Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of theWar on Terror (46 page)
Authors: Erik Prince
Yet it also clearly states
: Ibid.
But of the thousands of contractors
: “Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq,” David Isenberg speech, February 16, 2009.
“contractors are required to be armed”
: Moshe Schwartz, “Department of Defense Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Analysis,” Congressional Research Service, July 2, 2010.
“Privatizing the ultimate sacrifice”
: Rob Nordland, “Risks of Afghan War Shift from Soldiers to Contractors,”
New York Times
, February 11, 2012.
“inherently governmental functions”
: Yana Kunichoff, “Extent of Blackwater and CIA Collaboration Uncovered,”
Truthout
, December 11, 2009.
“now the equivalent of a new service”
: Daniel Goure, “2010 QDR Means More Work for Support Contractors,”
Early Warning
blog, January 29, 2010.
CHAPTER 6:
BREMER AND THE BUSINESS MODEL
He issued this ultimatum
: “Bush: ‘Leave Iraq Within 48 hours,’” CNN, www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/17/sprj.irq.bush.transcript/, captured August 3, 2013.
March 20 dawned in Baghdad
: Catherine Marie Dale, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Strategies, Approaches, Results, and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, February 22, 2008.
by April 9, U.S. troops would secure
: Ibid.
the United States captured Tikrit
: Alex Spillius, “Fall of Tikrit Ends the War,”
Telegraph
, April 15, 2003.
his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech
: “Bush Makes Historic Speech Aboard Warship,” CNN, www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/, captured August 3, 2013.
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended”
: Ibid.
Iraq War plan delivered to President Bush
: “Top Secret Polo Step,” National Security Archive, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/, captured August 3, 2013.
Afghan Interim Authority had appointed
: “President Hamid Karzai,” Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, www.afghanembassy.com.pl/cms/en/goverment/hamid-karzai, captured August 3, 2013.
“While we at CENTCOM were executing the war plan”
: Tommy Franks,
American Soldier
(New York: Regan, 2004), p. 441.
“There was a commonly held belief”
: Ibid., p. 526.
State Department officials believed
: Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung, “For U.S., the Goal Is Now ‘Iraqi Solutions,’”
Washington Post
, January 19, 2008.
a December 2002 memo titled “A Perfect Storm”
: Ibid.
“When you hit this thing, it’s like a crystal glass”
: “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, February 2, 2009.
a 2009 report by the Special Inspector General
: Ibid.
“In a military compound under nominal guard by U.S. soldiers”
: Ibid.
Iraqis were not, in fact, greeting U.S. forces as liberators
: Susan Page, “Confronting Iraq,”
USA Today
, April 1, 2003.
Into that chaos stepped Bremer
: “Ambassador Paul Bremer Named as Presidential Envoy to Iraq,” U.S. Department of State, http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2003/05/20030506161121ynnedd0.7209436.html#axzz2b0n70Zq8, captured May 6, 2013.
sweeping directive by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
: “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, February 2, 2009.
The safety of the ambassador in Baghdad
: “Frank Gallagher,”
Security Driver
Magazine
, http://securitydriver.com/04/frank-gallagher/, captured August 3, 2013.
“with no government, no electricity, and no functioning security”
: “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, February 2, 2009.
one of Hussein’s final acts of power
: David Blair, “Saddam Empties Iraq’s Jails,”
Telegraph
, October 21, 2002.
disbanded Iraq’s entire military
: James P. Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq: De-Baathification and Disbanding the Army,”
Intelligence and National
Security
25, no. 1, February 2010.
CPA wasn’t big on severance packages
: Ibid.
“additional enemies of the Coalition”
: “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, February 2, 2009.
“I slept with earplugs”
: Bill Powell, “The CEO of Iraq, Paul Bremer, Has Landed the World’s Toughest Job. Can He Pull It Off?,”
Fortune
, August 11, 2003.
Early that month, a car bomb had destroyed
: “Significant Terrorist Incidents 1961–2003,” U.S. Department of State, http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm, captured August 3, 2013.
Less than two weeks later
: “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Detention Operations,” U.S. Defense Department, August 2004.
set fire to a major pipeline
: Jamie Wilson, “Iraq Hit by Fresh Attack on Oil Pipeline,”
Guardian
, August 17, 2003.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s top envoy in Iraq
: Jesse Singal, Christine Lim, and M. J. Stephey, “August 2003: United in Grief,”
Time
, March 19, 2010.
at the end of August, a car bomb exploded
: “Mosque Bombing,” CBS News, www.cbsnews.com/2300-500145_162-570797.html, captured August 3, 2013.
“we had certainly been losing soldiers”
: “Interview: L. Paul Bremer III,” PBS
Frontline
, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/interviews/bremer.html, captured February 26, 2013.
in the three months since major combat operations had ended
: “Iraq Coalition Casualties: Fatalities by Year and Month,” iCasualties, www.icasualties.org/Iraq/ByMonth.aspx, captured August 3, 2013.
“most threatened American official anywhere in the world”
: L. Paul Bremer III,
My Year in Iraq
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 151.
Pentagon
awarded my company
: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, “Hired Guns,”
American Conservative
, November 19, 2007.
“They needed men around him really fast”
: Author interview with Fred Roitz, July 2013.
Blackwater initially provided a thirty-six-man team
: Frank Gallagher, “A First-Person Account of a Vehicle Ambush,”
Security Driver Magazine
, April 2013.
Bremer had first met Gallagher
: L. Paul Bremer III,
My Year in Iraq
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 152.
