Gone Black[water]

September 26th, 2007

You know that Righty honk and blow about “fighting ‘em there so we don’t have to fight ‘em here?” That’s how I feel about the para-military Blackwater Boyz, 180,000 outlaws roaming the Iraqi desert … I’m not so sure I want them home, jonesing for a paycheck and a cause.

To be sure, some of these guys are schlubs, driving truck, doing maintenance, looking for a way out of American debt; some are Internationale’s attempting to send home money unavailable locally. But there are too many of these folks that fit the “mercenary” model … we’ll have enough trouble assimilating the Vets that come home with PTSD and emotional problems. Where are these boyz gonna end up? On your police department, perhaps? Where, oh where shall we find jobs for those returnee’s in the “peace and stability industry?” [You think I'm being a smart ass, I know you do -- read the last article and weep.]

I guess my question is — can you come back after you’ve gone Black?

Waxman is investigating, Condi is stonewalling, Maliki is freaking out and Righty’s everywhere are mass producing Medal’s of Freedom for their private army. Dubby, meanwhile, is oblivious — as usual.

Ain’t we got fun? All the wrinkles, below.

Jude

Maliki Accuses Blackwater of Challenging Iraq’s Sovereignty
Alissa J. Rubin and Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times
Monday 24 September 2007

Baghdad - Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Sunday that the shooting of Iraqi civilians last week by Blackwater USA, a private American security company, amounted to a challenge to the nation’s sovereignty, but he added that the his government was working jointly with the United States to bring those responsible to justice.

In an interview with The Associated Press in his New York hotel suite ahead of his appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, he said: “The Iraqi government is responsible for its citizens, and it cannot be accepted for a security company to carry out a killing. There are serious challenges to the sovereignty of Iraq.”

The Associated Press noted that Mr. Maliki used the Arabic word “tajawiz,” which can be translated either as “affronts” or “challenges.”

On Sept. 16, Blackwater security guards opened fire on civilians in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad, killing at least 11 and reminding Iraqis of the often abusive behavior of private Western security companies operating in the country. This was the seventh incident in which Iraqi authorities have cited Blackwater for the injurious behavior of its guards toward civilians.

But an Iraqi security official said the government was compelled to allow Blackwater to remain in operation in Iraq in spite of deep misgivings about the company’s role here.

Tahseen al-Sheikhly, a spokesman for the Iraqi security forces, said that immediately removing Blackwater’s hundreds of armed guards could create a security vacuum in the capital, forcing American commanders to redeploy troops from elsewhere in the country. That, in turn, could leave other volatile areas thinly patrolled.

“If Blackwater left at this moment, it might leave a security gap because most of the embassies and most of the foreign organizations that are working in Iraq” rely on Blackwater, Mr. Sheikhly said at a news conference with a spokesman for the American military in Baghdad. “This will create a security imbalance.”

“That’s why the Iraqi government preferred to be patient on activating this decision to stop them,” he said. “But the government is still serious in finding certain rules” to govern private security contractors. “We would like to have some laws,” he said.

Meanwhile, an American soldier was killed and another was wounded when a sophisticated roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator detonated near their patrol during combat operations in East Baghdad on Saturday, the United States military said.

A British soldier died on Friday in Britain from injuries sustained in Iraq last week, the Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.

Over all, however, the American commander in Baghdad said that violence had continued to diminish in the capital. In a statement released on Sunday, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr. said there had been a 70 percent decrease in the casualties caused by car bombs since an increase in the number of American troops in the city in mid-February. His statement also said that there has been a 125 percent increase in the rate at which car bombs are discovered by security forces before they are detonated by insurgents.

Prior to February, just one-fifth of Baghdad’s neighborhoods were free of organized insurgent activity. Now, more than half of Baghdad’s neighborhoods have improved to the point that economic investment can begin, General Fil said. The counterinsurgency doctrine embraced by the United States’ top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is “clear, hold and build” - meaning that insurgents first need to be removed from neighborhoods, then the military needs to keep them from returning and then it is possible to start making investments and building the area.

But in a signal that violence remains the backbeat here, 10 bodies were found in Baghdad on Sunday, and there were clashes in Basra between two Shiite militias. There was also a reminder of the longstanding antagonism in Iraq toward the United Nations when a roadside bomb exploded Sunday near the organization’s former headquarters in Baghdad, which is now deserted.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, recently announced that the international organization would have a more robust presence in Iraq and would consider expanding its offices in the northern city of Erbil and perhaps would open an outpost in Basra, in the south of the country. ++

Ali Hamdani contributed reporting from Iraq, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra and Hilla.

