Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (71 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 a 2007 interview on the cable TV business network CNBC, Black was brought on as an analyst to discuss “investing in Jordan.”
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At no point in the interview was Black identified as working for the Jordanian government. Total Intelligence was described as “a corporate consulting firm that includes investment strategy,” while “Ambassador Black” was introduced as “a 28-year veteran of the CIA,” the “top counterterror guy” and “a key planner for the breathtakingly rapid victory of American forces that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.” During the interview, Black heaped lavish praise on Jordan and its monarchy. “You have leadership, King Abdullah, His Majesty King Abdullah, who is certainly kind towards investors, very protective,” Black said. “Jordan is, in our view, a very good investment. There are some exceptional values there.” He said Jordan is in a region where there are “numerous commodities that are being produced and doing well.”
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At no point in the interview was Black identified as working for the Jordanian government. Total Intelligence was described as “a corporate consulting firm that includes investment strategy,” while “Ambassador Black” was introduced as “a 28-year veteran of the CIA,” the “top counterterror guy” and “a key planner for the breathtakingly rapid victory of American forces that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.” During the interview, Black heaped lavish praise on Jordan and its monarchy. “You have leadership, King Abdullah, His Majesty King Abdullah, who is certainly kind towards investors, very protective,” Black said. “Jordan is, in our view, a very good investment. There are some exceptional values there.” He said Jordan is in a region where there are “numerous commodities that are being produced and doing well.”
With no hint of the brutality behind the exodus, he argued that the plight of Iraqi refugees, fleeing the violence of the U.S. occupation, was good for potential investors in Jordan. “We get something like six, 700,000 Iraqis that have moved from Iraq into Jordan that require cement, furniture, housing, and the like. So it is a—it is an island of growth and potential, certainly in that immediate area. So it looks good,” Black said. “There are opportunities for investment. It is not all bad. Sometimes Americans need to watch a little less TV. . . . But there is—there is opportunity in everything. That’s why you need situation awareness, and that’s one of the things that our company does. It provides the kinds of intelligence and insight to provide situational awareness so you can make the best investments.”
Black and other Total Intelligence executives have turned their CIA careers, reputations, contacts, and connections into profitable business opportunities. What they once did for the U.S. government, they now do for private interests. It is not difficult to imagine clients feeling as though they are essentially hiring the U.S. government to serve their private interests. “They have the skills and background to do anything anyone wants,” said Hillhouse. “There’s no oversight. They’re an independent company offering freelance espionage services. They’re rent-a-spies.”
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In 2007 Richer told the
Post
that now that he is in the private sector, foreign military officials and others are more willing to give him information than they were when he was with the CIA. He recalled a conversation with a general from a foreign military during which Richer was surprised at the potentially “classified” information the general revealed. When Richer asked why the general was giving him the information, he said the general responded, “If I tell it to an embassy official I’ve created espionage. You’re a business partner.”
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“I Sleep the Sleep of the Just”Post
that now that he is in the private sector, foreign military officials and others are more willing to give him information than they were when he was with the CIA. He recalled a conversation with a general from a foreign military during which Richer was surprised at the potentially “classified” information the general revealed. When Richer asked why the general was giving him the information, he said the general responded, “If I tell it to an embassy official I’ve created espionage. You’re a business partner.”
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In 2008 Iraq was a leading issue in the U.S. presidential election. While the Democrats campaigned on a pledge to end the war, the Republican nominee, John McCain, suggested U.S. forces could remain in Iraq for “maybe a hundred” years, a scenario that he said “would be fine with me.”
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But hidden behind the rhetoric of political speeches, often framed as pro- versus anti-Iraq War, was a stark reality: the Iraq occupation will continue for years to come regardless of who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Erik Prince, who had previously donated more than $250,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, seems to have determined that his publicly traceable campaign contributions are a liability. “I don’t know that I’ll have much political involvement in either party going forward,” he said in late 2007.
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Whether that is a business decision or a political one, his company and the highly profitable industry in which it operates are so deeply embedded in the U.S. political system that they are here to stay.
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But hidden behind the rhetoric of political speeches, often framed as pro- versus anti-Iraq War, was a stark reality: the Iraq occupation will continue for years to come regardless of who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Erik Prince, who had previously donated more than $250,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, seems to have determined that his publicly traceable campaign contributions are a liability. “I don’t know that I’ll have much political involvement in either party going forward,” he said in late 2007.
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Whether that is a business decision or a political one, his company and the highly profitable industry in which it operates are so deeply embedded in the U.S. political system that they are here to stay.
Mercenary companies clearly have little to fear from Republican-dominated governance in Washington. But what about the Democrats? Despite their stated antiwar claims, the Democrats’ dominant Iraq plan would keep in place tens of thousands of U.S. troops for an unspecified time, while escalating U.S. action in Afghanistan. For military contractors like Blackwater, this is welcome news. “Nobody is going to be able to throw the contractors out,” said David Isenberg of the British-American Security Information Council. “They’re the American Express card of the American military. The military doesn’t leave home without them, because it can’t.”
