ANTI-METRIX: Officers mess

18/02/2009

Officers mess

From Private Eye no 1230 20 Feb 2009

So desperate is the government to cling to its £12bn PFI scheme to privatise defence training, involving the construction of a huge new "defence academy" in South Wales, it has happily replaced the building company with ...a caterer!

The deal was originally lined up with Metrix, a consortium owned 50/50 by technology company Qinetiq and property developer Land Securities. On this dream ticket " Metrix achieved the highest technical score" and was named "preferred bidder".

When Land Securities withdrew in December because of delays and cost overruns, the Ministry of Defence scrambled around desperately for a replacement. As the deal requires the owners to stump up hundreds of millions in hard to come by capital, only one firm came forward: French caterer Sodexo. The MoD bit its hand off without apparently considering whether this affected the "highest technical" qualities it was once so keen on.

The defence training project was intended in the words of former defence minister Derek Twigg , to "focus on how best to improve our accommodation and training facilities, and meet our commitments following the review by Nicholas Blake QC [into the deaths of five trainees at Deepcut] to improve support, welfare and well being of our trainees". Which makes Sodexo an odd choice. In 2006 Harmondsworth immigration centre, run by Sodexo subsidiary Kalyx was condemned by prisons inspector Anne Owers for "failing to provide a safe and stable environment"

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Crucial to write to the papers so email for example Shropshire Star covers Cosford
StarMail – Letters to the Editor: starmail@shropshirestar.co.uk

Express and Star
Letters to the Editor for publication: letters@expressandstar.co.uk

Western Mail max 150 words
readers@walesonliine.co.uk

NEW ACTION WEBSITE Sain Tathan Action Group (S.T.A.G.)

In Planet magazine there is an email exchange between Stephen Thomas (Director of the Welsh Centre for International Affairs) and Sara Koopman, an academic who is an activist with the School of the Americas Watch, they exchange their experiences of campaigning against St Athan and School of the Amer...icas.

Campaign Objections to defence technical college here

State underwrites UK defence’s PFI project
By Alex Barker, Political Correspondent

Published: February 25 2009 02:19 | Last updated: February 25 2009 02:19

Ministers have quietly offered contractors bigger state guarantees as a means of rescuing the £12bn ($17bn) private finance project to centralise the military’s training, the Financial Times has learnt.

Under the deal, taxpayers will underwrite a further £32m of risk in order to push through the Defence Training Review, the UK’s biggest private finance initiative.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/774cdea6-02ca-11de-b58b-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

credit crisis derails 12bn mod project
How much will the academy cost?

Credit crisis squeezes defence training
Potential risk to front line here

Private armies will train at St Athan
do you want Blackwater here

Stuart Tannock discusses the disturbing
implications of theMinistry of Defence's
new multi-billion pound training academy.

Private Armies
whatdotheyknow for freedom of Information information
Campaign goes to Open University @ Milton Keynes here

See the Private Eye articles ...AMs in danger of making total fools of themselves!
here. The price is frightful
here. Metrix reloaded
how PFI deals such as the DTR used to hide roughly £200bn of future spending in order to balance the books. here.
Top brassed off
Minstry of Defence’s concerns over it’s own plans to privatise defence training at an academy in South Wales
Potential Risk to the Front Line miscalulation
Defence Training Review Over Budget
Potential Risk to the Front Line miscalulation
Defence Training Review Over Budget

See OU society matters article here
Metrix shambles and OU here
Should the OU be involved in the ARMS TRADE? here OU
OU partnerships with armed forces? here
Daily Mail - controversial £11bn contract to provide training to

Britain's armed forces is in danger of collapsing as a result of the credit crunch.here Plaid chief opposes St Athan Academy 6-Sep-08 here Wales must not be a cog in the war machine - Daily Post..here  ‘St Athan jobs dwindle while the costs rise’ here

Propaganda

The new Defence Technical Academy

 Building the Defence Technical Academy
 pdf  or here

WAG and Metrix sham consultation here

PFI The crunch has come, credibility has gone and the cupboard is bare guardian - 26 Jul 2008

Raytheon want to use training as a means of expansion and arms sales. here

Ban cluster bombs here
Close the US Army School of the Americas

MORE about the campaign

facebook or www.cynefinywerin.org.uk and see also

instructional officers website
No2military academy
No2 O.U. workng with arms companies
Open University loves Arms Dealers
The Fellowship of Reconciliation in Wales,

War is Just a Racket: Take a Stand; Dismantle the War Machine; Demilitarize the World! here
EDO's Campaign - EDO have contracts with the UK Ministry of 'Defence' and US arms giant Raytheon relating to the release mechanisms of the Paveway bomb system
Lobbying transparency
Fit watch
Give evidence on lack of human rights & OTT policing here
WAR PROFITEERS
The Five Secret Billion-Dollar Companies Sucking Obscene Amounts of Taxpayer Money By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com

Meet the mystery defense contractors that are raking in billions in taxpayer dollars without notice. Read more »
"We recommend that people throughout the world launch nonviolent actions against US and UK corporations that directly profit from this war” - 7th Recommendation of the World Tribunal on Iraq, June 2005; http://www.worldtribunal.org/

What are the 'benefits' to the MOD of transferring risk to the private sector?