Security Firm Faces Criminal Charges in Iraq
James Glanz and Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times
Sunday 23 September 2007

Observing Our Government Through Blackwater
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet
Wed, 2007-09-26

Jeremy Scahill, author of a terrific book on the Blackwater mercenary army, spoke in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday to a packed hall. He took questions at the end, and one man asked something to the effect of “Why does the government want to privatize the military? We taxpayers have been paying for the Army.” I wished Scahill had pointed out that it’s the tax payers who are now paying the private corporations, but the answer Scahill gave was critical.

“There’s a cynical answer and an honest answer,” he said, “and I think they’re the same answer.” He said that the Pentagon is useless to politicians because it doesn’t make campaign “contributions”. But when you take a big chunk of that enormous military budget and give it to private companies, you free it up to come back (some portion of it) to politicians every campaign season.

Scahill has the ability to tell the story of one little corner of corruption and through it provide an understanding of the overall military industrial media congressional complex. The corner of corruption he focuses on is Blackwater.

Scahill described the recent “Bloody Sunday” incident in Baghdad in which Blackwater mercenaries shot and killed approximately 28 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in a square. The Iraqi government claims to have video proving the shooting was unprovoked. Witnesses corroborate that story.

Within hours of the incident, Condoleezza Rice phoned Iraqi President and Bush puppet Nouri al Maliki. Within 5 days Blackwater was back on the streets.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman plans to hold a hearing on October 2nd and has asked Blackwater CEO Eric Prince to testify, but has not subpoenaed him. He’s asked Prince to testify before, and Prince has refused.

The State Department has told Waxman that any information it provides Congress on occupation contractors will be classified. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has herself refused to comply with a subpoena. It might be possible to compel Prince to comply, but Waxman has not subpoenaed him. Beyond the power of subpoena, Waxman has made clear he will never support using the power of impeachment. For several months now he has sent frequent requests to the State Department without receiving compliance.

Scahill described the size of the problem. There are 181 security companies in Iraq and 180,000 private contractors, tens of thousands of whom are mercenaries. And they are unaccountable. When a Blackwater mercenary shot and killed the Iraqi Vice President’s body guard, Blackwater snuck the shooter out of the country. In February of this year, Waxman held hearings and invited Prince to testify. Prince did not show up, but sent his lawyer instead. Rep. Dennis Kucinich noted at the hearing that Blackwater appears to be complicit in the flight of a murder suspect.

Blackwater has frequently found itself in gun battles with Iraqis, as recounted by Scahill. The U.S. Embassy, Scahill said, lied when it recently said it had never had complaints about Blackwater. The Iraqis have complained frequently. But the US wants shock troops, Scahill said. “They want Iraqis to have the fear of god in them if they try to approach Ryan Crocker or Condoleezza Rice.”

A US soldier can be court martialed. There have been 64 courts martial for murder charges in Iraq, which Scahill finds stunningly low, given that in his estimate there have been 750,000 Iraqis killed. (I don’t know why Scahill disagrees with the studies that now place the number over a million.) Mercenaries are not prosecuted under Iraqi or US law or courts martial.

Scahill said that when he recently testified before Congress, the whole issue seemed to be brand new to congress members. After four years of slaughter and wild west tactics in Iraq, Scahill said, two freshman senators have finally proposed establishing a system of justice for mercenaries.

Scahill seems to be of two minds about this proposal. He recognizes that mercenaries, aggressive wars, and foreign occupations are illegal to begin with, making their regulation a dubious endeavor. He recognizes that the mercenary companies are themselves supporting the proposal, and that this is a good indication of how worthless it is. Yet, he finds something encouraging about the fact that there is a proposal and a discussion underway. I am less encouraged, largely because any bill that was actually worth passing would be vetoed.

Scahill recently gave a talk in Eric Prince’s home town in Michigan (a town described well in Scahill’s book). Prince published an op-ed in the local paper claiming that Blackwater is not a mercenary company. But, Scahill explains, Blackwater has hired soldiers from countries like Chile whose democratically elected governments opposed the occupation, and sent those soldiers to fight in Iraq. Employing soldiers to fight for a foreign power, such as Chileans for the United States, is the very definition of mercenary used by Prince himself.

The Democrats in Congress are asleep on this issue, says Scahill, and he blames the financial “contributions” they receive from the war industry.

Scahill says that the count of 1,000 or more private contractors killed in Iraq is almost certainly undercounted dramatically, because it includes only those eligible for federal aide.

Britain may put in more mercenaries as it pulls out troops, Scahill said. The US may put in more mercenaries when it pulls out troops. And more and more of the mercenaries may be hired from poor nations around the world, including Iraq. (And yet the best talk in Congress is still of “redeploying” troops, never troops and mercenaries.)

Scahill also discussed Blackwater’s connections with the Bushes and the radical right. With Blackwater guards now bigger targets in Iraq than the people they are guarding, why would the US keep them on? The answer, Scahill suggests, is the role the Prince family has played in funding the religious right and rightwing political movements in the United States. All of this, including the story of Blackwater’s creation and rise to power, is well told in Scahill’s book.

