Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (20 page)
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Authors: Jeremy Scahill
BOOK: Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
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In its on-the-ground investigation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that “the physical evidence at the school does not support claims of an effective attack on the building as described by U.S. troops.”
44
This, HRW’s researchers asserted, “contrasts sharply” with the homes across the street from the school, which bore “the marks of more than 100 rounds—smaller caliber shots as well as heavy caliber machine gun rounds—shot by U.S. soldiers. The facades and perimeter walls of seven of the nine homes across from the school had significant bullet damage, including six homes that had been hit with more than a dozen rounds each. . . . No bullet marks were found on the upper levels of the houses, despite U.S. soldiers’ claims that they had targeted gunmen on the roofs across the street.”
45
44
This, HRW’s researchers asserted, “contrasts sharply” with the homes across the street from the school, which bore “the marks of more than 100 rounds—smaller caliber shots as well as heavy caliber machine gun rounds—shot by U.S. soldiers. The facades and perimeter walls of seven of the nine homes across from the school had significant bullet damage, including six homes that had been hit with more than a dozen rounds each. . . . No bullet marks were found on the upper levels of the houses, despite U.S. soldiers’ claims that they had targeted gunmen on the roofs across the street.”
45
Any hopes the United States had about its “winning hearts and minds” rhetoric resonating in Fallujah were obliterated that blood-soaked night. The morning after the shooting, funerals were held for the dead in accordance with Islamic tradition. A bloodied Iraqi flag hung outside the emergency room at a local hospital,
46
which was struggling to treat the wounded as word was spreading fast across Fallujah and the country about the massacre. “We won’t remain quiet over this,” said Ahmad Hussein, as he sat in a Fallujah hospital with his eighteen-year-old son, who doctors predicted would die from the gunshot wound to his stomach. “Either they leave Fallujah or we will make them leave.”
47
Some in the international press were comparing it to the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of 1972, when British troops opened fire on Irish Catholic protesters, killing thirteen, an event that helped popularize and mobilize the Irish Republican Army.
48
46
which was struggling to treat the wounded as word was spreading fast across Fallujah and the country about the massacre. “We won’t remain quiet over this,” said Ahmad Hussein, as he sat in a Fallujah hospital with his eighteen-year-old son, who doctors predicted would die from the gunshot wound to his stomach. “Either they leave Fallujah or we will make them leave.”
47
Some in the international press were comparing it to the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of 1972, when British troops opened fire on Irish Catholic protesters, killing thirteen, an event that helped popularize and mobilize the Irish Republican Army.
48
On the Wednesday morning after the killings, as many as a thousand people poured into the streets of Fallujah to protest the massacre and to demand that the U.S. troops leave the city. They assembled in front of the old Baath Party headquarters, which—like the school—had been taken over by the Americans. UPI reported that “the street scene was chaotic, with U.S. troops aiming weapons into the crowd from buildings the United States has been using as a base camp, while a pair of Apache attack helicopters circled overhead training their guns on the gathered crowd throughout the morning.”
49
Once again, the protest ended in bloodshed, as U.S. forces shot and killed four people and injured at least fifteen others.
50
As with the incident at the school, U.S. commanders claimed their forces acted in self-defense. But journalists from mainstream news organizations on the scene contradicted this account. The UPI correspondent in Fallujah, P. Mitchell Prothero, reported that “none of the dead and wounded in Wednesday’s incident appeared to have been armed, and none of the gathered protesters displayed weapons of any kind. In over a dozen interviews with witnesses of the shooting, the Iraqis denied any shots were fired at U.S. troops. The only shell casings found within the vicinity were 5.56 mm rounds used by U.S. forces, not 7.62 mm rounds commonly used in AK-47s, the Iraqi weapon of choice.”
51
49
Once again, the protest ended in bloodshed, as U.S. forces shot and killed four people and injured at least fifteen others.
