Iraqis Reject Blackwater Mercenary Thugs

Iraqis Reject Blackwater Mercenary Thugs
Private army thrown out of Iraq after years of unimpeded killing

Steve Watson Infowars.net Wednesday, Sept 19, 2007

After years of running riot in Iraq with impunity, the license of private contractor company Blackwater USA has been revoked by the Iraqi government, and the company has been banned from operating in the country all together according to reports, a move that will see the withdrawal of tens of thousands of armed mercenaries from Iraq.

CNN reports:

Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of US troops in Iraq, The Bush administration has deployed a shadow army of private contractors.

Earlier this summer it was reported that the number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, with more than 180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense Department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Blackwater USA, which has a 6,000 acre training facility as part of its headquarters in North Carolina, is one such company that currently has tens of thousands of heavily armed mercenaries stationed in Iraq who are accountable to no one and have hit the headlines on multiple occasions.

In March 2004, four Blackwater personnel died in a grisly attack in Iraq in Falluja, west of Baghdad. The Four, all of whom were military veterans, were ambushed, killed, mutilated and had their charred remains strung from a bridge overlooking the Euphrates River in an incident that sparked shock and outrage.

However, after Blackwater refused to share information about why and how they were killed, and callously told the families of the men that they would need to sue to get any information, a lawsuit was filed, marking the first time a company has been sued for deaths in the line of work. Blackwater has since attempted to reverse the situation and sue the families for $10 million to silence them and keep them out of court.

By the end of 2004 Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, was bragging to the press of "staggering" 600 percent growth. "This is a billion-dollar industry," Jackson said in October 2004. "And Blackwater has only scratched the surface of it.". This prompted outrage that security in Iraq is partly (and we now know mostly) in the hands of private companies who profit from the continuation of conflict and chaos.

In 2005 the LA Times reported that Private security contractors, including Blackwater, have been involved in scores of shootings in Iraq, but none have been prosecuted despite findings in at least one fatal case that the men had not followed proper procedures. Instead of facing any kind of accountability, contractors suspected of reckless behavior are simply sent home with the full knowledge of U.S. officials.

Last February one Blackwater employee got into an argument with an Iraqi security contractor working for the Vice President as a security guard. It is not cleared what transpired but the Blackwater employee emptied the entire magazine of his pistol into the Iraqi. Rather than being arrested and sent to prison for murder the contractor was simply returned to the US and dropped from the payroll.

Most recently, a Congressional Research Service report stated that a news article discussing an incident in which a Blackwater guard shot dead an Iraqi driver in May 2007 quoted an Iraqi official's statement that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had received four previous complaints of shootings involving Blackwater employees.

Everyday Iraqis have dubbed the mercenaries "Mossad" and many have gone on record to state that they have witnessed Blackwater contractors killing innocent people in the street without a care.

Blackwater USA does not hide the fact that it has hired fascist thugs—for instance, Chilean commandos, “many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet,” according to Blackwater head honcho Gary Jackson. Other investigative journalists have alleged that Blackwater is engaged in recruiting U.S. trained former soldiers and police officers from Colombia as well as Filipino mercenaries.

According to Ken Silverstein of Harper's Magazine, Blackwater also has a "revolving door" with the CIA and the Pentagon and is engaged in "aggressively recruiting" top CIA officials. In 2006 Silverstein wrote:

"A number of senior CIA and Pentagon officials have taken top jobs at Blackwater, including firm vice chairman Cofer Black, who was the Bush Administration's top counterterrorism official at the time of the 9/11 attacks (and who famously said in 2002, 'There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves came off'),"

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill has also pointed out the many ties that Blackwater has to the GOP:

Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder, billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans, including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the month before Bush's victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns."

Blackwater contractors were also used by the Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They were authorized to carry loaded automatic assault weapons, make arrests and use lethal force if it was deemed necessary, a fact that had Constitutionalists up in arms:

"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal."

For more information on Blackwater watch the short piece below from Jeremy Scahill, who has also authored a book titled Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Truth drowned by Blackwater

Truth drowned by Blackwater…
June 11, 2007Posted by Jim Booth

George Bush’s private army Blackwater Security Consulting, the firm contracted with providing security services to civilian contractors in Iraq (among other services) is showing its admiration of Dick “Keep what you’re doing secret at any cost” Cheney:

The families of four American security contractors who were burned, beaten, dragged through the streets of Fallujah and their decapitated bodies hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River on March 31, 2004, are reaching out to the American public to help protect themselves against the very company their loved ones were serving when killed, Blackwater Security Consulting. After Blackwater lost a series of appeals all the away to the U.S. Supreme Court, Blackwater has now changed its tactics and is suing the dead men’s estates for $10 million to silence the families and keep them out of court.

Following these gruesome deaths which were broadcast on worldwide television, the surviving family members looked to Blackwater for answers as to how and why their loved ones died. Blackwater not only refused to give the grieving families any information, but also callously stated that they would need to sue Blackwater to get it. Left with no alternative, in January 2005, the families filed suit against Blackwater, which is owned by the wealthy and politically-connected Erik Prince.

