Tim Spicer of Aegis Defence Services is one of the uncrowned mercenary kings of Iraq. In 2004, Aegis landed a $293 million dollar Pentagon contract.
This effectively put him in command of the second-largest foreign armed force in the country—behind America's but ahead of Britain's. These men aren't officially part of the Coalition of the Willing, because they're all paid contractors—the Coalition of the Billing, you might call it—but they're a crucial part of the coalition's forces nonetheless.
There is NO definite, or even a really good approximation, of the numbers of contractors in Iraq. 100,000 seems to be a good starting figure, with 150,000 or more very possible.
Over 800 of those contractors have been killed in Iraq
more below the fold
A short biography of Tim Spicer: He's a British citizen who served 20 years in the military. He retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Scots Guards. After he retired in 1995, though, his life gets exicting and occasionally weird...
In 1997 Tim Spicer becomes involved in Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea the year before, Spicer's intervention had already had more serious consequences. He had arrived on the islands with 70 hired guns, mainly South Africans. They were there to attack rebels on the detached island of Bougainville, home to the world's largest and must lucrative copper mine, recover it and restore it to operation.
His arrival provoked riots. The army rebelled and staged a coup. Spicer became the new military target. He was arrested, handcuffed, jailed and interrogated. At one point, he thought he was about to be summarily executed. Police found he was carrying $400,000 in cash. Army chiefs accused his company, Sandline, of having made corrupt payments through a Swiss bank account to Mathias Ijape, then the defense minister of Papua New Guinea. In the wake of the scandal, the country's prime minister, Julian Chan, resigned, and his government collapsed.
In 1998 he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government in the nation of Sierra Leone.
In 1998, Sandline was contracted by the ousted president of Sierre Leone, Ahmed Kabbah to oust the coup leaders. Despite an international embargo against the country, Spicer and an Indian banker, Rakesh Saxena, set up a deal to bring 30 tons of Bulgarian arms into the African country. They were also contracted to arm and train about 40,000 militia. Along with aid from the Nigerian army, the militia was able to overthrow the RUF. Payment for these services is said to be $10 million in diamond mine concessions, which makes sense due to Sandline's close relationship to Diamondworks, a company with diamond concessions in Sierra Leone.
For even more details, the BBC has this collection of stories: Arms-to-Sierra Leone
He is also contected to Executive Outcomes. The first, or at least the most famous of the first, of the modern mercenary armies.
In the early 2000's the name of the companies he ran/worked with keep changing names first was Sandline International, then Crisis and Risk Management Ltd. which became Strategic Counseling International which later became Trident Maritime.
In 2003 he started Aegis Defense Services. In March 2004 Tim Spicer was questioned about a situation in Equatorial Guinea. (Link to BBC website covering this coup attempt)
...in March of 2004, Lion and Louwtjie were arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, along with Tim Spicer's friend and associate Simon Mann. They had been preparing to collect 61 Kalashnikov rifles, 45,000 rounds of ammunition, and 150 grenades, and then to fly it all, together with 65 mercenaries, into Equatorial Guinea and overthrow the government.
He was never officially involved, but....
Later in 2004, when Aegis received the first Pentagon Iraq contract, he has been in control of the 2nd largest non-Iraqi military force in Iraq.
Other sources for this diary: The above blockquotes are from these sources.
Iraq's Mercenary King
Tim Spicer
Marketing the New 'Dogs of War'
thank you for reading
jeff