Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (9 page)
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Authors: Jeremy Scahill
BOOK: Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
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As of summer, 2007, there were more “private contractors” deployed on the U.S. government payroll in Iraq (180,000) than there were actual soldiers (160,000).
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These contractors worked for some 630 companies and drew personnel from more than 100 countries around the globe.
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Tens of thousands were armed operatives like those who work for Blackwater—exactly how many was unknown, because neither the administration nor the military could or would provide those numbers. This meant the U.S. military had actually become the junior partner in the coalition that occupies Iraq. The existence of a powerful shadow army enabled the waging of an unpopular war with forces whose deaths and injuries went uncounted and unreported. It helped keep a draft, which could make the continuation of the war politically untenable, off the table. It also subverted international diplomacy because the administration didn’t need to build a “coalition of the willing”: it rented an occupation force. Private soldiers were hired from countries that had no direct stake in the war or whose home governments opposed it, and were used as cheap cannon fodder.
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These contractors worked for some 630 companies and drew personnel from more than 100 countries around the globe.
197
Tens of thousands were armed operatives like those who work for Blackwater—exactly how many was unknown, because neither the administration nor the military could or would provide those numbers. This meant the U.S. military had actually become the junior partner in the coalition that occupies Iraq. The existence of a powerful shadow army enabled the waging of an unpopular war with forces whose deaths and injuries went uncounted and unreported. It helped keep a draft, which could make the continuation of the war politically untenable, off the table. It also subverted international diplomacy because the administration didn’t need to build a “coalition of the willing”: it rented an occupation force. Private soldiers were hired from countries that had no direct stake in the war or whose home governments opposed it, and were used as cheap cannon fodder.
War is business, and business has been very good. It is not just the actions of Blackwater and its ilk that need to be investigated, exposed, and prosecuted. It is the whole system. If the insatiable demand for these mercenary “services,” which derives from offensive, unpopular wars of conquest, is not forcefully challenged, Blackwater and other mercenary firms have little to fear. In street parlance, they are the dealers, but the government is the addict. These companies are not simply bad apples. They are the fruit of a very poisonous tree. This system depends on a wedding of immunity and impunity. If the government started slapping mercenary firms with indictments for war crimes or murder or human rights violations—and not just in a token manner—the risk for the companies would be tremendous. This, in turn, would make wars like the one in Iraq far more difficult and arguably impossible. But even after the outrage of Nisour Square, there was no sign of this happening. In early 2008, President Bush once again sought to force the Iraqi government to extend immunity to private contractors, as he negotiated a new “Status of Forces” agreement with Baghdad.
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He also said he would “waive” a provision of a 2008 law—which he signed—that would have established a bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission to investigate war contractors, as well as one that provided protections for whistleblowers working for government contractors. In a statement, Bush said these provisions would “inhibit the President’s ability” to “protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief.”
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He also said he would “waive” a provision of a 2008 law—which he signed—that would have established a bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission to investigate war contractors, as well as one that provided protections for whistleblowers working for government contractors. In a statement, Bush said these provisions would “inhibit the President’s ability” to “protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief.”
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While Bush undoubtedly has been the war industry’s greatest supporter, the prospect for the aggressive action required to confront the mercenary menace, whether a Democrat or Republican replaces him in the White House, is slim. The war industry is an equal-opportunity campaign contributor and has solid support from influential politicians on both sides of the aisle. Representative Schakowsky introduced legislation in late 2007 called the Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act, which sought to end the use of Blackwater and other mercenary firms in U.S. war zones by 2009. “Private contracting companies have forfeited their right to represent the United States,” Schakowsky said, asserting that they “put our troops in harm’s way, and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many innocent Iraqi civilians. They have become a liability instead of an asset.”
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Only a small fraction of the 435 legislators in the House signed on to support her bill and, as of spring 2008, only two senators—Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders and New York’s Hillary Clinton.
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Only a small fraction of the 435 legislators in the House signed on to support her bill and, as of spring 2008, only two senators—Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders and New York’s Hillary Clinton.
Because of the Bush administration’s refusal to hold mercenary forces accountable for their crimes in Iraq and the Democrats’ unwillingness to effectively challenge the radically privatized war machine, the only hope the victims of Nisour Square have for justice lies in the lawsuit they filed against Blackwater in Washington, D.C. In some ways, that is the most logical place for such a trial to take place, because the violence unleashed by Blackwater in Iraq is ultimately rooted in the for-profit war machine based in the U.S. capital. Shortly after Nisour Square, Erik Prince was asked by an interviewer, “How many Iraqi civilians have been killed by Blackwater employees?” “That’s an unknowable number,” Prince replied, in a rare moment of candor on the subject.
