Back in Blackwater, pt II
Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing regarding the Blackwater incidents that have raised so many concerns about the private security contractor’s practices in Iraq. Starting at 10am, witnesses will include:
Erik Prince, Chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA
Ambassador David Satterfield, Special Adviser, Coordinator for Iraq, State Dept
Ambassador Richard Griffin, Assistant Secretary, Diplomatic Security, State Dept
William Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Logistics, State Dept
Yesterday, a memo to the Committee revealed the product of recent inquiry into the State Department and Blackwater’s operations. The summary of findings includes details of continuous and deadly disregard for human life, sometimes planned in advance of the event itself. Stories of vehicular manslaughter include details of an innocent bystander shot and subsequently run over by a Blackwater security escort; another lists 18 different collisions with Iraqi vehicles while en route to and from a meeting at the Ministry of Oil. The reason for so many collisions? “The tactical commander of the mission ‘openly admitted giving clear direction to the primary driver to conduct these acts of random negligence for no apparent reason.’” The report also demonstrates that over 80% of Blackwater’s engagements involve first-fire by Blackwater contractors, contributing not a little to the company’s reputation for “cowboy” behavior.
In cases where the contractors do not simply leave the scene of the incident (many times, shots are fired from a moving Blackwater vehicle) or do not attempt to cover up the incident, the princely sums of $5000 to $15000 are offered to families as compensation in an attempt to move on quickly and quietly. Those sums are not simply negotiated by Blackwater, either; they are negotiated and by State Department officials involved in the diplomatic fallout of such events. Thus the U.S. government is directly implicated in the series of incidents and almost complete lack of consequences for this company, going so far as to transport a Blackwater agent accused of drunkenly killing a security guard for the Iraqi vice president, getting him out of the country and out of the hands of Iraqi courts. With no court martial as an option for these agents, who are privately contracted (often in multi-million, no-bid contracts that reek of insider advantage and gross mismanagement of taxpayers’ funds), one cannot tell what the fallout may be for those who have killed, maimed, and irreversibly damaged so many Iraqis. Maybe, perhaps, they’ll lose their jobs.
For the full text of the report, click here.
Filed under: Blackwater, Iraq, war | 3 Comments
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I assume you’re not doing this during office hours. The least you could do is cross-post on farmteam. For Will’s sake, if nothing more.
You can just bring the cookies into the office for me. Thanks.
Love,
Your best office friend
Do you think that the actions of the Blackwater security group suggests that we shouldn’t use “private contractors” for military operations?
I’m a little conflicted. On one hand, mercenaries unbound by any sort of law or oversight are clearly dangerous. On the other though, it’s likely that the U.S. Military will be involved in low-intensity, occupation-esque conflicts for the forseeable future, and until/unless we completely revamp the way our military does business, the only way to effectively manage said conflicts is to employ mercenaries with that sort of experience.
I think there are a few important distinctions to draw, so I’m glad you asked this question. First, I don’t think private contractors should ever engage in military operations so long as they are not subject to the rules of engagement and courts martial. I’d be satisfied if they were subject to rules of engagement per the Geneva Conventions, assuming that they were also under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice – but that’s a tricky thing given that they’re employed by a private entity that lacks standing in such courts. Develop a treaty or some other accord that sorts out that situation, and I’ll be happy. (And I don’t think that saying “We’ll make them subject to US law for actions abroad” will work – it certainly won’t fly with the Iraqis.)
By military operations, I’m talking about cases like the one where Blackwater agents set up a machine gun side-by-side with American soldiers on a rooftop. That’s going beyond the scope of their duties as private security agents. Inasmuch as the State Department and other government officials require security forces to protect them, I have no problem with a private company like Blackwater providing that service; it frees up more of our troops for the actual fighting.
But that’s where the lines have been totally blurred with Blackwater’s actions. By engaging in offensive actions and being the first to fire in the vast majority of their incidents, Blackwater agents have demonstrated that they’ve thoroughly adopted the “strong offense = best defense” strategy. That’s great in soccer – but this ain’t soccer. This is war, and in war having a pre-emptive strategy is not only incredibly dangerous, it’s against the rules of engagement. And you can see the difference in the way that Blackwater agents have acted versus the ways that US soldiers have acted; the former are ‘cowboys,’ as described by one US military officer, while the latter act with restraint and are making attempts to get to know the local Iraqis as they move through the streets.
Yesterday, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and some helpful Congressmen made the point that none of the State Dept officials whom Blackwater has pledged to protect have died while under Blackwater’s care. Dandy. But I’m not that surprised – especially when new information about the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians early last Sept shows that Blackwater agents not only fired first, they were the only ones firing. Not that hard to protect a diplomat when you’ve got the people on the road ahead of them running for their lives.*
*To be fair, I will note that the diplomats involved in that oncoming convoy were being moved from a site where a bomb had just gone off close to the building they were meeting in. This may have had an impact on the state of mind of their Blackwater guards. However, there’s also a report that one guard realized that they were shooting at civilians who were trying to flee, and who yelled, “No, no, no” at his fellow agents. All in all, the shoot-first mentality has only harmed the communities that Blackwater works in, and it’s entirely counterproductive for the work that the US military is trying to do.