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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=1><i>Published on Thursday, January
21, 2010 by Wired<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4><b>CIA Contractor Now
Flying Spy Drone Over Haiti<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>by Noah
Shachtman<br><br>
A controversial CIA contractor has found new work in Haiti, flying drones
on disaster recovery duty.<br><br>
When last we heard from Evergreen International Aviation, the
Oregon-based firm was offering to post sentries at local voting centers
during the 2008 election, "<a href="??">detaining troublemakers</a>
[1]" and making sure voters "do not get out of
control."<br><br>
Now, company vice president Sam White tells <i>Aviation Week</i> that the
firm is <a href="??">flying at least one ScanEagle surveillance drone</a>
[2] over Haiti. "The company has a fleet of 747s and a fleet of
large and small choppers, and has begun ferrying in supplies to Port au
Prince," the magazine's <a href="??">Paul McLeary</a> [3] notes.
"White wouldn't say who the company is moving cargo for, saying only
that ‘we're working with different agencies, and we have one plane coming
in tomorrow full of humanitarian supplies.'"<br><br>
Over the years, Evergreen has had all sorts of <i>interesting</i> clients
over its five-plus decades in operation. Back in the late '80s, the
company "acknowledged one agreement under which his companies
provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants
taken out of other countries or brought into the United States." In
2006, Evergreen's parent company <a href="??">flew Bill O'Reilly into
Kuwait in 2006</a> [4], according to<i>SourceWatch</i>. Last April, the
company won a <a href="??">$158 million contract</a> [5] to supply the
Air Force with helicopters in Afghanistan.<br><br>
Haiti wouldn't be Evergreen's first disaster-response mission, however.
In September, the State of California <a href="??">chartered Evergreen's
747 supertanker</a> [6], to help put out forest fires there.<br><br>
<b>UPDATE</b>: Brian Whiteside, executive vice president of Evergreen
Unmanned Systems, denied that his company is flying drones for the
earthquake recovery operation. "We have no UAVs [unmanned aerial
vehicles] in Haiti - nothing currently in Haiti, and nothing in the
region,"he tells Danger Room. Whiteside acknowledged that
"we do have teams over there that are trying to help." But
Whiteside isn't sure what, exactly, they've been able to accomplish.
"We don't have very good comms with them." And when I asked him
which government agency or charity Evergreen was trying to support, he
ducked the question, and referred me to his spokesperson.<br><br>
<b>UPDATE 2</b>: McLeary went back and <a href="??">posted the quotes he
got from Evergreen's Sam White</a> [7]. "We also have some UAVs here
that we're bringing in to, uh, probably work with the press to help out
downloading live video links and aerial shots of the devastation,"
he said. "We also have 747 cargo airplanes, and so we're working
with different agencies there and uh, we have a plane landing here
tomorrow to bring in a lot of humanitarian supplies. So we'll be here for
quite some time."<br><br>
So which Evergreen exec is telling the truth?<br><br>
<br>
Wired.com © 2009 Condé Nast Digital.<br>
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