And it’s not just the Princes. The number two man at Blackwater, Cofer Black, formerly of the CIA, is part of the power that Blackwater has over the State Department as well, Scahill surmises. He has been in charge of capturing Osama Bin Laden and in charge of the extraordinary rendition program. It’s unclear whether Blackwater’s planes have been used in that program. The number three man at Blackwater is Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon Inspector General under Rumsfeld. Blackwater’s lawyers include Fred Fielding, former White House Counsel, and Kenneth Star, former investigator of Bill Clinton’s oral sex.

The main problem, as Scahill says, is that companies have a profit motive in launching and escalating wars. And nobody in Washington, other than Dennis Kucinich, will talk about it, Scahill says.

Someone in the audience Tuesday night asked whether Scahill was concerned about what role American mercenaries in Iraq will play when / if they’re brought home. Scahill agreed that it should be a major concern, and said that he’s seen a glimpse of it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He talked to Israeli private security guards for a company called Instinctive Shooting International who were operating an armed checkpoint on behalf of a wealthy individual. Mercenaries are for hire by billionaires as well as by the government.

Scahill also warned that he expects an increase in attacks on mercenaries in Iraq as retaliation for the recent massacre.

Scahill dodged the obligatory 9-11 theories question but answered a question on whether the four famous Blackwater deaths in Fallujah had been an intentional set-up to spur revenge attacks. Scahill believes that was not the case, that Blackwater was simply rushing recklessly to fill a contract.

Someone also asked what everyone in the room could do when they got home. Based on Scahill’s response, I posted the following call to action on a local website:

CALL CHAIRMAN HENRY WAXMAN

Jeremy Scahill discussed Blackwater tonight in Charlottesville. Someone asked what we could do, and he suggested that we all phone Congressman Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California and the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. We should ask Waxman to subpoena Blackwater CEO Eric Prince. Waxman’s number is 202-225-3976.

A little background: Waxman has subpoenaed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and she has refused to appear. Unless Waxman backs impeachment of her (the House Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment against Nixon for refusal to comply with subpoenas) he has no leverage over Rice. Waxman has asked Prince to testify before, and he refused. There is a chance that Waxman could compel Prince to obey a subpoena or hold him in contempt or inherent contempt. The State Department has told Waxman that any information it provides is classified. Waxman should ignore that announcement, hold open hearings, and subpoena Prince and other heads of mercenary companies. He should expose to the public what their contracts are and what their crimes have been, including the recent Blackwater bloody Sunday massacre, of which Waxman should obtain the video from the Iraqi government and air it. ++

Chairman Waxman Writes to Secretary Rice on State Department Stonewalling
The Gavel, Speaker.gov

Today Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight Committee wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about three extraordinary communications the Committee has received from the State Department regarding corruption within the Iraqi government, the operations of Blackwater USA, and the status of political reconciliation in Iraq. The State Department has instructed its officials that they cannot communicate with the Committee about corruption in the Maliki government unless the Committee agrees to treat all information, including “broad statements/assessments,” as national security secrets. Other points of growing contention between the Committee and the State Department include Blackwater’s assertion that the State Department has instructed the company to withhold information from the Committee and the refusal of Secretary Rice to testify.

Letter from Blackwater’s Attorney (pdf) >>

Letter from Department of State to Blackwater (pdf) >>

Full letter to Secretary Rice (pdf):

September 25, 2007

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Madam Secretary:

I am writing about three extraordinary communications the Committee has received from the State Department regarding corruption within the Iraqi government, the operations of Blackwater USA, and the status of political reconciliation in Iraq.

First, Committee staff were informed yesterday that State Department officials with direct knowledge of corruption within the Maliki government would not be allowed to provide the Committee with “assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability/determination of the Iraqi government to deal with corruption” unless the Committee agreed to treat this information as classified and withhold it from the public.

Second, Blackwater has informed the Committee that a State Department official directed Blackwater not to provide documents relevant to the Committee’s investigation into the company’s activities in Iraq without the prior written approval of the State Department.

Third, the Committee staff were informed that you have refused to testify at any hearing called by this Committee to examine the progress of political reconciliation in Iraq, the impact of corruption in Iraq, and the Blackwater incident.

I urge you to reconsider the unusual positions you are taking. Congress has a constitutional prerogative to examine the impacts that corruption within the Iraqi ministries and the activities of Blackwater may have on the prospects for political reconciliation in Iraq. You are wrong to interfere with the Committee’s inquiry.

The Corruption Investigation

As part of the Committee’s investigation into corruption in Iraq, I sent you a letter on September 10, 2007, requesting interviews with State Department officials knowledgeable about reports of corruption within the Iraqi ministries and seeking copies of State Department reports on the status of anti-corruption efforts in Iraq.

