[This is an update to Iran Should Release Amir Hekmati: A Hapless Product of the US Army’s Human Terrain System]
Amir Hekmati is currently on death row in Iran for allegedly spying for the United States of America. In addition to being a former member of the US Army’s Human Terrain System—and trained as a cultural intelligence collector—he was most recently a former employee of Six3 Systems located in McLean, Virginia.
His title with the company was Intelligence Analyst with a US Army contract expiration date of 9/23/2011 and a government contactor ID that was set to expire in November 2011. At one point earlier, Hekmati owned a company called Lucid Linguistics whose purpose was to improve the US military’s ability to communicate in the Middle East.
All of which makes the focus on his links to KUMA LLC video games rather absurd as a lead story pushed by many media outlets around the world.
Six3 Systems is a portfolio company held by GTCR, a private equity company, which does have a former high-level CIA employee in its leadership ranks (see below). The GTCR description of Six3 Systems is as follows: “Six3 Systems is a high-end national security and defense intelligence services provider focused on developing and acquiring specialized capabilities that cater to the security intelligence community, Department of Defense and civilian security agencies. This national security and defense company is primarily focused on opportunities involving biometrics security, advanced data interpretation and analysis, cyber security and security intelligence/counterintelligence operations, training and support.”
The CEO of the company is Robert Coleman. His experience includes “ . . . his tenure at the White House National Security Council Crisis Management Center during the Reagan and Bush I administrations, where he developed systems to assist in the collection and dissemination of critical intelligence data. He has additional experience supporting national security efforts while working for SAIC and Raytheon Technical Services.”
The vice president for Business Development is Ryan Wagener who is a former CACI employee. He “ . . . leads all activities associated with pursuing and winning new business in the Intelligence, Defense, and Civilian markets . . . Wagener brings 16 years of experience in the intelligence and national security federal contracting community.”
Six3 Systems biometrics guru is Mike Zembrzuski. He is “a former commander of the Army’s premier counterintelligence battalion in CONUS, Mike led the Army effort to integrate missions with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces. He is an acknowledged expert in the areas of homeland security and technology protection and has extensive experience at the highest levels of the U.S. Government. His overseas experience is remarkable, with deployments to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Guantanamo, and Iraq, along with service throughout Europe.”
Tom Ladd, executive vice president for ISR is the “former CEO of BIT Systems, a leading provider of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Software development solutions to the Intelligence Community and DoD. As one of the three founders of BITS, Mr. Ladd was responsible for the day to day running of BITS including hiring, new business efforts, human resources, accounting, and contracts. Mr. Ladd began his career at CIA as a technical weapon’s analyst. He spent three years supporting weapons inspections and finished his career at CIA as the Branch Chief for the Missile Systems Branch, responsible for the assessment of foreign ballistic and cruise missile capabilities.”
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.