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The significance of that acknowledgment was not lost on the lawyers suing Blackwater for Nisour Square. “What these Iraqi families are doing is a civil service to all Iraqis because they don’t want anyone else to be killed by Blackwater,” attorney Susan Burke said. “We are going to expose the corporate culture that is leading to all this death and destruction in Iraq.”
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The significance of that acknowledgment was not lost on the lawyers suing Blackwater for Nisour Square. “What these Iraqi families are doing is a civil service to all Iraqis because they don’t want anyone else to be killed by Blackwater,” attorney Susan Burke said. “We are going to expose the corporate culture that is leading to all this death and destruction in Iraq.”
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As the United States debates an Iraq withdrawal, Blackwater doesn’t appear threatened. Some leading Democrats have advocated a gradual military withdrawal that would leave in place a counterterrorism “strike force,” the Green Zone, and security for U.S. Embassy personnel, who would staff the largest embassy in the world—potentially tens of thousands of armed forces. In fact, one of Blackwater’s senior executives, Joseph Schmitz, seemed to find a gold lining for Blackwater and other war contractors in a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: “There is a scenario where we could as a government, the United States, could pull back the military footprint and there would then be more of a need for private contractors to go in.”
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CHAPTER ONE
MAKING A KILLING
THE WORLD
was a very different place on September 10, 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. For most Americans, there was no such thing as Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein was still the president of Iraq. Rumsfeld had served in the post once before—under President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977—and he returned to the job in 2001 with ambitious visions. That September day in the first year of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of overseeing the high-stakes business of defense contracting—managing the Halliburtons, DynCorps, and Bechtels. The Secretary stood before a gaggle of former corporate executives from Enron, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Aerospace Corporation whom he had tapped as his top deputies at the Department of Defense, and he issued a declaration of war.
was a very different place on September 10, 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. For most Americans, there was no such thing as Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein was still the president of Iraq. Rumsfeld had served in the post once before—under President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977—and he returned to the job in 2001 with ambitious visions. That September day in the first year of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of overseeing the high-stakes business of defense contracting—managing the Halliburtons, DynCorps, and Bechtels. The Secretary stood before a gaggle of former corporate executives from Enron, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Aerospace Corporation whom he had tapped as his top deputies at the Department of Defense, and he issued a declaration of war.
“The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,” Rumsfeld thundered.
1
“This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.” Pausing briefly for dramatic effect, Rumsfeld—himself a veteran Cold Warrior—told his new staff, “Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.” Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. The problem, Rumsfeld said, was that unlike businesses, “governments can’t die, so we need to find other incentives for bureaucracy to adapt and improve.” The stakes, he declared, were dire—“a matter of life and death, ultimately, every American’s.” That day, Rumsfeld announced a major initiative to streamline the use of the private sector in the waging of America’s wars and predicted his initiative would meet fierce resistance. “Some might ask, How in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people?” Rumsfeld told his audience. “To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.”
1
“This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.” Pausing briefly for dramatic effect, Rumsfeld—himself a veteran Cold Warrior—told his new staff, “Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.” Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. The problem, Rumsfeld said, was that unlike businesses, “governments can’t die, so we need to find other incentives for bureaucracy to adapt and improve.” The stakes, he declared, were dire—“a matter of life and death, ultimately, every American’s.” That day, Rumsfeld announced a major initiative to streamline the use of the private sector in the waging of America’s wars and predicted his initiative would meet fierce resistance. “Some might ask, How in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people?” Rumsfeld told his audience. “To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.”
The next morning, the Pentagon would literally be attacked as American Airlines Flight 77—a Boeing 757—smashed into its western wall. Rumsfeld would famously assist rescue workers in pulling bodies from the rubble. But it didn’t take long for Rumsfeld, the chess master of militarism, to seize the almost unthinkable opportunity presented by 9/11to put his personal war—laid out just a day before—on the fast track. The world had irreversibly changed, and in an instant the future of the world’s mightiest military force had become a blank canvas on which Rumsfeld and his allies could paint their masterpiece. The new Pentagon policy would draw heavily on the private sector, emphasize covert actions, sophisticated weapons systems, and greater use of Special Forces and contractors. It became known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine. “We must promote a more entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages people to be proactive, not reactive, and to behave less like bureaucrats and more like venture capitalists,” Rumsfeld wrote in the summer of 2002 in an article for
Foreign Affairs
titled “Transforming the Military.”