Initially, the State Department refused to allow the Committee to speak with two officials, Vincent Foulk and Christopher Griffith, who worked in the State Department Office of Accountability and Transparency, which is responsible for monitoring corruption within the Iraqi ministries. As a result, the Committee issued subpoenas on September 20 for the deposition of these individuals.

Now the State Department is taking the position that investigators for the Committee may speak with these individuals, but that the investigators may not ask them questions that could embarrass the Maliki government unless the Committee agrees to refrain from any public discussion of their answers. State Department officials explained that any information about corruption within the Maliki government must be treated as classified because public discussions could undermine U.S. relations with the Maliki government.

This absurd position was confirmed in an e-mail sent to Committee staff last night at 6:55 p.m. In the e-mail, the State Department provided a description of the “redlines” that its employees may not cross in unclassified interviews scheduled for today. According to the State Department, the following information is now classified:

Broad statements/assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability/determination of the Iraqi government to deal with corruption, including allegations that investigations were thwarted/stifled for political reasons;
Statements/allegations concerning actions by specific individuals, such as the Prime Minister or other GOI officials, or regarding investigations of such officials.

The scope of this prohibition is breathtaking. On its face, it means that unless the Committee agrees to keep the information secret from the public, the Committee cannot obtain information from officials in the Office of Accountability and Transparency about whether there is corruption within the Iraqi ministries, how extensive the corruption is, or whether the corruption is funding the insurgency and undermining public confidence in the Iraqi government. The Committee also cannot obtain information about whether Mr. Maliki himself has been involved in corruption or has intervened to block corruption investigations of Iraqi officials close to Mr. Maliki.

The scope of the restrictions is so broad that my staff inquired yesterday whether Ambassador Ryan Crocker violated these restrictions when he testified to Congress earlier this month about the functioning of the Iraqi ministries. State Department officials responded that those statements were not classified because they would not complicate the State Department’s relationship with the Maliki government.

This morning, Committee staff conducted a transcribed telephone interview with Mr. Foulk. Because of the restrictions placed on Mr. Foulk by the State Department, the interview was virtually worthless. The State Department officials participating on the call would not let Mr. Foulk answer whether there is large-scale corruption in Iraq, whether Iraqi ministers are blocking corruption probes, or whether corruption in Iraq is undermining U.S. efforts. Mr. Foulk stated that he was informed of these new restrictions just this morning and that he had never heard of them before.

At one point, Mr. Foulk was read a statement that you made in October 2006, in which you praised Prime Minister Maliki’s efforts to combat corruption at the Interior Ministry. In this statement, you said:

I think he’s a very good and strong prime minister. And you know, they’re really starting to take actions. … [W]e’ve said many times that the Interior Ministry in the prior government before the permanent government was put in place was not active enough in really rooting out potential corruption and potential violence within the Ministry itself, or of the Ministry forces. And so they are starting to really take some actions of that kind. So I think this is a strong prime minister.

Mr. Foulk was asked whether he agreed or disagreed with this public statement. He said he could not answer this question under the ground rules established by the State Department because his opinion would be considered classified.

In effect, your position seems to be that positive information about the Maliki government may be disseminated publicly, but any criticism of the government must be treated as a national security secret. I suppose this would be an effective way for the Bush Administration to control the facts and debate about Iraq, but it has no place in our democracy.

The State Department has also refused to turn over to the Committee official reports on corruption in Iraqi ministries. The Committee requested these reports after reading press accounts that assert that the reports depict extensive corruption within the Iraqi ministries.

The State Department initially informed Committee staff that the reports were designated “sensitive but unclassified.” After receiving the Committee’s inquiry, however, the State Department retroactively classified the documents and refused to provide them voluntarily to the Committee.

The Committee subpoenaed the documents last week, but they still have not been provided to the Committee in either classified or unclassified form.

Obviously, the State Department’s position on this matter is ludicrous. Over 3,790 American soldiers have been killed in the Iraq War and another 28,000 have been wounded. The American people have already spent $450 billion on the war. If there is widespread corruption within the Maliki government, this is information that both Congress and the public are entitled to know.

The Blackwater Investigation

The Committee is also investigating the recent incidents involving Blackwater and as part of this investigation made a request to the company for relevant documents last week. This morning, however, the Committee received a letter from Blackwater stating that the company has received a letter from the State Department that “directs Blackwater USA not to disclose any information concerning the contract without DOS pre-authorization in writing.”

Blackwater attached a copy of the letter it received from the State Department. In this letter, the State Department contracting officer writes: “I hereby direct Blackwater to make no disclosure of the documents or information” sought by the Committee without written authorization from the State Department.

