Contract With Atrocity: Flying With the Torture Profiteers

09-01-2011 • Chris-Floyd.com

"Up over my head, nothing but clouds of blood" -- Bob Dylan, "Cold Irons Bound" Here's a story where it all comes together, where the guiding ethos of the age is exposed: torture turned to private profit, state terror as a business deal. The Guardian reports on a remarkable case uncovered by the legal rights charity Reprieve: private contractors who flew American Terror War captives to torture hellholes around the world coming to blows in court over a grubby dispute over expenses. The case reveals the inner workings of the infamous "rendition" program, where contractors charged U.S. taxpayers for wine and chocolate as they carried kidnap victims to "black sites" and proxy torturers across America's global gulag: The scale of the CIA's rendition programme has been laid bare in court documents that illustrate in minute detail how the US contracted out the secret transportation of suspects to a network of private American companies. The manner in which American firms flew terrorism suspects to locations around the world, where they were often tortured, has emerged after one of the companies sued another in a dispute over fees. As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the mass of invoices, receipts, contracts and email correspondence – submitted as evidence to a court in upstate New York – provides a unique glimpse into a world in which the "war on terror" became just another charter opportunity for American businesses. ....The New York case concerns Sportsflight, an aircraft broker, and Richmor, an aircraft operator. Sportsflight entered into an arrangement to make a Gulfstream IV executive jet available at $4,900 an hour rather than the market rate of $5,450. A crew was available to fly at 12 hours' notice. The government wanted "the cheapest aircraft to fulfil a mission", Sportsflight's owner, Don Moss, told the court. But it was the early days of the rendition programme, and business was booming: the court heard that Sportsflight told Richmor: "The client says we're going to be very, very busy."