50
As with the incident at the school, U.S. commanders claimed their forces acted in self-defense. But journalists from mainstream news organizations on the scene contradicted this account. The UPI correspondent in Fallujah, P. Mitchell Prothero, reported that “none of the dead and wounded in Wednesday’s incident appeared to have been armed, and none of the gathered protesters displayed weapons of any kind. In over a dozen interviews with witnesses of the shooting, the Iraqis denied any shots were fired at U.S. troops. The only shell casings found within the vicinity were 5.56 mm rounds used by U.S. forces, not 7.62 mm rounds commonly used in AK-47s, the Iraqi weapon of choice.”
51
Witnesses said one man was shot in the face and chest. His friends said the man was the father of four children.
52
People interviewed by the
Washington Post
described U.S. forces in Fallujah patrolling neighborhoods and “firing with little regard for civilian life.”
53
“This is exactly like what’s happening in Palestine,” geography professor Ahmed Jaber Saab, whose two nephews were wounded by U.S. forces, told the paper. “I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself.”
54
As he prepared a body for burial after the killings, Sunni cleric Sheik Talid Alesawi mocked U.S. rhetoric. “We understood freedom by making demonstrations,” he said. “But the shooting that greeted us was not freedom. Are there two types of freedom, one for you and one for us?”
55
That sentiment was widespread in the city. “Is this Bush’s freedom and liberation?” asked Fallujah resident Faleh Ibrahim as he marched with hundreds of others to a cemetery with the coffins of two of the dead. “We don’t want Bush, and we don’t want to be liberated. The Iraqis will bring their own liberation.”
56
52
People interviewed by the
Washington Post
described U.S. forces in Fallujah patrolling neighborhoods and “firing with little regard for civilian life.”
53
“This is exactly like what’s happening in Palestine,” geography professor Ahmed Jaber Saab, whose two nephews were wounded by U.S. forces, told the paper. “I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself.”
54
As he prepared a body for burial after the killings, Sunni cleric Sheik Talid Alesawi mocked U.S. rhetoric. “We understood freedom by making demonstrations,” he said. “But the shooting that greeted us was not freedom. Are there two types of freedom, one for you and one for us?”
55
That sentiment was widespread in the city. “Is this Bush’s freedom and liberation?” asked Fallujah resident Faleh Ibrahim as he marched with hundreds of others to a cemetery with the coffins of two of the dead. “We don’t want Bush, and we don’t want to be liberated. The Iraqis will bring their own liberation.”
56
A few hours after the second round of killings happened in Fallujah, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld landed at the Basra airport, at the time making him the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq.
57
“What is significant is that large numbers of human beings, intelligent, energetic, have been liberated,” Rumsfeld declared. “They are out from under the heel of a truly brutal vicious regime and that’s a good thing.”
58
In Fallujah, U.S. soldiers abandoned Al Qaed School, consolidating their headquarters in the former Baath Party offices in Fallujah. Nearby, someone hung a banner that read: “Sooner or later, U.S. killers, we’ll kick you out.”
59
57
“What is significant is that large numbers of human beings, intelligent, energetic, have been liberated,” Rumsfeld declared. “They are out from under the heel of a truly brutal vicious regime and that’s a good thing.”
58
In Fallujah, U.S. soldiers abandoned Al Qaed School, consolidating their headquarters in the former Baath Party offices in Fallujah. Nearby, someone hung a banner that read: “Sooner or later, U.S. killers, we’ll kick you out.”
59
That day as well, a letter from Saddam—at the time still underground—was published, calling on Iraqis to “forget everything and resist the occupation,” declaring, “There are no priorities other than driving out the infidel, criminal, cowardly occupier. No honorable hand is held out to shake his, but, rather, the hand of traitors and collaborators.”
60
The White House, meanwhile, announced that President Bush would, the following day, declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq aboard the
USS Abraham Lincoln
—his infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment. In reality, though, the real war was just beginning, and the events of the previous forty-eight hours would play a decisive role. That night, a grenade was thrown into the new U.S. headquarters in Fallujah, wounding seven American soldiers.