Earlier today, my staff contacted a member of your legislative affairs staff, who agreed to look into this matter and attempt to reverse the position taken by the contracting officer. This should happen without delay. Any interference with the Committee’s documents request would be wholly inappropriate. Unless the President is prepared to make an assertion of executive privilege over the Blackwater documents, the State Department has no authority to prevent their transmission to Congress.

Testimony before the Committee

As Secretary of State, you have a preeminent role in fostering political reconciliation in Iraq. Although much attention has been paid to the role of the U.S. military in Iraq, most military leaders agree that the key to success in Iraq is political progress rather than military victories. As General Petraeus has stated:

There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq. Military action is necessary to help improve security … but it is not sufficient. There needs to be a political aspect.

Similarly, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated:

[T]his is not going to be solved by the military. It has to involve political reconciliation in Iraq among Iraqis. We’re basically buying them time. That’s the whole purpose of this strategy.

You have recognized the significance of your role. As you stated in October 2006:

I’m really here and more on the political side because obviously the political side and the security side are linked. The ability to get a national reconciliation plan, to get everybody to understand precisely how their interests are going to be represented and how their interests are going to be served in this political process, to pull more people into the political process and out of the insurgency, more people into the political process and out of connections with militias, that’s why the political process is so central. So I’m really more focused on the political process.

Because of your responsibility for promoting political reconciliation, I asked my staff to work with your staff to arrange a mutually agreeable date for you to testify before the Committee regarding these matters. In numerous telephone calls and e-mails, my staff offered a host of possible dates to accommodate your schedule. Last night, however, your staff informed the Committee that you are “unavailable” for such a hearing. The only rationale offered by your staff was some unspecified “other interest” in having you testify elsewhere on Capitol Hill.

I appreciate that you may not want to answer questions about political reconciliation, corruption in Iraq, and Blackwater. But that is not a legitimate basis for refusing to appear before the principal oversight committee in the House about matters within your purview as Secretary of State.

Conclusion

I urge you to give these matters your immediate attention, to direct your staff to cooperate with the Committee’s inquiry, to instruct Blackwater to comply with the Committee’s document request, and to arrange a mutually convenient time in October for your testimony before the Committee.

Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
cc: Tom Davis, Ranking Minority Member ++

U.S. Always Outsourcing, More Contractors Than U.S. Troops in Iraq
Neha Inamdar, MoJo blog
09/24/07

Americans are known for outsourcing everything. So, why not the Iraq war too? Currently, contractors in Iraq number more than 180,000, according to the Associated Press.

137,000 of them are working for the Department of Defense, and thousands more have been separately contracted by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Their number is greater than the 163,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq now.

As journalist Jeremy Scahill writes, “In essence, the Bush administration has created a shadow army that can be used to wage wars unpopular with the American public but extremely profitable for a few unaccountable private companies.”

And this “shadow army” is accountable to no one, thanks to the immunity granted by U.S. authorities following the invasion in 2003, which essentially prohibits Iraqi courts from prosecuting contractors. This action prompted politicians on both sides of the aisle to introduce bills which would place U.S. security contractors under U.S. federal criminal codes. But in the meantime, contractors continue to rake in billions of dollars in Iraq and surely, when we withdraw, they’ll make bank off that as well. ++

Private Security Puts Diplomats, Military at Odds
Contractors in Iraq fuel debate
Sudarsan Raghavan and Thomas E. Ricks, The Washington Post
Wednesday 26 September 2007

Baghdad - A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials.

In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said.

“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we’re trying to have an impact for the long term.” The official was referring to the prison scandal that emerged in 2004 in which U.S. soldiers tortured and abused Iraqis.

In last week’s incident, Blackwater guards shot into a crush of cars, killing at least 11 Iraqis and wounding 12. Blackwater officials insist their guards were ambushed, but witnesses have described the shooting as unprovoked. Iraq’s Interior Ministry has concluded that Blackwater was at fault.

In interviews involving a dozen U.S. military and government officials, many expressed anger and concern over the shootings in Nisoor Square, in Baghdad’s Mansour neighborhood. Some worried it could undermine the military’s efforts to stabilize Iraq this year with an offensive involving thousands of reinforcements.

“This is a big mess that I don’t think anyone has their hands around yet,” said another U.S. military official. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing these guys are being held accountable. Iraqis hate them, the troops don’t particularly care for them, and they tend to have a know-it-all attitude, which means they rarely listen to anyone - even the folks that patrol the ground on a daily basis.”

Most officials spoke on condition of anonymity because there are at least three ongoing investigations of Blackwater’s role in the shootings. There are also sensitive discussions between various U.S. agencies and the Iraqi government over the future of Blackwater and other private security firms in Iraq.

A State Department official asked why the military is shifting the question to State “since the DOD has more Blackwater contractors than we do, including people doing PSD [personal security detail] for them. . . . They’ve [Blackwater] basically got contracts with DOD that are larger than the contracts with State.”