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Rumsfeld’s “small footprint” approach opened the door for one of the most significant developments in modern warfare—the widespread use of private contractors in every aspect of war, including in combat.
Foreign Affairs
titled “Transforming the Military.”
2
Rumsfeld’s “small footprint” approach opened the door for one of the most significant developments in modern warfare—the widespread use of private contractors in every aspect of war, including in combat.
Among those to receive early calls from the administration to join a “global war on terror” that would be fought according to the Rumsfeld Doctrine was a little-known firm operating out of a private military training camp near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. Its name was Blackwater USA. Almost overnight following the great tragedy of September 11, a company that had barely existed a few years earlier would become a central player in a global war waged by the mightiest empire in history. “I’ve been operating in the training business now for four years and was starting to get a little cynical on how seriously people took security,” Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly shortly after 9/11. “The phone is ringing off the hook now.”
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But the story of Blackwater doesn’t begin on 9/11 or even with its executives or its founding. In many ways, it encapsulates the history of modern warfare. Most of all, it represents the realization of the life’s work of the officials who formed the core of the Bush administration’s war team.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Dick Cheney—Rumsfeld’s close ally—was Secretary of Defense. One in ten people deployed in the war zone at that time was a private contractor, a ratio Cheney was doggedly determined to ratchet up. Before he departed in 1993, Cheney commissioned a study from a division of the company he would eventually head, Halliburton, on how to quickly privatize the military bureaucracy. Almost overnight, Halliburton would create an industry for itself servicing U.S. military operations abroad with seemingly infinite profit potential. The more aggressively the U.S. expanded its military reach, the better for Halliburton’s business. It was the prototype for the future. In the ensuing eight years of governance by Bill Clinton, Cheney worked at the influential neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, which led the charge for an accelerated privatization of the government and military. By 1995, Cheney was at the helm of Halliburton building what would become the U.S. government’s single largest defense contractor. President Clinton largely embraced the privatization agenda, and Cheney’s company—along with other contractors—was given lucrative contracts during the Balkans conflict in the 1990s and the 1999 Kosovo war. One military consulting firm, the Virginia-based Military Professional Resources Incorporated, staffed by retired senior military officials, was authorized by the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s to train the Croatian military in its secessionist war against Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, a contract that ultimately tipped the balance of that conflict. That contract was a foreshadowing of the kind of private-sector involvement in war that would become standard in the war on terror. But privatization was only part of the broader agenda. Cheney and Rumsfeld were key members of the Project for a New American Century, initiated in 1997 by neoconservative activist William Kristol.
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The group pressed Clinton to enact regime change in Iraq, and its principles, which advocated “a policy of military strength and moral clarity,”
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would form the basis for much of the Bush administration’s international agenda.
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The group pressed Clinton to enact regime change in Iraq, and its principles, which advocated “a policy of military strength and moral clarity,”
5
would form the basis for much of the Bush administration’s international agenda.
In September 2000, just months before its members would form the core of the Bush White House, the Project for a New American Century released a report called
Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century
. In laying out PNAC’s vision for overhauling the U.S. war machine, the report recognized that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”
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A year to the month later, the 9/11 attacks would provide that catalyst: an unprecedented justification to forge ahead with this radical agenda molded by a small cadre of neoconservative operatives who had just taken official power.
Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century
. In laying out PNAC’s vision for overhauling the U.S. war machine, the report recognized that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”
6
A year to the month later, the 9/11 attacks would provide that catalyst: an unprecedented justification to forge ahead with this radical agenda molded by a small cadre of neoconservative operatives who had just taken official power.
The often-overlooked subplot of the wars of the post-9/11 period is the outsourcing and privatization they have entailed. From the moment the Bush team took power, the Pentagon was stacked with ideologues like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Stephen Cambone and with former corporate executives—many from large weapons manufacturers—like Under Secretary of Defense Pete Aldridge (Aerospace Corporation), Army Secretary Thomas White (Enron), Navy Secretary Gordon England (General Dynamics), and Air Force Secretary James Roche (Northrop Grumman). The new civilian leadership at the Pentagon came into power with two major goals: regime change in strategic nations and the enactment of the most sweeping privatization and outsourcing operation in U.S. military history—a revolution in military affairs. After 9/11 this campaign became unstoppable.
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