, Spicer employed PR consultant Sara Pearson, who hired a ghost writer to help with Spicer's 1999 autobiography, An Unorthodox Soldier, which presented him as the "modern, legitimate version of the new mercenaries."