According to federal spending data compiled by the independent Web site FedSpending.org, however, the State Department’s Blackwater contracts vastly exceed those of the Pentagon. Since 2004, State has paid Blackwater $833,673,316, compared with Defense Department contracts of $101,219,261.

A Blackwater spokeswoman did not return telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

The State Department official, directly addressing the question of Blackwater, said: “The bottom line of this is that we recognize that there’s an issue here. We don’t think we need to be told by anyone else that the incident on September 16 raised a whole series of other issues with respect to how these kinds of contract services operate, and that’s why we’re both working with this joint commission with the Iraqis as well as [conducting an] internal investigation here to ensure we can address some of the underlying issues.”

Scores of private security firms play a vital role in the U.S. military mission, from force protection to securing the perimeters of American bases and guarding generals. They free up more U.S. soldiers for combat duty and to secure neighborhoods.

At the same time, the military has long been wary of private security guards, especially those who, in the military’s view, don’t follow the rules of engagement that govern soldiers. Often, private guards quickly drive away from the scene of an incident, leaving soldiers to deal with the aftermath, officials said.

“I personally was concerned about any of the civilians running around on the battlefield during my time there,” said retired Army Col. Teddy Spain, who commanded a military police brigade in Baghdad. “My main concern was their lack of accountability when things went wrong.”

In Iraq, Blackwater operations have been a source of controversy. In 2004, insurgents ambushed four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah and mutilated their bodies. U.S. Marines were ordered to invade the city to capture the assailants, triggering one of the war’s most fierce battles. The firm mostly hires former Navy SEAL operatives.

“They are immature shooters and have very quick trigger fingers. Their tendency is shoot first and ask questions later,” said an Army lieutenant colonel serving in Iraq. Referring to the Sept. 16 shootings, the officer added, “None of us believe they were engaged, but we are all carrying their black eyes.”

“Many of my peers think Blackwater is oftentimes out of control,” said a senior U.S. commander serving in Iraq. “They often act like cowboys over here . . . not seeming to play by the same rules everyone else tries to play by.”

“Many of us feel that when Blackwater and other groups conduct military missions, they should be subject to the same controls under which the Army operates,” said Marc Lindemann, who served in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division and is now an officer in the New York National Guard and a state prosecutor.

A Pentagon source in Washington said, “We are really making State respond, conduct an investigation and come up with recommendations.” The source described discussion in Washington as calm and professional but, referring to Iraq, said, “There is probably a bit more emotion going on in theater.”

There have been private discussions in the past over whether the Defense Department should oversee the State Department’s security contracts, according to the Pentagon source. Defense rules for licensing, oversight and incident reports when weapons are discharged are more stringent, the source said. The military is known to quickly and routinely investigate incidents involving its contractors.

But “it would be a turf battle,” the source said. State would oppose it because “you are taking away a primary mission their regional security officer has - you’d be breaking new ground.” At the same time, “DOD is not volunteering to take them over.”

“Given their record of recklessness,” said the senior U.S. commander, “I’m not sure any senior military officer here would want responsibility for them.”

An Army brigadier general said finding a way to prosecute security companies for violations was more crucial than regulating them. In Iraq, they were given immunity under a regulation, Order 17, crafted by Iraq’s U.S. overseers after the 2003 invasion.

The Iraqi government has backed away from a threat to expel Blackwater, largely because of its role in protecting senior U.S. diplomats and civilian operatives. Officials said they would take action once the investigation by a 16-member U.S.-Iraqi commission is completed.

“I think the military culture fully accepts these days, rightly or wrongly, that we can’t go to war anymore without these contractors,” said one Iraq war veteran. “I do not expect calls for action from within the structure and have heard none. If action comes, it will be from Capitol Hill or pressure brought by the press.”

“The deaths of contractors from Blackwater helped precipitate the debacle in Fallujah in 2004 and now the loss of Blackwater is causing disruptions in the war effort in 2007,” a military intelligence officer said. “Why are we creating new vulnerabilities by relying on what are essentially mercenary forces?” ++

Ricks reported from Washington. Correspondent Joshua Partlow in Baghdad, staff writers Steve Fainaru in El Cerrito, Calif., and Ann Scott Tyson and Karen DeYoung in Washington and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

Blackwater’s Man in Washington
Meet Doug Brooks, whose trade group represents the private military industry’s biggest players. He makes hired guns sound like U.N. peacekeepers.
Bruce Falconer, Mother Jones
September 25 , 2007

Last Wednesday afternoon, amid news that Blackwater USA security contractors had killed 11 Iraqi civilians and wounded 12 others in a Baghdad firefight, members of the antiwar group Code Pink gathered outside the Washington office of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group that represents a who’s who of the private military industry. There to greet them when they arrived was Doug Brooks, the IPOA’s founder and president, who’d been tipped off to the protest earlier that day by an anonymous caller. “He was on the street with an assistant with an armful of IPOA magazines,” said Code Pink’s Gael Murphy, who heads the group’s Washington office. “He had a smile on his face the entire time as though it were some kind of industry expo day, and he kept [smiling], even as we were asking him about some pretty dreadful matters.” Brooks spent about an hour fielding questions and even escorted some of the protesters upstairs to see his office. I asked Murphy if Brooks had managed to change any minds. “No,” she said. “We were not fooled just because [Blackwater] has a network to cover them—that they’re somehow more legitimate than they were the day of the killings.”

