McConnell notes that in August 2000, his research team had warned Andy Du Port, then head of security of the Royal Navy, that alleged criminals in the CAI (Canadian American Investors) Private Equity Group had set up man-in-the-middle attacks on Royal Navy communications systems allowing them to spoof commands from the navies of the Five Eyes countries and impute fraudulent ad hoc waypoints into targeted ships for death by boat events.
Prequel 1: #1408 Marine Claims BBC Backcast Crimewatch News With Serco Clock to Put USS Cole In Aden Dock
Prequel 2: Forensic Economic Inquiry into the RMS Titanic
LONDON — The problems facing support services contractor Serco mounted Nov. 4 when Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was opening a criminal investigation into electronic monitoring contracts run by the company for the Ministry of Justice here. A second contractor, G4S, is also to be investigated.
The decision could raise new questions about Serco's position on three major British Ministry of Defence contracts the company is competing for involving key reforms of procurement and infrastructure management, and a deal to support the Royal Air Force's anti-ballistic warning system at its base at Fylingdales, North East England.
A block on contract awards to Serco had already been imposed pending the completion of a review by the Cabinet Office into allegations the company had been charging the government for the electronic tagging of criminals who were in prison, dead or had never been the subject of a tagging order.
That review is expected to be complete by the end of this month. The company has also been given until the end of November to demonstrate it is transforming its business practices or face being frozen out of further government outsourcing competitions.
Under the current limitations imposed by government, Serco can bid and be selected for defense deals with the MoD but cannot actually sign a contract ahead of the Cabinet Office findings. There is no evidence to date that defense contracts have been the subject of any wrongdoing.
In a statement, the MoD did not address whether the SFO decision might impact on future business, saying only it was "following Cabinet Office guidelines on contracting with Serco. Until the Cabinet Office led review is complete, it is too early to comment on the affect on our future business with them."
A spokesman for Serco said there was "no change" to the present position, despite the SFO move.
Figures provided by the MoD showed the department spends over £500 million (US $796 million) a year with Serco on support activities ranging from the Royal Navy laundry service to aircraft maintenance. It also has the existing contract to support the Fylingdales site, although that is up for renewal.
One of Britain's largest support services groups, Serco has total annual revenues of $7.5 billion and includes a US operation that employs around 10,000 people with sales of $1.2 billion.
Serco was one of three bidders to submit proposals to the MoD Oct. 17 in a competition to become the private sector business partner managing military infrastructure. The contest is in its final stages.
A decision on a strategic business partner for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is not expected until early next year.
The DIO, which manages everything from naval bases to troops accommodation and catering, is looking for a private sector partner to improve the skills and efficiency of its £3.3 billion a year operation.
The deal is set to run for 10 years and could be worth up to £400 million ($640 million) to the winning bidder.
Consortia led by Serco, Telereal Trillium and Capita originally submitted proposals in June and the new submissions delivered this week are a further refining of the bid.
Prior to that, though, Serco faces a decision by the MoD on whether it will retain its position as the service supplier at the Royal Air Force Fylingdales missile detection and early warning base.
Serco is competing with Babcock as it attempts to hold on to a contract it has held for years providing 24-hour maintenance, operational, engineering and logistics support to the base, which is a key part of the UK and US ballistic missile defense screen.
Contract selection is expected by the end of the year.
But most industry and government officials here will be watching whether the SFO decision has any impact on the already controversial move by the government to possibly hand over the management of the MoD's Defence Support & Equipment organisation to the private sector in a government-owned contractor-operated (GoCo) operation.
Serco is part of a team led by CHM2 Hill trying to secure the deal. Atkins is the other team member. A consortium led by Bechtel, which is partnering with Serco in the DIO bid, is providing the only competition after a URS/KBR team withdrew.
A competition between the two US-led consortia to secure the deal is underway even though the government has yet to make up its mind whether it will proceed with the GoCo option or adopt another scheme based on a more effective version of the current DE&S organization known as DE&S Plus.
A decision on how to proceed with reforming the £14 billion a year procurement and support effort is expected soon.
Media reports last month suggested the GoCo scheme was starting to unravel because the CHM2 Hill team may have to withdraw, or find another partners, due to Serco being embroiled in the tagging scandal. Having a single bidder for such a controversial scheme would be untenable, said industry executives."
"SS Mount Temple
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The SS Mount Temple was a Canadian Pacific Lines cargo ship that was sunk during the First World War by the German commerce raiderSMS Möwe.
Originally a Beaver Line ship, she was purchased by Canadian Pacific in 1903. She was one of the ships that responded to the distress signals of the RMS Titanic in 1912.
In 1916, while crossing the Atlantic with horses for the war effort and carrying a large number of newly collected dinosaur fossils, she was captured and scuttled complete with her cargo.
Early history[edit]
Mount Temple was built in 1901 in Walker-on-Tyne, England byArmstrong Whitworth & Company. The ship was launched for the Elder Dempster's Beaver Line on 18 June 1901.