Derek Twigg MP, Under Secretary of State for Defence, talks to PSCA International's Matthew D'Arcy about what lies ahead in bringing a new flexible approach to learning through the Defence Training Review. “Partnership with the private sector does give us flexibility, and this is the key point here, to decrease or increase student throughput. The partner will be able to generate third party income from spare capacity and also dispose of surplus capacity. It also allows for a very important part of the role for industry to bring private sector management expertise and the ability to include significant capital investment at this stage. It is really about delivering a modern and flexible learning environment that will be fit for our service personnel of the future.”
Facilities key to defence trainingThe PPP Journal Issue 56 - Thursday, April 12, 2007

Cluster Bombs and Raytheon

News: Officials: Hundreds of Iraqis Killed By Faulty Grenades ..failure rates as high as 40 percent. Hundreds and possibly thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed by outdated, defective U.S. cluster weapons that lack a safety feature other countries have added, according to observers, news reports and officials……… Britain, which joined the USA in the fight to oust Saddam Hussein, fired 2,000 artillery cluster weapons in the war. All were equipped with Israeli-made grenades with secondary fuses and a 2 percent dud rate, the British Defense Ministry said…….. "The funding for R and D [research and development] in the Army was minimal, and fusing was the last on the list," said Bruce Mueller, a former Army lieutenant colonel who managed the fuse program for defense contractor Raytheon. "They develop weapons, then they develop munitions, and after they develop munitions, the last thing they worry about is how to fuse them."

Raytheon. The company makes the guidance systems for many of the missiles that are sold to Israel and that caused so much civilian death in the conflict, including the 51 people crushed to death in a bunker in Qana.

Cluster Munition Coalition News Bulletin

48 Nations Gather to Fight Cluster Bombs
Explosive Investments Financial Institutions and Cluster Munitions Briefing Paper by Netwerk Vlaanderen February 2007 “Explosive Investments” by Belgian advocacy group Netwerk Vlaanderen
'Circle of impact', report on cluster submunitions New report calls for ban on cluster munitions and for assistance to civilians May 2007
Cluster Bombs, Landmines,Nuclear Weapons and Depleted Uranium WeaponsA report on the financial links between banks and the producers of controversial weapon systems april 2004
The Cluster bomb feeling documentary on investment of Dutch pension fund in arms industry
Banking Secretsdocumentary on investments of Dutch banks in arms industry and other dodgy projects.

Cluster bombs – Skeet warhead - The BLU-108 is capable of integration into a number of weapon systems:

BQM-109 Tomahawk, Raytheon Systems
SM-2 Land Attack STANDARD Missile, Raytheon Systems
MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). Lockheed Martin
AGM-84H Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response (SLAMER), Boeing
AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), Lockheed Martin

The mysterious case of the disappearing cluster bombs
(News/Arms Industry) ...t Industries, MBDA, Rhienmetall, RUAG, SAAB, Denel, General Dynamics, L-3 Communications, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Textron) to discreetly flog you the whole thing.
Who calls the shots?

Download Corporate Mercenaries [pdf]: War on Want's report on PMSCs - Private Military and Security Companies - Corporate Mercenaries: The threat of private military and security companies…..Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are major arms contractors also selling PMSC services.

Clusterbombs - On April 1st an undetermined number of BLU-97/B submunitions hit Hilla, with reports claiming that at least 33 civilians were dead and around 300 injured.

America Cluster Bombs Iraq - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum The missile is described by the Navy, its primary developer, and Raytheon Systems, its manufacturer, as a long-range glide bomb. Acting Pentagon spokesman ...
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2001/0226cstr.htm - 14k -

Dozens of Iraqi dead after cluster bomb attack in Hilla Amnesty International has condemned the Hilla bombing and the US use of cluster bombs, saying that the use of cluster bombs against a civilian area of Hilla ...
www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/040403_dozens_of_iraqi_dead_after_clust.htm - 14k -

Cluster bombs liberate Iraqi children - World Notes - civilian .. AMMAN, Jordan -- The Asia Times reported the first description of the cluster bomb attack in the Iraq town of Hilla on April 2 and 3, but as the Times ...
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_7_27/ai_111026129 - 27k -.

The use of cluster bombs Human Rights Watch "U.S. Use of Clusters in Baghdad Condemned" 16 April 2003) The cluster bombs that were used in Hilla were identified by Landmine Action, ...
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3463.htm - 31k -

Hilla Cluster Bombs

ANTI-METRIX

18/02/2009

Officers mess

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