61
After meeting with U.S. representatives in an effort to avert further bloodshed, Imam Jamal Shaqir Mahmood, of the Grand Fallujah Mosque, said the Americans argued that the troops were needed to provide security, “but the people of Fallujah told them we already have security.”
62
To Fallujans, their city was now officially occupied. “After the massacre, we don’t believe the Americans came to free us, but to occupy and take our wealth and kill us,” said local leader Mohammed Farhan.
63
60
The White House, meanwhile, announced that President Bush would, the following day, declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq aboard the
USS Abraham Lincoln
—his infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment. In reality, though, the real war was just beginning, and the events of the previous forty-eight hours would play a decisive role. That night, a grenade was thrown into the new U.S. headquarters in Fallujah, wounding seven American soldiers.
61
After meeting with U.S. representatives in an effort to avert further bloodshed, Imam Jamal Shaqir Mahmood, of the Grand Fallujah Mosque, said the Americans argued that the troops were needed to provide security, “but the people of Fallujah told them we already have security.”
62
To Fallujans, their city was now officially occupied. “After the massacre, we don’t believe the Americans came to free us, but to occupy and take our wealth and kill us,” said local leader Mohammed Farhan.
63
It didn’t take long for the story of the U.S. massacres in Fallujah to spread across Iraq and the Arab world. Within a few weeks, folk songs appeared on the radio, praising the people of Fallujah for bravely confronting the occupation forces.
64
DVDs went on the market with footage of the aftermath of the massacres interwoven with images of resistance attacks against U.S. patrols and scenes of epic Arab movies. In one DVD, footage from the movie
Black Hawk Down
depicting the slaughter of U.S. forces in Somalia is accompanied by the voice of Fallujan singer Sabeh al-Hashem, who sings: “Fallujah, attack their troops and no one will be able to save their injured soldiers. Who brought you to Fallujah, Bush? We will serve you the drink of death.”
65
In another song, Hashem declares, “The people of Fallujah are like wolves when they attack the enemy.”
66
64
DVDs went on the market with footage of the aftermath of the massacres interwoven with images of resistance attacks against U.S. patrols and scenes of epic Arab movies. In one DVD, footage from the movie
Black Hawk Down
depicting the slaughter of U.S. forces in Somalia is accompanied by the voice of Fallujan singer Sabeh al-Hashem, who sings: “Fallujah, attack their troops and no one will be able to save their injured soldiers. Who brought you to Fallujah, Bush? We will serve you the drink of death.”
65
In another song, Hashem declares, “The people of Fallujah are like wolves when they attack the enemy.”
66
All of this would prove eerily prophetic in less than a year’s time, when four Blackwater soldiers found themselves driving through the center of Fallujah. In the meantime, back in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., a neoconservative “terror expert,” L. Paul Bremer, was preparing to head for Baghdad, where he would direct the occupation for the Bush administration. Erik Prince would soon ready his private soldiers to serve as the elite personal bodyguards for Bush’s man in Iraq.
CHAPTER FIVE
GUARDING BUSH’S MAN IN BAGHDAD
L. PAUL
Bremer III arrived in Baghdad on May 12, 2003, and moved into Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace on the banks of the Tigris River.
1
Perhaps Bremer’s greatest legacy in Iraq, where he served as the proconsul of the U.S. occupation for a little more than a year, was overseeing the transformation of the country into the epicenter of anti-U.S. resistance in the world and presiding over a system in Iraq that resulted in widespread corruption and graft within the lucrative world of private contracting. At the end of Bremer’s tenure, some $9 billion of Iraqi reconstruction funds were unaccounted for, according to a comprehensive audit done by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq. Bremer responded that the audit held his Coalition Provisional Authority to “an unrealistic standard.”
2
Bremer III arrived in Baghdad on May 12, 2003, and moved into Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace on the banks of the Tigris River.
