KBR on Shortlist to Run UK Police Services
May 3rd, 2012Via: Guardian:
A US Pentagon contractor that was involved in building Guantánamo Bay is on a shortlist of seven private consortiums bidding for a £1.5bn contract to run key policing services in the West Midlands and Surrey.
The Texas-based, Kellogg Brown & Root, which was sold off by the controversial Halliburton corporation in 2007, is part of a consortium which has made it to the final shortlist for a contract that will see the large scale involvement of the private sector in British policing for the first time.
When KBR was still part of Halliburton it won a large share of Pentagon contracts to build and manage US military bases in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Its former chief executive, Dick Cheney, was US vice-president.
The Guardian has learned that 15 groups of companies and individual firms have made it onto the most recent shortlist. More than 200 firms initially expressed an interest in a “bidders’ conference” held in March.
The list includes several private security companies who are already involved in running private prisons, escorting and deporting prisoners or providing other criminal justice services.