Pentagon contract gave us a scant
: Author interview with Richard Pere, December 2012.
packed the Little Birds into the cargo hold
: Ibid.
“lots of room for an assassin”
: L. Paul Bremer III,
My Year in Iraq
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 151.
“We in the al-Qaeda organization will guarantee”
: “CIA Says Bin Laden Likely Behind Bounty Offer,” NBC News, www.nbcnews.com/id/4917940/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/cia-says-bin-laden-likely-behind-bounty-offer/#.Uf53CFO9zUY, captured August 3, 2013.
those close to Bremer found bounties on their heads
: Robert Young Pelton,
Licensed to Kill
(New York: Random House, 2006), p. 110.
On the morning of June 28, 2004, after a brief ceremony
: L. Paul Bremer III,
My Year in Iraq
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 395.
Blackwater’s team waited until the crowds had cleared
: Ibid.
UN had largely pulled out
: “UN Role in Iraq,” Global Policy Forum, www.globalpolicy.org/political-issues-in-iraq/un-role-in-iraq.html, captured August 3, 2013.
this great description in a piece
: Roy Batty, “Rock Stars of Baghdad,” Military.com, February 8, 2007.
CHAPTER 7:
THE EXPANSION PLAN
The 82nd Airborne had been on long patrol
: Author interview with Richard Pere, December 2012.
littered with the roadside remnants
: Bill Roggio, “Pakistan Shuts Down NATO Supply Line Through the Khyber Pass,”
Long War Journal
, December 30, 2008.
thirty miles west of the pass was Tora Bora
: “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bid Laden and Why It Matters Today,” Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, November 30, 2009.
“The tyranny of distance and terrain”
: N. D. Hooker Jr., “Operation Enduring Freedom X: CJTF-82 and the Future of COIN,”
Joint Force Quarterly
, Fourth Quarter 2011.
miles of paved road in the entire country
: “USAID Spends $3.4 Billion on Assistance Programs in Afghanistan,” U.S. Agency for International Development, http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2008/04/20080401144535xjsnommis0.9323084.html#axzz2b0n70Zq8, captured August 3, 2013.
Air Force solicitation of competitively bid contract
: “Contracts for Monday, September 20, 2004,” U.S. Defense Department, www.defense.gov/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=2850, captured August 3, 2013.
more than the combined total
: “Blackwater Timeline,”
Virginian-Pilot
, http://hamptonroads.com/2006/07/blackwater-timeline, captured August 3, 2013.
In 2001,
Blackwater earned some $735,000
: “Blackwater USA,” Hearing Before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, October 2, 2007.
In 2002, that increased to $3.4 million
: Ibid.
trained Afghan border agents and narcotics officers
: Mark Sedra and Cyrus Hodes, “The Search for Security in Post-Taliban Afghanistan,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, October 30, 2007.
State even asked us to train security personnel
: Rick Skwiot, “On the Firing Line: The Blackwater Training Center,”
Port Folio Weekly
, 2010.
The airships have been used for defense
: “Airship Types in the Postwar Period,” Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil/download/lta-10.pdf, captured August 3, 2013.
defense spending on unmanned aerial vehicles
: Harlan Geer and Christopher Bolkcom, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, November 21, 2005.
“The problem is if it really does work”
: David Macaulay, “Blackwater USA Hires Ford Workers to Build New APC,”
Daily Advance
, February 20, 2007.
government procurement spending rose by 86 percent
: “Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration,” Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, June 2006.
By 2005, the federal government spent a record
: Ibid.
“In 2000, the Defense Department spent $133.5 billion”
: Ibid.
Five years later, the department’s contract spending
: Ibid.
“The incentive for businesses in a regular free market”
: Ibid.
according to the report, “nearly half was spent”
: Ibid.
“the largest part of our appropriations”
: Phillip Ewing, “McCain: LCS Shows Spending Out of Control,”
Navy Times
, September 29, 2008.
roughly 70 percent of the federal government’s expenditures
: “Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration,” Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, June 2006.
At the top of the cost-plus list
: Ibid.
The heroic landing by the three members
: Glenn Pew, “DHL Airbus A300 Struck by Missile, Baghdad,” AVweb.com, February 10, 2008.
The man who would one day become vice chairman
: Kevin McMurray, “Cofer Black, Out of the Shadows,”
Men’s Journal
, October 17, 2008.
labeling the country a “state sponsor of terrorism”
: “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195547.htm, captured August 3, 2012.
perhaps the most famous terrorist of his time
: Kevin McMurray, “Cofer Black, Out of the Shadows,”
Men’s Journal
, October 17, 2008.
moved from Ibn Khaldoun hospital
: John Follain,
Jackal
(New York: Arcade, 1998), p. 217.
In reality, the police were cooperating with Black’s team
: Ibid., p. 218.
Black’s appointment as CIA task force chief
: “Biography: Cofer J. Black,” U.S. Department of State, http://2001-2009.state.gov/outofdate/bios/b/15367.htm, captured August 3, 2013.
George Tenet circulated a memo
: Jeffrey Smith and Walter Pincus, “Tenet Leaves Legacy of Big Successes, but Also Big Failures,”
Washington Post
, June 4, 2004.
bin Laden had discovered Black
: Mark Bowden, “The Dark Art of Interrogation,”
Atlantic
, October 1, 2003.
intelligence personnel countersurveilling
: Steve Coll,
Ghost Wars
(New York: Penguin, 2004), p. 271.