What we have here is a company operating in a war zone in a paramilitary capacity in ways that it doesn’t want to divulge - even to the families of those killed working for said company. As my previous post on this private army private security firm explains, Blackwater has been able to operate without any real controls on its actions - or their consequences. As Jeremy Scahill noted in an interview:

The mercenary industry loves the current state of affairs because it’s totally unenforced. On paper, yes, there’s a law that governs contractors in Iraq. In reality, only one contractor has been indicted for any crime or violation in Iraq. Either we have 100,000 saints running around as contractors in Iraq, or something is very rotten. I happen to think that something is very rotten.

So when the families of these horribly killed “consultants” sued to get an explanation of what happened to their loved ones from their employer (seems a reasonable desire - to know why and how your loved one died), Blackwater got tough and trotted out some heavy hitters to defend itself from having to provide any information:

It initially hired Fred F. Fielding, who is currently counsel to the President of the United States. It then hired Joseph E. Schmitz as its in-house counsel, who was formerly the Inspector General at the Pentagon. More recently, Blackwater employed Kenneth Starr, famed prosecutor in the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, to oppose the families. To add additional muscle, Blackwater hired Cofer Black, who was the Director of the CIA Counter- Terrorist Center. (Note the names in bold.)

Why would Blackwater take such a clearly bullying and punitive action against families who only wanted to know the truth about how and why their loved ones died? One word - secrecy:
After filing its suit against the dead men’s estates, Blackwater demanded that its claim and the families’ existing lawsuit be handled in a private arbitration. By suing the families in arbitration, Blackwater has attempted to move the examination of their wrongful conduct outside of the eye of the public and away from a jury.

Why the need for such secrecy? What is it that Blackwater has to hide? Here’s a suggestion:
The families claim that Blackwater is attempting to cover up its incompetence, its cutting of corners in favor of higher profits, and its over billing to the government. Due to lack of accountability and oversight, Blackwater’s private army has been able to obtain huge profits from the government, utilizing contacts established through Erik Prince’s relationships with high-ranking government officials such as Cofer Black and Joseph Schmitz. (Any similarity between the names in bold here and those in bold above is purely intentional.)

This, of course, leads us back to where we started - to the real object of Blackwater’s attacks:
By filing suit, Blackwater is trying to wipe out the families’ ability to discover the truth about Blackwater’s involvement in the deaths of these four Americans and to silence them from any public comment. In February, the families testified before Congress.

However, Blackwater’s lawsuit now seeks to gag the family members from even speaking about the incident or about Blackwater’s involvement in the deaths. This is a direct attack to their free speech rights under the First Amendment.

So even as they profiteer on the Iraq War, Blackwater has opened a second front here in the United States - on free speech and truth. And why?

Blackwater has spent millions of dollars and hired at least five different law firms to fight the families, rather than meeting and addressing what should be Blackwater’s top priority — the safety and well being of the mothers, wives, and children left behind. Blackwater has said that it will not pay one red cent to assist or console the surviving families, but instead has counter sued for $10 million.

What if our mercenaries turn on us?

What if our mercenaries turn on us?
Chris Hedges

is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and won a Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent
for the New York Times

Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America's first modern mercenary army.

There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military "contractors" who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.

"We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). "How in the hell do you justify that?"

The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But even more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was a paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse, and eventually plunged the Roman Republic into tyranny and despotism. Despotic movements need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that sow fear among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a Blackwater could well become that force.

American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to "armed security" companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.). Tens of billions more have been paid to companies that provide logistical support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) of the House Intelligence Committee estimates that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors. It is unlikely that any of these corporations will push for an early withdrawal. The profits are too lucrative.

Mercenary forces like Blackwater operate beyond civilian and military law. They are covered by a 2004 edict passed by American occupation authorities in Iraq that immunizes all civilian contractors in Iraq from prosecution.

Blackwater, barely a decade old, has migrated from Iraq to set up operations in the United States and nine other countries. It trains Afghan security forces and has established a base a few miles from the Iranian border. The huge contracts from the war - including $750 million from the State Department since 2004 - have allowed Blackwater to amass a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, points out that Blackwater has also constructed "the world's largest private military facility - a 7,000-acre compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina." Blackwater also recently opened a facility in Illinois ("Blackwater North") and, despite local opposition, is moving ahead with plans to build another huge training base near San Diego. The company recently announced it was creating a private intelligence branch called "Total Intelligence."

Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint.

Mercenary units are a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built rogue paramilitary forces. And the appearance of Blackwater fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, may be a grim taste of the future. In New Orleans Blackwater charged the government $240,000 a day.
" 'It cannot happen here' is always wrong," the philosopher Karl Popper wrote. "A dictatorship can happen anywhere."

The word contractor helps launder the fear and threat out of a more accurate term: "paramilitary force." We're not supposed to have such forces in the United States, but we now do. And if we have them, we have a potential threat to democracy. On U.S. soil, Blackwater so far has shown few signs of being an out-and-out rogue retainer army, though they looked the part in New Orleans. But were this country to become even a little less stable, outfits like Blackwater might see a heyday. If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown that triggers social unrest, or a series of environmental disasters, such paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could ruthlessly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to corporations, and to right-wing interests such as the Christian Right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets.