Difference between revisions of "Custer Battles"
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=== External Links === | === External Links === | ||
Revision as of 15:49, 1 March 2005
Custer Battles, LLC is a security company based in McLean, Virginia in the United States that promots its services as including "security services", "litigation support", "global risk consulting", "training" and "business intelligence".
The company's founders are Scott Custer, a former Army Ranger and defense consultant, and former CIA officer Michael Battles, who ran for Congress in Rhode Island in 2002 and was defeated in the Republican primary. Battles is a Fox News Channel commentator. [1]
Custer Battles was a newly formed company with no experience in the security industry when it landed one of the first contracts issued in Iraq in the spring of 2003 to secure the airport. The no-bid contract was worth $16 million when it was awarded in the chaos after the fall of Saddam Hussein. [2]
On July 1, 2003 the company announced that it would "bring its security training expertise to the State of Maine." [3]
On April 9, 2004, BBC News reported that a Custer Battles employee and former British soldier, Michael Bloss, "was killed while guarding electrical workers near the town of Hit, west of Baghdad." [4]
A litany of complaints against Custer Battles can be found in the Forum section of ALI Capital Partners.[5]
Custer Battles is currently banned from further DoD contracting[6]. A qui tam lawsuit has been filed against it by several parties seeking recovery, on behalf of the US, of allegedly fraudulent claims by Custer Battles. A copy of the complaint can be downloaded from here.
"These aren't insurgents that we're brutalizing," says Craun. "It was local civilians on their way to work. It's wrong." Capt. Bill Craun is one of four former Custer Battles employees in an NBC report that allege civilian contractors used such unrestrained force in Iraq, they had to quit soon after because of disgust. "What we saw, I know the American population wouldn't stand for," Craun said referring to subcontracted local youth shooting the place up.
Contact Information
Custer Battles
8201 Greensboro Drive
Suite 214
McLean, VA 22102
Email: info AT custerbattles.com
Web: http://www.custerbattles.com
SourceWatch Resources
- ALI Capital Partners
- Blackwater USA
- Brown & Root
- DynCorp
- Halliburton
- ITT
- Private Military Corporations (PMCs)
- war profiteering
External Links
- Custer Battles, LLC, viewed April 9, 2004.
- "Security worker killed in Iraq", BBC News, April 9, 2004, viewed April 9, 2004.
- ALI Capital Partners
- "Job seekers beware of Custer Battles LLC Security", Forum topic, ALI Capital partners website, viewed April 9, 2004.
- Alexanter, Hawes & Audet, LLP
- "Contractor accused of fraud in Iraq", T. Christian Miller, 9 October 2004, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times.
- Text of qui tam filing against Custer Battles.
- "Memos Warned of Billing Fraud by Firm in Iraq", Eric Eckholm, NY Times, Oct 23, 2004.
- "Suit says politically linked firm defrauded U.S. of millions", Knight Ridder, 10 October 2004
