WASHINGTON, November 18, 2004 — The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm that employs numerous former high-ranking government officials with ties to both political parties, was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003. >>
WASHINGTON, November 18, 2004 — Following the extraordinary success of the Washington-based Carlyle Group, which has built a private equity empire that's earned billions for its investors, a number of firms have lined up rosters of former government officials and high ranking military officers as they pursue companies that are in the national security business. >>
WASHINGTON, September 29, 2004 — The war in Iraq, with its urgent agenda of getting the job done and getting it done quickly, relied to an unprecedented degree not only on the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are expected to fight America's wars, but on a second American army: tens of thousands of civilian contractors hired on for the duration. This new, and often dangerous, role for civilians on the battlefield has raised a host of new questions about the role of private contractors in the nation's defense. >>
Commentary
WASHINGTON, September 29, 2004 — As war fighting came to dominate the news in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, names like Halliburton and Bechtel became as familiar to the average American as the names of any general, division or soldier in the field. Fallujah first attracted wide public attention when insurgents killed and crowds mutilated the remains of four employees of Blackwater Security Consulting. Employees of CACI International and Titan were accused of taking part in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That the use of contractors on the battlefield and in nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan is front page news comes as a surprise to many, but it is a consequence of a decades-long policy to keep government smaller by relying on the private sector. >>