Everyone was all over this NYT story about those vanishing cargoes of guns in Iraq. It’s nothing new if you’ve been reading this blog; we’ve been concerned about this ever since 2005. And, unlike Spencer Ackerman, we’ve got the whole supply chain; those guns didn’t come on no C-17, Spence, but on JLI and Aerocom…
Read More Belated Bad Logistics BloggingI haz been in yr thread, commenting on yr arcologies. I am fascinated to see that in a sense, one is under construction right now, in the fine city of Baghdad. William Langewiesche reports; read the whole damn thing, as it’s one of the best things about architecture, politics, diplomacy, and Iraq you’ll ever see.…
Read More Mind my fortified data centre pod!G3 Systems Ltd must have been very proud when Tony Blair visited the logistics base it built in Afghanistan for the British Army a few months ago, and again when Defence Secretary Des Browne came calling. Their website boasts of offering a wide range of services to the armed forces, especially the supply of various…
Read More G3 Systems and Fraser-BrookThe Foreign Office has finally published some actual instructions about what to do if you are an Iraqi employee of the British Government and you wish to flee. You can read them on the FCO website here; one could have wished for a more memorable URL, perhaps, rather than whatever the JSP servlet randomly generated.…
Read More Official Instructions for Iraqi Locally-Engaged StaffWhat was a small British company doing importing vast quantities of arms from Bosnia? More importantly, what was it doing telling lies about their destination in order to clear Bosnian customs? What was it doing contracting with Tomislav Damjanovic, possibly Viktor Bout, and disgraced Iraqi minister Ziad Cattan to ship them to Iraq when the…
Read More 58,000 AKs in a Nottingham basement?The International Herald-Tribune has an interesting article about a Serbian gun-runner and colleague of Viktor Bout’s, one Tomislav Damjanovic. For some reason it’s in the Style section; most photos of Viktor would seem to rule that out, but the one of Damjanovic they supply does have a certain Balkan sharpness. Anyway, the report is based…
Read More Fascinating Report out on Viktor Bout & CoSo what’s in the server log? Shall we look? 82.205.254.45 [entrypoint #437] 2007/10/october-08-and-out.html Oct 22, 12:07:51 [0:00:00] views: 1 Yahoo ! (where to apply for the assistance to iraqi locally engaged staff) Yes; you read it all right. That’s someone searching Yahoo! for instructions on what to do if you worked for the British Army…
Read More This Should Not HappenYour instructions, gentlemen, based on the conclusions in this post. * David Miliband’s Statement on ‘Iraq: Locally Recruited Civilians’ of 9th October stated that Britain will help to resettle- in the wider Middle East, or in the United Kingdom- Iraqis who can prove that they have worked for this country’s soldiers or diplomats for a…
Read More Target for TonightSo last night we all (well, for small values of “all” – you know who you are) got ourselves dressed up smart and went to bang on the doors of Parliament. And yes, as Dan Hardie claimed, the cops outside it are indeed polite – you’re not going to get much praise for the Met…
Read More Chris Bryant is a Credit to ParliamentHere is the text of the government’s written statement on the Iraqi employees: On 8 August the Prime Minister announced a review of the Government’s assistance to our Locally Engaged staff in Iraq. The Defence Secretary, Home Secretary, Secretary of State for International Development, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I have now agreed on…
Read More October ’08 and Out?