1
Perhaps Bremer’s greatest legacy in Iraq, where he served as the proconsul of the U.S. occupation for a little more than a year, was overseeing the transformation of the country into the epicenter of anti-U.S. resistance in the world and presiding over a system in Iraq that resulted in widespread corruption and graft within the lucrative world of private contracting. At the end of Bremer’s tenure, some $9 billion of Iraqi reconstruction funds were unaccounted for, according to a comprehensive audit done by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq. Bremer responded that the audit held his Coalition Provisional Authority to “an unrealistic standard.”
2
Like Erik Prince, Bremer is a conservative Catholic convert who cut his teeth in government working for Republican administrations and was respected by right-wing evangelicals and neoconservatives alike. In the mid- 1970s, he was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s assistant. During the Reagan administration, he served as Executive Secretary and Special Assistant to Alexander Haig, Reagan’s imposing and powerful Secretary of State. At the height of Reagan’s bloody wars in Central America, Bremer was promoted to Ambassador at Large on terrorism. In the late 1980s, Bremer left government, joining the private sector as the managing director of Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm, Kissinger and Associates. A favorite “terrorism expert” among neoconservatives, Bremer was influential in developing the concepts for what would become the “war on terror” and the Department of Homeland Security.
3
A year before 9/11, he protested CIA guidelines that “discouraged hiring terrorist spies,” arguing that they should be lifted to permit the CIA to “actively recruit clandestine informants.”
4
When the 9/11 attacks happened, Bremer was already a fixture in the “counterterrorism” community, having been appointed in 1999 by House Speaker Dennis Hastert as chair of the National Council on Terrorism. At the time of the attacks, Bremer was a senior adviser on politics and emerging risks for the massive insurance firm Marsh & McLennan. The company had a headquarters in the World Trade Center staffed by 1,700 employees, 295 of whom died in the attacks.
5
3
A year before 9/11, he protested CIA guidelines that “discouraged hiring terrorist spies,” arguing that they should be lifted to permit the CIA to “actively recruit clandestine informants.”
4
When the 9/11 attacks happened, Bremer was already a fixture in the “counterterrorism” community, having been appointed in 1999 by House Speaker Dennis Hastert as chair of the National Council on Terrorism. At the time of the attacks, Bremer was a senior adviser on politics and emerging risks for the massive insurance firm Marsh & McLennan. The company had a headquarters in the World Trade Center staffed by 1,700 employees, 295 of whom died in the attacks.
5
Forty-eight hours after 9/11, Bremer wrote in the
Wall Street Journal
, “Our retribution must move beyond the limp-wristed attacks of the past decade, actions that seemed designed to ‘signal’ our seriousness to the terrorists without inflicting real damage. Naturally, their feebleness demonstrated the opposite. This time the terrorists and their supporters must be crushed. This will mean war with one or more countries. And it will be a long war, not one of the ‘Made for TV’ variety. As in all wars, there will be civilian casualties. We will win some battles and lose some. More Americans will die. In the end America can and will prevail, as we always do.” Bremer concluded, “[W]e must avoid a mindless search for an international ‘consensus’ for our actions. Today, many nations are expressing support and understanding for America’s wounds. Tomorrow, we will know who our true friends are.”
6
In an appearance on
Fox News
at the time, Bremer said, “I would hope that we would conclude that any state which was involved in any way, giving any kind of support or safe haven to that group, will pay the ultimate price.”
7
Wall Street Journal
, “Our retribution must move beyond the limp-wristed attacks of the past decade, actions that seemed designed to ‘signal’ our seriousness to the terrorists without inflicting real damage. Naturally, their feebleness demonstrated the opposite. This time the terrorists and their supporters must be crushed. This will mean war with one or more countries. And it will be a long war, not one of the ‘Made for TV’ variety. As in all wars, there will be civilian casualties. We will win some battles and lose some. More Americans will die. In the end America can and will prevail, as we always do.” Bremer concluded, “[W]e must avoid a mindless search for an international ‘consensus’ for our actions. Today, many nations are expressing support and understanding for America’s wounds. Tomorrow, we will know who our true friends are.”
6
In an appearance on
Fox News
at the time, Bremer said, “I would hope that we would conclude that any state which was involved in any way, giving any kind of support or safe haven to that group, will pay the ultimate price.”
