Military know-how finds niche -- and some critics

By PAUL DE LA GARZA and DAVID ADAMS

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 3, 2000

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- It is a private military company composed of retired generals and CIA agents and diplomats, and what it sells can lead to the rise and fall of governments.

American military know-how.

Although the company, Military Professional Resources Inc., or MPRI, has done work in the United States, including training U.S. Army personnel, it is its work overseas that has raised eyebrows.

Critics charge that the White House uses MPRI to do its dirty work.

In Croatia, for example, according to European-based Jane's Intelligence Review, the United States used MPRI during the mid 1990s in a complex web of international intrigue.

MPRI spokesman Ed Soyster, a retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, said Croatia contacted MPRI.

Jane's, however, reported that "Washington's assistance to Croatia under the cover of MPRI was made conditional on Croatia's agreement to the creation of the Bosnian-Croat Federation, acceptance of a CIA-built base on Krk island operating "Predator" spy drones and support for a series of secret airdrops of supplies to the Bosnian Muslims."

Founded in 1988 by retired American generals, MPRI said its work in Croatia consisted of classroom instruction. But at least two military campaigns in 1995 by the Croatian army demonstrated a Western-style bent, not the outmoded Warsaw Pact military tactics. Some observers, including human rights organizations, saw MPRI's fingerprints all over the Croatian operations.

"These two operations -- "Flash' in May and "Storm' in August -- lived up to their names and," Jane's reported, "prior to their completion, seemed to be beyond the ability of the Croatian army."

Indeed, after Croatia, MPRI helped Bosnian Muslims build an army, down to the assembly of weapons, in an attempt to neutralize the military advantage of the Bosnian Serbs, Soyster said.

Private military companies like MPRI have come under attack for what critics say is the exportation of U.S. military expertise for profit, sometimes to questionable political figures.

For example, MPRI contracted to help develop a coast guard in Equatorial Guinea, an African country run by a military dictator. The hope was that the country, with allies like North Korea and Cuba, would be able to protect its vast oil resources.

MPRI, with revenues of $60-million last year, touts itself as a company that provides "defense service for the world."

In addition to the Balkans, MPRI -- with a database of 12,000 military and law enforcement professionals, ex-CIA officers, ambassadors and academics -- has worked in Macedonia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan and Argentina.

Soyster said MPRI was used to the criticism, particularly that it is a company of mercenaries and that the company is a CIA front.

But Soyster noted that MPRI employees do not carry weapons and that it has never done work for the CIA, although the company has access to U.S. intelligence "at very high levels" of the government. He said MPRI treats its access to U.S. intelligence "with great respect."

The company was "built on the vision that the retired military is a national resource," Soyster said.

"We don't want to brag about it, but people want to buy American expertise."

With U.S. success in the Gulf War, there has been growing foreign interest, especially in former Eastern bloc countries, in U.S. military doctrine, equipment and training, thus the proliferation of private military companies. About 30 are in the United States.

The practice of hiring skilled specialists to do military work, buoyed by a shrinking U.S. military and Pentagon budget cuts, is known as outsourcing.

Deborah Avant, a political science professor at George Washington University, is writing a book on private military companies. MPRI is featured.

She says MPRI, perhaps more than any other company, carries more weight in Washington because of its impressive personnel.

And she agrees with critics who argue that these companies help execute American foreign policy.

"They are such high-level people and with the contacts they have in Washington," she said, "they do have an influence on the way policy works."

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