Category Archives: State Department

NEWS: Blackwater’s drive-by gunmen

Report says firm sought to cover up Iraq shootings
By John M. Broder, New York Times, October 2, 2007

Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.

In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.

The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life. [complete article]

See also, Blackwater chief defends guards’ actions in Iraq (WP), Email shows State officials doing Blackwater damage control (TPM), and Other killings by Blackwater staff detailed (WP).

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FEATURE: America’s merchants of death

Making a killing
By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, September 27, 2007

Four days after being grounded, Blackwater was back on Iraqi streets. After all, Blackwater is not just any security company in Iraq; it is the leading mercenary company of the US occupation. It first took on this role in the summer of 2003, after receiving a $27 million no-bid contract to provide security for Ambassador Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Since then, it has kept every subsequent US Ambassador, from John Negroponte to Ryan Crocker, alive. It protects Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits the country, as well as Congressional delegations. Since its original Iraq contract, Blackwater has won more than $700 million in “diplomatic security” contracts through the State Department alone.

The company’s domestic political clout has been key to its success. It is owned by Erik Prince, a reclusive right-wing evangelical Christian who has served as a major bankroller of the campaigns of George W. Bush and his allies. Among the company’s senior executives are former CIA official J. Cofer Black, who once oversaw the extraordinary-rendition program and led the post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden (and who currently serves as GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s top counterterrorism adviser), and Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon Inspector General under Donald Rumsfeld.

So embedded is Blackwater in the US apparatus in Iraq that the incident in Nisour Square has sparked a crisis for the occupation that is both practical and political. Now that Blackwater’s name is known (and hated) throughout Iraq, the bodyguards themselves are likely to become targets of resistance attacks, perhaps even more so than the officials they are tasked with keeping alive. This will make their work much more difficult. But beyond such security issues are more substantive political ones, as Blackwater’s continued presence on Iraqi streets days after Maliki called for its expulsion serves as a potent symbol of the utter lack of Iraqi sovereignty. [complete article]

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NEWS: Blackwater’s role in boosting violence

Blackwater ‘mistakes’ led to surge of Iraqi violence
By James Macintyre, The Independent, September 28, 2007

Blackwater, one of the largest American security firms in Iraq, has come under criticism in the US for its role in a 2004 ambush in Fallujah that left four of its staff killed and the region in deadly chaos.

A House of Representatives report outlined the “unprepared and disorderly” build-up to the incident on 31 March, 2004, resulting in the employees – who were escorting a convoy – being executed and having their charred bodies hung from a bridge.

The disturbing attack was seen as a turning point for US public opinion after images of the charred bodies were shown around the world by the media. A few days later, the US military launched a major offensive in Fallujah, leading to one of the bloodiest periods since the 2003 invasion. [complete article]

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NEWS: Blackwater “may be worse than Abu Ghraib”

Private security puts diplomats, military at odds
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, September 26, 2007

A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials.

In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said.

“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we’re trying to have an impact for the long term.” [complete article]

See also, Blackwater tops firms in Iraq in shooting rate (NYT) and State Dept: corruption in Iraq is classified (David Corn).

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NEWS: Mercenaries hurt the war effort; State Dept. shields Blackwater; insurgents launch assassination campaign against Iraq’s Interior Ministry

New study: private security firms hurt U.S. mission in Iraq
By Spencer Ackerman, TPMmuckraker, September 26, 2007

A forthcoming study by private-military contractor expert P.W. Singer obtained by TPMmuckraker finds that Blackwater and other private security firms in Iraq are detrimental to U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.

Singer, author of the landmark book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, goes beyond the current Blackwater imbroglio to criticize the entire system for security contracting in Iraq. He finds that even though private military firms represent a hindrance to counterinsurgency objectives, the privatization boom beginning in the 1980s has left the U.S. military functionally dependent on the companies for numerous combat operations and logistics tasks. Private military companies have become “the ultimate enabler” for military commitments, Singer writes in “Can’t Win With ‘Em, Can’t Go To War Without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counter-Insurgency,” allowing a politically cost-free way for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq without a massive call-up of reserve forces. [complete article]

Blackwater inquiry blocked by State Dept., official says
By James Risen, New York Times, September 26, 2007

The Democratic chairman of a House committee complained Tuesday that the State Department was blocking his panel’s efforts to investigate the private security firm Blackwater USA and its operations in Iraq.

The department described the situation as a “misunderstanding.”

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wrote that the State Department had prevented Blackwater from cooperating.

“Blackwater has informed the committee that a State Department official directed Blackwater not to provide documents relevant to the committee’s investigation into the company’s activities in Iraq without the prior written approval of the State Department,” Mr. Waxman’s letter stated. The letter was made available to the news media on Tuesday. [complete article]

Sunni insurgents in new campaign to kill officials
By Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, September 26, 2007

Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq, staging at least 10 attacks in 48 hours.

Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. Two other police chiefs survived attacks, though one was left in critical condition, and about 30 police officers were wounded, according to reports from local security officers.

“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Blackwater’s killing spree

The real story of Baghdad’s Bloody Sunday
By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, September 21, 2007

The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting on Sunday, by the guards of the American private security company Blackwater, has sparked one of the most bitter and public disputes between the Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the Western private armies operating in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Blackwater’s security men are accused of going on an unprovoked killing spree. Hassan Jabar Salman, a lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed in bandages at Baghdad’s Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled scenes of horror. “I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot,” said Mr Salman. “But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him, she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People were afraid.”

At the end of the prolonged hail of bullets Nisoor Square was a scene of carnage with bodies strewn around smouldering wreckage. Ambulances trying to pick up the wounded found their path blocked by crowds fleeing the gunfire.

Yesterday, the death toll from the incident, according to Iraqi authorities, stood at 28. And it could rise higher, say doctors, as some of the injured, hit by high-velocity bullets at close quarter, are unlikely to survive. [complete article]

Iraq’s ‘Dirty Harrys’
By David DeVoss, Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2007

Blackwater. The name says it all, conjuring images of imminent danger, hidden predators and night terror. From the moment Blackwater USA arrived in Iraq to protect L. Paul Bremer III’s Coalition Provisional Authority until last week, when its guards killed 11 Iraqis and wounded 13 more while escorting a diplomatic convoy through Baghdad, the North Carolina-based private security company has been known for its swaggering image and “Dirty Harry” demeanor.

All the U.S. private security armies in Iraq may be cut from the same khaki cloth, but each has its own personality. When I arrived in the country in September 2004 as a senior information officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, bodyguards with Kroll Inc., whose credo is “in risk there is opportunity,” met me at the airport. They were British and Irish veterans of Belfast’s “Troubles” and viewed terrorists with a world-weary stoicism.

Our convoy had pulled onto the airport highway and was heading for the Green Zone when three black Chevy Suburbans flashed past. The rear door of the trailing vehicle was open, and inside sat a man dressed in black cradling a large-caliber machine gun. Bandoleers crisscrossed his chest, several handguns and a large knife dangled from his weapons harness and an enormous handlebar mustache covered most of his face.

The look was designed to inspire dread, but it was carried to such cartoonish extremes that the man resembled Yosemite Sam more than the Terminator. “That’s Blackwater,” said the Kroll driver disdainfully. “You’ll see a lot of them while you’re here.” [complete article]

See also, U.S. repeatedly rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater complaints (WP) and Iraqis: Video shows Blackwater guards fired 1st (AP).

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