7
A month after 9/11, Bremer headed up a new division at Marsh & McLennan, specializing in “terrorism risk insurance” for transnational corporations. The division was called Crisis Consulting Practice and offered companies “total counterterrorism services.” To sell this expensive insurance to U.S. corporations, wrote Naomi Klein in
The Nation,
“Bremer had to make the kinds of frank links between terrorism and the failing global economy that activists are called lunatics for articulating. In a November 2001 policy paper titled ‘New Risks in International Business,’ he explains that free-trade policies ‘require laying off workers. And opening markets to foreign trade puts enormous pressure on traditional retailers and trade monopolies.’ This leads to ‘growing income gaps and social tensions,’ which in turn can lead to a range of attacks on US firms, from terrorism to government attempts to reverse privatizations or roll back trade incentives.”
8
Klein likened Bremer to a computer hacker who “cripples corporate websites then sells himself as a network security specialist,” predicting that “in a few months Bremer may well be selling terrorism insurance to the very companies he welcomed into Iraq.”
9
Shortly after Bremer arrived in Baghdad, his former boss at Marsh & McLennan, Jeffrey Greenberg, announced that 2002 “was a great year for Marsh; operating income was up 31 percent. . . . Marsh’s expertise in analyzing risk and helping clients develop risk management programs has been in great demand. . . . Our prospects have never been better.”
10
The Nation,
“Bremer had to make the kinds of frank links between terrorism and the failing global economy that activists are called lunatics for articulating. In a November 2001 policy paper titled ‘New Risks in International Business,’ he explains that free-trade policies ‘require laying off workers. And opening markets to foreign trade puts enormous pressure on traditional retailers and trade monopolies.’ This leads to ‘growing income gaps and social tensions,’ which in turn can lead to a range of attacks on US firms, from terrorism to government attempts to reverse privatizations or roll back trade incentives.”
8
Klein likened Bremer to a computer hacker who “cripples corporate websites then sells himself as a network security specialist,” predicting that “in a few months Bremer may well be selling terrorism insurance to the very companies he welcomed into Iraq.”
9
Shortly after Bremer arrived in Baghdad, his former boss at Marsh & McLennan, Jeffrey Greenberg, announced that 2002 “was a great year for Marsh; operating income was up 31 percent. . . . Marsh’s expertise in analyzing risk and helping clients develop risk management programs has been in great demand. . . . Our prospects have never been better.”
10
In mid-April 2003, Dick Cheney’s then Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had contacted Bremer about taking “the job of running the occupation of Iraq.”
11
By mid-May, Bremer was in Baghdad. His appointment as both Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq was met with immediate controversy, even among those who had worked with him. One former senior State Department official who served with Bremer labeled him a “voracious opportunist with voracious ambitions,” saying, “What he knows about Iraq could not quite fill a thimble.”
12
Klein argues that, in Bremer, the Bush administration was not looking for an Iraq specialist, but rather tapped him because he “is an expert at profiting from the war on terror and at helping US multinationals make money in far-off places where they are unpopular and unwelcome. In other words, he’s the perfect man for the job.”
13
That certainly seemed to be the view of Henry Kissinger, who said of Bremer at the time, “I don’t know anyone who could do it better.”
14
11
By mid-May, Bremer was in Baghdad. His appointment as both Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance and the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq was met with immediate controversy, even among those who had worked with him. One former senior State Department official who served with Bremer labeled him a “voracious opportunist with voracious ambitions,” saying, “What he knows about Iraq could not quite fill a thimble.”
12
Klein argues that, in Bremer, the Bush administration was not looking for an Iraq specialist, but rather tapped him because he “is an expert at profiting from the war on terror and at helping US multinationals make money in far-off places where they are unpopular and unwelcome. In other words, he’s the perfect man for the job.”
13
That certainly seemed to be the view of Henry Kissinger, who said of Bremer at the time, “I don’t know anyone who could do it better.”
14
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