Doug Brooks tells a different story. The day after the protest I met him at a bar near his office. He wore a dark suit and wire-frame glasses. “I think we developed some fans,” he said, still smiling. “One guy, for example, said, ‘I don’t like the concept, but I guess if we’re going to have companies doing this stuff, we need this kind of organization doing the oversight.’” Brooks seemed energized by the experience, which, despite its being a protest, he treated as an opportunity to convert the opposition. “Their questions were really good,” he continued. “We gave them paperwork. We gave them journals. A couple of them even took away IPOA pins.” He pulled one from his bag and placed it in my hand. It bore the image of a sleeping lion, the IPOA’s logo. “Just got a new batch in,” he said.

The son of a history professor, Brooks grew up in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana. “God’s country,” he says. Although he’s lived in Washington for much of the past decade, he retains a disarming Midwestern charm, a quality he deploys to great advantage as the friendly, public face of a secretive, multibillion dollar business.

His organization currently represents 42 companies—among them, Blackwater, DynCorp, and MPRI—that belong to what Brooks describes as the “peace and stability industry.”

The IPOA’s mission, according to its website, is “to promote high operational and ethical standards of firms active in the Peace and Stability Industry; to engage in a constructive dialogue with policy-makers about the growing and positive contribution of these firms to the enhancement of international peace, development, and human security; and to inform the concerned public about the activities and role of the industry.”

The latter had consumed most of Brooks’ time over the past week as he gave close to 40 interviews in three days to reporters seeking comment on Blackwater’s Baghdad shoot-out. Wasn’t he uncomfortable being the private military industry’s unofficial spokesman when one of its most prominent players stood accused of murdering civilians? “No, not at all,” Brooks said. “What it’s given us the chance to do is get out the point of what IPOA is about, to paint a larger picture, put it in context. Yes, we do have contractors working around the world, doing stuff that’s dangerous. Sometimes they’re armed, and sometimes innocent people get killed.”

Brooks first became intrigued by private military contractors as a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1990s, where he indulged his childhood interest in military history by studying Vietnam and Southeast Asian security. Realizing he was “writing papers that could have been written 20 years earlier,” he soon tired of the subject. It was then that he began reading newspaper articles about Executive Outcomes, a private mercenary company operating in Africa. He changed his academic focus and, shortly thereafter, managed to win a fellowship to the South African Institute of International Affairs, where he began churning out papers extolling the promise of “private military companies”—a controversial term he has since abandoned—and their potential use in international peacekeeping operations.

Executive Outcomes is widely considered to be the forebearer of the modern private military industry. Founded in 1989 by former members of the Apartheid-era South African Defense Force, the company, working on contract for various embattled African governments, fought bush wars throughout the continent for much of the next decade, most notably in Angola and Sierra Leone, where they orchestrated the defeat of anti-government forces allegedly in exchange for diamond and oil concessions. Despite its success on the battlefield, the Pretoria-based company was forced to shut down in 1999 with the passage of an anti-mercenary law by the South African government. The negative stereotype it left behind—that of white soldiers-for-hire attacking impoverished black rebels in order to plunder the host country’s natural resources—is one the industry has been trying to escape ever since.

Brooks doesn’t shy away from Executive Outcomes’ controversial legacy. While he says that Executive Outcomes-style offensive operations no longer have a place in the industry—”none of the companies do it”—he credits the company with saving thousands of lives in Sierra Leone and even points to it as a model for the future of international peacekeeping. In 2000, while conducting field research for his doctorate, Brooks traveled to Sierra Leone, where he stayed in the capital city of Freetown with a South African helicopter pilot and former Executive Outcomes operator named Neall Ellis. “He was hired by the Sierra Leonean military to fly their Mi-24 helicopter gunship,” Brooks told me. “For months, he was the only thing between the RUF”—a rebel faction—”and Freetown. Neall had the most amazing intelligence network in the world, so he knew where the RUF were. So he’d go out there and shoot them up wherever they were advancing on Freetown. Well, one day, one of his engines went out. It took months to get a replacement, to get the right part. Meantime, the RUF marched right through the peacekeeper lines. January 6, 1999, they marched into Freetown. Ten thousand people killed. One guy, one helicopter.”