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The 2007 Iraq supplemental spending bill opened a window onto what could happen in the first term of a Democratic administration. Along with the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group analysis, it formed the basis for the Iraq plans of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency. The bill was portrayed as the Democrats’ withdrawal plan, and Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton passionately supported it, with Obama saying it meant the country was “one signature away from ending the Iraq War.”
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But upon a careful reading of the legislation (which was vetoed by President Bush), that claim rings hollow. The plan would have redeployed some U.S. forces from Iraq within 180 days. But it also would have provided for 40,000-60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as “trainers,” “counterterrorist forces,” and for “protection for embassy/diplomats,” according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies.
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“There was nothing in the legislation about contractors or mercenary forces,” said IPS analyst Erik Leaver.
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The truth is that as long as there are troops in Iraq, there will be private contractors.
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But upon a careful reading of the legislation (which was vetoed by President Bush), that claim rings hollow. The plan would have redeployed some U.S. forces from Iraq within 180 days. But it also would have provided for 40,000-60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as “trainers,” “counterterrorist forces,” and for “protection for embassy/diplomats,” according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies.
65
“There was nothing in the legislation about contractors or mercenary forces,” said IPS analyst Erik Leaver.
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The truth is that as long as there are troops in Iraq, there will be private contractors.
In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers, from driving trucks to doing laundry. These services are provided through companies such as Halliburton, KBR, and Fluor, and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But private personnel, as Blackwater’s history in Iraq has shown, are also consistently engaged in armed combat and “security” operations. Contractors interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials—including some commanding U.S. generals—and in some cases have taken command of U.S. and international troops in battle. In an admission that speaks volumes about the extent of the privatization, Gen. David Petraeus, who was charged with implementing the “surge,” admitted that he has, at times, not been guarded in Iraq by the U.S. military but by “contract security.”
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At least three U.S. commanding generals have been guarded in Iraq by hired guns, including the general who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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At least three U.S. commanding generals have been guarded in Iraq by hired guns, including the general who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
68
In 2008 the number of private contractors in Iraq was at a one-to-one ratio with active-duty U.S. soldiers, a stunning escalation compared with the 1991 Gulf War. “To have half of your army be contractors, I don’t know that there’s a precedent for that,” said Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
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Some estimates actually put the number of contractors at higher than active-duty soldiers in Iraq, but exact numbers are nearly impossible to obtain.
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According to a March 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon “does not maintain departmentwide data on the numbers of contractor employees working side-by-side with federal employees.”
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But in a review of twenty-one Defense Department offices, the GAO found that at “15 offices, contractor employees outnumbered DOD employees and comprised up to 88% of the workforce. Contractor employees perform key tasks, including developing contract requirements and advising on award fees for other contractors.”
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According to a March 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon “does not maintain departmentwide data on the numbers of contractor employees working side-by-side with federal employees.”
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But in a review of twenty-one Defense Department offices, the GAO found that at “15 offices, contractor employees outnumbered DOD employees and comprised up to 88% of the workforce. Contractor employees perform key tasks, including developing contract requirements and advising on award fees for other contractors.”
Beyond the issues raised by private contractors hired by the Pentagon lies the more troubling problem of the State Department’s private armed forces. A major part of the Democrats’ plan calls for maintaining the massive U.S. Embassy, the largest embassy in world history, as well as the Green Zone. At present, much of the security work required by the embassy and the travel of U.S. officials into and out of the Green Zone is done by three private security firms: Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and DynCorp. This arrangement reflects the simultaneous militarization and privatization of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Created in the mid-1990s, the department’s Worldwide Personal Protective Services was originally envisioned as a small-scale bodyguard operation, comprised of private security contractors, to protect small groups of U.S. diplomats and other U.S. and foreign officials. In Iraq, it has been turned into a sizable paramilitary force. Spending on the program jumped from $50 million in 2003 to $613 million in 2006.
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The looming question is: who would protect the Democrats’ army of diplomats in Iraq? Some insist that it is possible to continue to rely on private forces to do this work as long as they are held accountable. As of March 2008, these private forces enjoyed a de facto “above the law” status, which both Obama and Clinton have decried. But it is hard to see how “accountability” is going to be achieved, at least in the short term.
In late 2007, in the aftermath of Nisour Square, the House overwhelmingly approved legislation that would ensure that all contractors would be subject to prosecution in U.S. civilian courts for crimes committed on a foreign battlefield.
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The idea is: FBI investigators would deploy to the crime scene, gather evidence, and interview witnesses, leading to indictments and prosecutions. But this approach raises a slew of questions. Who would protect the investigators? How would Iraqi victims be interviewed? How would evidence be gathered amid the chaos and dangers of a hostile war zone like Iraq? Given that the federal government and the military seem unable—or unwilling—even to count how many contractors are actually in the country, how could their activities possibly be monitored? Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to effectively police such an enormous deployment of private contractors (such as in Iraq, where it is equal in size to the military presence), this legislation could give the private military industry a tremendous PR victory. The companies could finally claim that a legally accountable structure governed their operations. Yet they would be well aware that such legislation would be nearly impossible to enforce. Perhaps that is why the industry has passionately backed this approach. Prince called its passage in the House, “Excellent.”
