[Saudi] Firm was 'cover for CIA'

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

T

> Firm was 'cover for CIA'
> By Ian Cobain
>
>
>
> AS BEFITS a company that has been accused of being a CIA front, of recruiting ?executive mercenaries? and attempting to overthrow the Prime
> Minister of a Commonwealth state, the Vinnell Corporation kept a low profile in Riyadh.
>
> Its discreet security fooled nobody, however: the bomb attack was the second it has suffered in eight years. In 1995 seven people were killed.
> This shadowy corporation is said to have been founded during the Depression. Dan Briody, author of The Iron Triangle, a study of Vinnell?s
> one-time owners, the Carlyle Group, serialised last week in The Times, says that there is ?no publicity, no press releases, no news clippings?.
>
> He adds: ?No one knows who the original owners were.?
>
> Vinnell?s work in Saudi Arabia dates back almost 30 years, when it won a contract to train Saudi troops to guard oilfields. A congressional
> inquiry found that it had agreed a ?no Jews? clause. In the 1991 Gulf War Vinnell employees were seen fighting alongside Saudi troops.
>
> The company has helped the Saudis build their National Guard from 26,000 troops to around 70,000.
>
> In the early Eighties Time magazine reported that two employees were embroiled in a failed attempt to overthrow Maurice Bishop, the left-wing
> Prime Minister of Grenada, and soon after that a former employee was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal.
>
>
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-
679768,00.html

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