Introduction

Shortly after the start of the war in Iraq, a friend and I began to track news reports of awards for reconstruction contracts. While our efforts were admittedly primitive, we slogged along digesting numerous articles on contracts and contractors, subsequently posting the information at the weblog, Blogiston Post.

In November 2003, a column appeared in the London Telegraph, written by Colin Freeman, about a man who had vanished in Iraq. The article reported that the man, Kirk von Ackermann, was an employee of one such contractor, Ultra Services of Istanbul, Turkey. (At the time, our first post on the story was a short blurb from the website of NBC San Diego.)

Two months later, his colleague, Ryan Manelick, was gunned down in Iraq.

There are a total of 4 posts on Kirk Von Ackermann and Ryan Manelick at Blogiston Post. Much to our surprise, various search engines looking for "kirk+von+ackermann" or "ryan+manelick" continued to direct traffic to these posts on a weekly basis.

The Employer of a Missing Man November 12, 2003

Kirk von Ackermann January 1, 2004

Question June 1, 2004

Into Thin Air January 25, 2005 (printed above)

I am not a journalist nor am I qualified to investigate what happened. What I can do is post relevant articles as they appear in the press.

The Missing Man is a mini-library of on-line articles about Kirk von Ackermann and Ryan Manelick.