73
The idea is: FBI investigators would deploy to the crime scene, gather evidence, and interview witnesses, leading to indictments and prosecutions. But this approach raises a slew of questions. Who would protect the investigators? How would Iraqi victims be interviewed? How would evidence be gathered amid the chaos and dangers of a hostile war zone like Iraq? Given that the federal government and the military seem unable—or unwilling—even to count how many contractors are actually in the country, how could their activities possibly be monitored? Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to effectively police such an enormous deployment of private contractors (such as in Iraq, where it is equal in size to the military presence), this legislation could give the private military industry a tremendous PR victory. The companies could finally claim that a legally accountable structure governed their operations. Yet they would be well aware that such legislation would be nearly impossible to enforce. Perhaps that is why the industry has passionately backed this approach. Prince called its passage in the House, “Excellent.”
Others have proposed to address the problem simply by expanding the official U.S. government forces responsible for securing the embassy and Green Zone, thus reducing the market for mercenary companies. In an October 2007 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senator Joe Biden, chair of the influential Foreign Relations Committee, suggested the United States should examine “whether we should expand the ranks of Diplomatic Security rather than continue to rely so heavily on contractors.”
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He called for hiring more agents, saying, “The requirement for extensive personal security to protect the employees of the U.S. mission will continue for several years to come—regardless of the number of U.S. forces in Iraq.”
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He called for hiring more agents, saying, “The requirement for extensive personal security to protect the employees of the U.S. mission will continue for several years to come—regardless of the number of U.S. forces in Iraq.”
While an increase in funding to the Diplomatic Security division would ostensibly pave the way for a force made up entirely of U.S. government personnel, there are serious questions about how quickly that could happen. As of October 2007, the State Department had only 1,450 Diplomatic Security agents
worldwide
who were actual U.S. government employees and only thirty-six deployed in Iraq.
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In contrast, as of March 2008, Blackwater had nearly 1,000 operatives in Iraq
alone
, not to mention the hundreds more working for Triple Canopy and DynCorp. The State Department has said it could take years to identify prospective new agents, vet them, train them, and deploy them.
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In short, this would be no small undertaking and, even if the political will and funding was there, would take years to enact.
worldwide
who were actual U.S. government employees and only thirty-six deployed in Iraq.
75
In contrast, as of March 2008, Blackwater had nearly 1,000 operatives in Iraq
alone
, not to mention the hundreds more working for Triple Canopy and DynCorp. The State Department has said it could take years to identify prospective new agents, vet them, train them, and deploy them.
76
In short, this would be no small undertaking and, even if the political will and funding was there, would take years to enact.
If the Democrats attempted to make diplomatic security a military operation, that would pose serious challenges as well. As the
New York Times
reported in late 2007, “the military does not have the trained personnel to take over the job.”
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Even if the military trained a specialized force for executive protection and bodyguarding in Iraq, this arrangement would mean more U.S. military convoys traveling inside Iraq, potentially placing them in deadly conflict with Iraqi civilians on a regular basis.
New York Times
reported in late 2007, “the military does not have the trained personnel to take over the job.”
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Even if the military trained a specialized force for executive protection and bodyguarding in Iraq, this arrangement would mean more U.S. military convoys traveling inside Iraq, potentially placing them in deadly conflict with Iraqi civilians on a regular basis.
Realizing the practical challenges any transition away from private security forces in Iraq would entail, during the 2008 election campaign, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama said, “I can’t rule out, I won’t rule out, private security contractors.”
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This must have been a difficult admission. While Obama has been at the forefront of attempts to legislate accountability for contractors on the battlefield—he introduced a contractor reform bill eight months before Nisour Square—his foreign policy team clearly understood that their support for maintaining a sizable U.S. presence in Iraq had painted them into a corner. On February 28, 2008, a day after I reported Obama’s position in an article in
The Nation
, Hillary Clinton announced she would sign on to legislation to “ban the use of Blackwater and other private mercenary firms in Iraq.”
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The timing, in the middle of their hotly contested campaign for the Democratic nomination, was curious—Clinton, during her five years on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had been largely mute on the issue before the September 16 Blackwater shooting and did not issue her statement for a full six months after the massacre. How exactly she envisioned carrying out her Iraq plan without such private forces was also unclear.
78
This must have been a difficult admission. While Obama has been at the forefront of attempts to legislate accountability for contractors on the battlefield—he introduced a contractor reform bill eight months before Nisour Square—his foreign policy team clearly understood that their support for maintaining a sizable U.S. presence in Iraq had painted them into a corner. On February 28, 2008, a day after I reported Obama’s position in an article in
The Nation
, Hillary Clinton announced she would sign on to legislation to “ban the use of Blackwater and other private mercenary firms in Iraq.”
79
The timing, in the middle of their hotly contested campaign for the Democratic nomination, was curious—Clinton, during her five years on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had been largely mute on the issue before the September 16 Blackwater shooting and did not issue her statement for a full six months after the massacre. How exactly she envisioned carrying out her Iraq plan without such private forces was also unclear.
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