The ship was named for William Francis Cowper (1811–1888), Baron Mount Temple, an English politician, Lord of the Admiralty and chairman of Armstrong-Whitworth. The ship was 8,790 gross tons and was 485 feet long. She had one funnel, four masts, twin screw propellers, and a top speed of 13 knots.
The Mount Temple saw use in November 1901 as a Boer War transport ship.
In 1903, Canadian Pacific Lines purchased the ship, with 14 others, and equipped her with a wireless telegraph. In the early days of wireless telegraphy, the call sign established for the SS Mount Temple was "MLQ."[1]
After two successful Liverpool–Quebec City runs in 1903, the ship ran aground on West Ironbound Island, Nova Scotia in 1907. No lives were lost, but the ship was stranded until 1908, when it was refloated.
Assisting the RMS Titanic[edit]
The SS Mount Temple was one of the ships that responded to the RMSTitanic's distress signals on 14 April 1912. The ship's master, Capt. Moore, stopped short of helping Titanic, claiming the ice was too thick to safely pass through. Controversy abounds concerning Moore's recollections of the Mount Temple's true speed on the evening of 14 April 1912, how far away she was from the distress position when she turned to help, and how far she was from Titanic when she stopped. Rumors that Mount Temple under Capt. Moore ignored Titanic's distress rockets abounded at the time and persist to this day. It is said that Mount Temple was the "mystery ship" seen by officers and passengers aboard the Titanic five to ten miles away, rather than the SSCalifornian as implied by Lord Mersey and the British Board of Trade at the British Inquiry.[2][3]"
"The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyerUSS Cole (DDG-67) on 12 October 2000, while it was harbored and being refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden.
..
Attack [edit]
On the morning of Thursday, 12 October 2000, USS Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, docked in Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 09:30; refueling started at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred afterward, creating a 40-by-40-foot gash in the ship's port side, according to the memorial plate to those who lost their lives. According to former CIA intelligence officer Robert Finke, the blast appeared to be caused by explosives molded into a shaped chargeagainst the hull of the boat.[2] Around 400 to 700 pounds (200–300 kg) of explosive were used.[3] The blast hit the ship's galley, where crew were lining up for lunch.[4] The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control after three days. Divers inspected the hull and determined that the keel was not damaged.
17 sailors were killed and 39 were injured in the blast. The injured sailors were taken to the United States Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center nearRamstein, Germany, and later, back to the United States. The attack was the deadliest against a U.S. naval vessel since the Iraqi attack on the USS Starkon 17 May 1987. The asymmetric warfare attack was organized and directed by the terrorist organization al-Qaeda.[5][6][7][8] In June 2001, an al-Qaeda recruitment video featuring Osama bin Laden boasted about the attack and encouraged similar attacks.[9][10]
Al-Qaeda had previously attempted a similar but less publicized attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS The Sullivans while in port at Aden on 3 January 2000, as a part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The plan was to load a boat full of explosives and explode it near The Sullivans. However the boat was so overladen that it sank, forcing the attack to be abandoned.[11][12]
Planning for the attack was discussed at the Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summitshortly after the attempt, which was held from 5 to 8 January 2000. Along with other plotters, it was attended by future 11 September hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, who then traveled to San Diego, California, where he established a close relationship with "9/11 imam" Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later linked to numerous plots and attacks, including the Fort Hood shootings and the"underwear bomber" of 2009 and put on a targeted killing list by President Obama as a terrorist threat. On 10 June 2000, Mihdhar left San Diego to visit his wife in Yemen at a house also used as a communications hub for al-Qaeda.[13][14][15] After the bombing, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani reported that Mihdhar had been one of the key planners of the attack and had been in the country at the time of the attacks.[16] He would later return to the United States to participate in 9/11 on American Airlines Flight 77, which flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.[citation needed]
Rescue[edit]
The first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken Cole was the Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, HMS Marlborough, under the command of Capt Anthony Rix, RN. She was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Gulf. Marlborough had full medical and damage control teams on board and when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden. Eleven of the most badly injured sailors were sent via MEDEVAC to a French military hospital in Djibouti and underwent surgery before being sent to Germany.
The first U.S. military support to arrive was a Quick Response Force from the United States Air Force Security Forces, transported by C-130. They were followed by another small group of United States Marines from the Interim Marine Corps Security Force Company, Bahrain flown in by P-3.
Both forces landed within a few hours after the ship was struck and were reinforced by a U.S Marine platoon with the 1st Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company (FAST), based out of Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines from 4th Platoon, 1st FAST arrived on the 13th from a security mission in Bahrain. The FAST platoon secured the USS Cole and a nearby hotel that was housing the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. [and an alleged base for the transmission of ad hoc waypoints over Serco's Defense Red Switch Network to the bridge of the USS Cole]"
Yours sincerely,
Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222
David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation
Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222
David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation
The more I read your articles the more I feel I'm freefalling down a bottomless rabbit hole of callous disregard for human life, though that would understate the extremity of their criminal insanity.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I'm amazed you're still alive. But I am even more impressed with the strength of your faith. You seem so confident that justice will be served, that these psychotics with too many toys will answer for their crimes. You have a guardian angel protecting you, I'm sure of it.
Keep connecting those dots.