erinys

Guerrilla News Network has a rather extensive article on Erinys in Iraq, Guarding the Oil Underworld by Jim Vallette and Pratap Chatterjee posted on September 9, 2003 that originally appeared at CorpWatch.

When unidentified saboteurs struck the vital Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in northern Iraq recently, one in a number of recent attacks on the Middle Eastern nation's oil production and transport, the United States government announced that a company called Erinys would be brought in to train 6,500 Iraqis to guard oil pipelines, wellheads, and refineries, as well as water and electrical facilities.

"We are deploying Iraqi resources to protect the facilities and the military will continue to hunt down those trying to attack Iraq's interests," said a coalition spokesman.

Erinys' yearlong $39.5 million contract to protect 140 Iraqi oil installations, for which it beat out larger and more established competitors, will start this October. The Johannesburg-based company will be also offering its protection services to contractors Bechtel and Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root.

By the way, Erinys has on its Board of Directors Alastair Morrisson who founded Defense Systems Limited.

Here's to hoping they really are hiring and training Iraqi workers and paying them a decent wage too.