Native Chicagoan Sues Rumsfeld for Torture

Vance was secretly detained for 3 months at the infamous Camp Cropper, near Baghdad International Airport, after cooperating with the FBI in an investigation of illegal arms sales by a security firm operating in Iraq. Vance, a 29 year old Chicago native, previously served 2 years of active duty in the Navy and 4 years in the reserves. After 9/11 he made himself available to be reactivated if necessary. In 2004, he took a job with a private contractor named "The Sandi group" that was working in a joint venture with DynCorp International to provide security support in Iraq. Dyncorp is one of the contractors that had an early presence in the privatization of the US military, as part of Plan Columbia, where they have been effective in eliminating the political opposition to President Alvaro Uribe.

Vance became unhappy with the callous callous attitude of his employer, quit and returned home. That could have been the end of the story. But things eventually got worse.

According to a report at Chicago Indymedia by an employee of the law firm that now represents Vance in his suit against Rumsfeld:

"Vance was approached by a former coworker at The Sandi Group to join his new firm, Shield Group Security (SGS), an outfit owned by Mustafa Al-Khudairi, who holds dual Iraqi/British citizenship. Like The Sandi Group, Shield provides security to private firms and NGOs, but also occupation forces and the Iraqi government itself. Again, Vance's job was to supervise other security employees and as such he had the opportunity to view some of the inner workings of SGS. Along with Ertel, another fellow Sandi group alumnus at SGS, Vance began to observe behavior that suggested possible rampant payoffs by SGS to local shieks, as well as possible illegal weapons sales.

On a trip back to Chicago in October 2005 for the funeral of his father, Vance contacted the FBI and agreed to be an unpaid informant for them about the activities at SGS. Working with Chicago-based FBI agent Travis Carlisle and two U.S. government contacts in Iraq, Vance frequently telephoned and emailed his observations of SGS, including the violent activities of his armed supervisor, Joseph Trimpert, who boasted of the brutal acts he committed against Iraqi civilians.

As Vance and Ertel attempted to improve SGS by reining in some of its most flagrant abuses, for example reporting Trimpert's activities to Al-Khudairi, they became targeted as malcontents by other employees and one of the shieks, Sheik Abu Bakir, who threatened to kidnap them. But in the end, it was the Americans who did the kidnapping.

Several days after Ertel attempted to resign from SGS in April, a high ranking SGS employee came to Ertel's and Vance's apartments in the armed SGS compound and confiscated what's known as their "Common Access Cards," devices which allow foreign contractors to travel from "Red Zone" areas like the SGS compound, to the Green Zone where the U.S. embassy is located.

Without the cards and an armed escort in the Red Zone, Vance and Ertel were sitting ducks for the rampant violence that is daily life in Baghdad. Worse, they feared a specific attempt by SGS employees to make them "disappear." Vance's U.S. handlers in Iraq advised the two to arm and barricade themselves in a room until U.S. forces could rescue them, which they soon did despite Trimpert's attempts to wave them off, taking the two to the U.S. embassy along with their laptop computers, which documented much of Vance's and Ertel's correspondence with their handlers.

A few hours after their debriefings at the embassy, though, Vance and Ertel were taken separately, handcuffed and blindfolded, to Camp Prosperity, a U.S. military base in the Green Zon. Repeatedly threatened with violence if they didn't comply, a few days later they were taken separately to Camp Cropper where they spent the rest of their imprisonment and most of the torture took place. They were denied medical care such that when Vance had to have a tooth pulled, guards confiscated the antibiotics and pain killers the dentist had provided, causing him an infection and great pain. All of the torture took place at the hands of U.S. soldiers and other U.S. officials."

See http://chicago.indymedia.org for the rest of his account

Fortunately for Vance, he is represented by one of the most powerful law firms in Chicago, Loevy and Loevy: http://loevy.com

In 1999 they won a 28 million dollar judgement against the Chicago Police Department, and have won 11 of their past 12 cases. This is not a symbolic suit, and is now on the docket as case number 06 C 6964 before a judge who has previously demonstrated a low tolerance for the violation of basic human rights and due process. Things do not look good for Mr. Rumsfeld.

David Roknich,
Editor

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