Tim Spicer

Infobox Military Person
name= Tim Spicer
lived= Birth year and age|1952
placeofbirth=flagicon|UK - Aldershot, England
placeofdeath=


caption=Cover of Spicer's book, "An Unorthodox Soldier"
nickname=
allegiance=flagcountry|UK
serviceyears=1970cite web |year=2007 |url = http://www.resist.org.uk/reports/archive/misc/spicer.php|title = Lt Col Tim Spicer |format = HTML |publisher = pub| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last= [http://www.resist.org.uk resist.org.uk] |quote=] - 1994cite web |year=2007 |url = http://www.aegisworld.com/tim-spicer.html|title = Tim Spicer OBE - Chief Executive Officer of Aegis Defence Services Ltd|format = HTML |publisher = [http://www.aegisworld.com Aegis World] | accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=Aegis Defence Services]
rank=Lieutenant-Colonel
branch=United Kingdom Army
commands=
unit= - Scots Guards
battles=
With the UK's Scots Guard:----Falklands War
1991 Gulf War
UN force in Bosnia

Working for Private Military Companies:----Bougainville Uprising
Sierra Leone Civil War
Iraq Warcite web |date= March 1, 2007|url = http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/spicer200704?printable=true&currentPage=all|title = US: Iraq's Mercenary King|format = HTML |publisher = Vanity Fair| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=Robert Baer]


awards=Order of the British Empire (OBE)
relations=
laterwork= worked for a number of private military corporations including Sandline International and Aegis Defence Services

Timothy Simon Spicer is a former Lieutenant-Colonel in the Scots Guards and CEO of the private security company (PSC) Aegis Defence Services. He is a veteran of the Falklands War and served with the British Army in Northern Ireland. He is a former employee of Sandline International, a private military company (PMC) which closed in April 2004.

Biography

Born in 1952 in Aldershot, England, Spicer followed his father into the army, attending Sandhurst and then joining the Scots Guards. He tried to join the SAS, but failed the entry course. In 1982, his unit was pulled from Tower of London guard duty and sent to the Falklands War where he saw action at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown.

Spicer was involved in what became a controversial incident while serving in Northern Ireland in 1992. Soldiers of the Scots Guards under Lieutenant Colonel Spicer's command shot and killed Catholic civilian, Peter McBride. Subsequent evidence suggested that McBride had been unarmed and not a threat, but Lt. Col. Spicer stood by his soldiers even after they were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment on 10th February 1995, arguing that in the conditions applicable to the incident, they had legitimately believed their lives to be in peril. The soldiers were released from Maghaberry Prison on 2nd September 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement following a high-profile campaign to secure their release.cite web |date=02/03/06|url = http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/petermcbride.htm|title = Peter Mc Bride|format = HTML |publisher = [http://www.troopsoutmovement.com troops out movement] | accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last= [http://www.troopsoutmovement.com troops out movement] ] Unusually for men with murder convictions, they were readmitted to the British army.

Private Military Company (PMC)

In 1994 he left the army and started up Sandline International, a PMC.

andline affair

The Sandline affair was a political scandal that became one of the defining moments in the history of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and particularly that of the conflict in Bougainville. It brought down the PNG government of Sir Julius Chan and took Papua New Guinea to the verge of military revolt.

After coming to power in mid-1994, Prime Minister Chan made repeated attempts to resolve the Bougainville conflict by diplomatic means. These were ultimately unsuccessful, due to the repeated failure of Bougainvillean leaders to arrive at scheduled peace talks. After a number of failed military assaults and the refusal of Australia and New Zealand to provide troops, a decision was then made to investigate the use of mercenaries. Through some overseas contacts defence minister, Mathias Ijape was put in contact with Spicer.

He accepted a contract for $36 million, but the deal fell through when the PNG Army found out that so much money was being spent on a job the army could do. The Army overthrew the PNG government and arrested Spicer. He was eventually released and sued the PNG government for money not paid.

ierra Leone Scandal: the arms-to-Africa affair

When employed by Sandline International, Spicer was involved in military operations in the Sierra Leone Civil War, which included importing weapons in apparent violation of the United Nations arms embargocite web |date=December 29, 2004|url = http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050110&s=ackerman|title = Tim Spicer's World|format = HTML |publisher = [http://www.thenation.com The Nation] | accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=ANDREW ACKERMAN] . He had been contacted by Rakesh Saxena, an Indian financier hoping that a new government would grant him diamond and mineral concessions. The controversy over this incident, and whether the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) knew of Sandline's actions; inquiries into it concluded that the FCO had known of the actions, and that Spicer believed he was not breaking the embargo. There was speculation that the British and the US governments may have lent tacit approval to Sandline's activities. Spicer alway denied that he or Sandline did anything illegal:

Spicer has claimed that he always has called for greater involvement of the British government in the PMC issue. In fact, Col. Spicer said that six weeks before the arms-to-Africa affair blew up, Sandline had submitted a paper to the Foreign Office calling for greater regulation, but had not yet received a response. At the time, with no government response, Sandline was considering setting up its own oversight committee, including a senior retired general, a lawyer and a representative of the media.cite web |date=22 November 1998|url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/11/22/narmy22.html|title = Inside Lt Col Spicer's new model army|format = HTML |publisher = The Telegraph| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last= Andrew Gilligan]

In late 1999, Spicer left Sandline which kept operating until 2004. The next year, he launched Crisis and Risk Management. In 2001, he changed the company's name to Strategic Consulting International and also set up a partner firm specializing in anti-piracy consulting, called Trident Maritime. In 2002, Spicer established Aegis Defence Services, which around the beginning of the Iraq war was consulting for the Disney Cruise Line.

Aegis Defence Services

Spicer is Chief Executive of Aegis Defence Services, a PMC based in London. The Chairman is Field-Marshal Lord Inge, former Chief of the Defence Staff and the Board of Directors include: General Sir Roger Wheeler, former Chief of the General Staff, and Sir John Birch, former British deputy ambassador to the United Nations.

In October 2004, Aegis won a $293 million three-year contract in Iraq outsourcing, among other things, intelligence for the U.S. Army.cite web |date=October 23, 2005|url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article578141.ece|title = Making a killing|format = HTML |publisher = pub| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=Jon Swain] cite web |date= July 1, 2007; A01|url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/30/AR2007063001075_pf.html|title = In Iraq, a Private Realm Of Intelligence-Gathering|format = HTML |publisher = Washington Post| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=Steve Fainaru and Alec Klein]

Cquote2|Spicer is effectively in charge of the second largest military force in Iraq – some 20,000 private soldiers. Just don't call him a mercenary.|Stephen Armstrong "Guardian" journalistcite web |date=May 20, 2006|url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1779424,00.html|title = The enforcer|format = HTML |publisher = The Guardian| accessdate = 2007-08-14 | last=Stephen Armstrong |quote=]

References

External links

*cite book | last = Robert Young Pelton | title = Licensed to Kill, Hired Guns in the War on Terror| series = | date = August 29, 2006| publisher = Crown | isbn= 1400097819
*cite book | last = Robert Young Pelton | title = Three World's Gone Mad| series = | date = December 1, 2003| publisher = Lyons Press | isbn= 1592281001
*cite book | last = Tim Spicer | title = An Unorthodox Soldier| series = | date = September 1, 2000| publisher = Mainstream Publishing| isbn= 1840183497
* [http://www.sandline.com/ Sandline International]
* [http://www.aegisdef.com/ Aegis Defence Services]
* [http://www.oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/stories/3574697/ When the regular army goes, the mercenaries come]