One guy, one helicopter. The anecdote, which he made a point of telling me on two separate occasions, was meant to amplify the larger point of why he thinks the private sector should take a prominent role in peacekeeping: It’s cheap, it’s efficient, and it’s adaptable. And in places where the United Nations refuses to act, private companies can fill the void, assuming a government entity is willing to pick up the tab. “This is the reason we created IPOA, really, because of ‘Western-less’ peacekeeping,” Brooks explained. “The reality was that the West wasn’t going to support humanitarian operations in places they don’t give a shit about.” He cited Congo and Darfur. “What would have happened if they had used ArmourGroup in Rwanda?”

Brooks launched the IPOA in April 2001, shortly after his return from Africa. It started small, with only six member companies, and for Brooks it continued to be more of a hobby than a career until the contracting bonanza that resulted from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then the IPOA’s ranks have swelled with companies seeking to burnish their images with the private military industry equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of approval. Brooks now manages a staff of full-time employees and interns. Members pay annual dues ($5,000 for logistics contractors, $15,000 for private security companies), which account for some 60 percent of the IPOA’s annual operating budget. In return, members receive permission to display the IPOA logo on their marketing materials. As a condition of membership, the companies must agree to adhere to the association’s code of conduct—stressing concepts like human rights, ethics, transparency, and accountability. If violations occur, they are subject to the IPOA’s “enforcement mechanism.” This is composed of a complex, multi-tiered system of committees that review potential infractions and determine what, if any, penalty should be imposed. It sounds much tougher than it actually is. After all, the worst punishment the IPOA can dole out is expulsion from the association, which Brooks calls “the commercial kiss of death.” This has yet to happen, which probably speaks less to the good behavior of private military contractors than to an inherent conflict of interest in the association’s oversight process: The organization is financially dependent on the companies it claims to be overseeing.

I asked Brooks if the IPOA would ever really expel one of its members. “If a company does something to sully the reputation of the association, it’s not a big deal,” he responded. “A company either sorts itself out or, if it’s that bad, you get rid of them.” What about Blackwater? Could last week’s shootout lead to its expulsion? Brooks was noncommittal, saying only that “the mark of a good company is how they deal with the problem.”

But the fact that, as yet, no companies have been kicked out has invited outside skepticism. “Doug has a great series [of] codes, [and] a lot of them make a lot of sense,” says Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. “But at the end of the day they’re trying to deal with issues that are criminal, so you can’t merely have a market solution to them.”

Moreover, Singer continued, “Being kicked out of IPOA is not the proper punishment for a criminal action. It’s great that an organization is willing to do that, but it’s sort of like kicking O.J. out of the country club.” Deborah Avant, a political science professor at the University of California-Irvine and author of The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security, agrees. “I think there is a fair amount of skepticism about the degree to which he is able to stand up to the industry as opposed to being a front for it.”

Brooks acknowledges these shortcomings, at least to a point. “There’re limits to what we can do, and people have to recognize that,” he told me. “There are things we can do to put some constraints on companies that otherwise wouldn’t be there, but we are not a government nor should we be, I would argue. Ultimately, if you don’t have an effective legal accountability system that’s by a government agency, you lose a big chunk of your capability to control these companies.” He went on, though, to say there’s “too much bullshit” being written about the dangers of “rogue” contractors. “The reality is, you stop paying a company and it goes away; it doesn’t take over the government.”

Brooks, who insists that his goal is “to help end wars,” brims with excitement about the private sector’s potential to save lives in conflict zones around the world. But the conduct in the Iraq War of companies like Blackwater, an IPOA founding member accused of multiple indiscriminant shootings in Iraq, has proven to be a distraction, as have accusations against other companies (not all of them IPOA members) of human trafficking, overbilling, corruption, and shoddy work. Though at times Brooks can make hired guns sound like U.N. peacekeepers, few people doubt his good intentions. “I’ve known Doug for a while, and I take him very seriously when talks about his focus on private peacekeeping. It’s not just marketing,” says Singer. The reality, he adds, is that ever since the Iraq invasion the IPOA “has been forced to steer in a completely different direction. You can see that in the press inquiries that Doug is having to answer all the time. He’s doing a lot more talking right now about Blackwater and Baghdad than about using contractors in Congo or Darfur.” It’s a conflict that is perhaps unavoidable as Brooks struggles to ensure that recent contractor scandals “don’t hamstring the humanitarian potential” of the IPOA’s member companies. But according to Avant, the Iraq War has made it harder, not easier, for Brooks to promote standards in the private military industry. She points out that, especially early in the war, companies that bent the rules typically did better for themselves than companies that followed them. The premium placed on good behavior was weakened as a result. Still, she says, IPOA standards are a good first step. “The industry does have an incentive to say, ‘Look, we’re not just a group of cowboy mercenaries. This is the law we operate on; these are the standards.’” ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves