Matters Blackwater (Merged thread)

[Jedburgh]

...I do feel that PMCs are often allowed to slip through the cracks when it comes to accountability...a very disturbing trend.

A good op-ed from 17 Sep 07 that speaks to that point:

Banned in Baghdad: Reactions to the Blackwater License Being Pulled

....Private military contractors have been involved in all sorts of questionable incidents, since the very start of the Iraq enterprise. U.S. military officers frequently expressed their frustrations with sharing the battlefield with such private forces operating under their own rules and agendas, and worry about the consequences for their own operations. For example, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the US 3rd Infantry Division (responsible for Baghdad area) tellingly put it two years back, These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath.”

No one has kept an exact count of the incidents, but some notable examples include:

• The Aegis “trophy video”, in which contractors took video of themselves shooting at civilians, set it to the Elvis song "Runaway Train," and put it on the Internet.

• The alleged joyride shootings of Iraqi civilians by a Triple Canopy supervisor. They became the subject of a lawsuit after two employees, who claim to have witnessed the shootings, lost their jobs.

• Armed contractors from the Zapata firm detained by U.S. forces, who allegedly saw the private soldiers indiscriminately firing not only at Iraqi civilians, but also at U.S. Marines. Again, they were not charged, as the legal issues could not be squared. Private military firms may be part of the military operation, but they and their employees are not part of the military, or its chain of command or its code of justice.

• Abu Ghraib, where reportedly 100 percent of the translators and up to 50 percent of the interrogators at the prison were private contractors from the Titan and CACI firms, respectively. The U.S. Army found that contractors were involved in 36% of the proven abuse incidents and identified six particular employees as being culpable in the abuses. While the enlisted U.S. Army soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib abuse were court-martialed for their crimes, not a single private contractor named in the Army's investigation report has been charged, prosecuted or punished. The Army believes it lacks the jurisdiction to pursue these cases, even if it wants to.....

[tequila]

Remarkable that this incident never made the news at the time. The killing of the Iraqi vice president's bodyguard at Christmas by a BW contractor has made the rounds, but I never heard of this despite apparent press witnesses and a mil investigation:

NPR witnessed a similar scenario two years ago. A State Department convoy, protected by Blackwater, raced out of a compound. Guards immediately shot at a car killing an old man, his son and his daughter-in-law. Blackwater said the car was driving erratically. A U.S. military investigation concluded Blackwater had used excessive force. No one was prosecuted.


Sunday's incident seems to be the final straw — not just for Iraq's prime minister, but for the public. Outrage was bubbling on the streets.


Karim Muhammed, who owns a furniture store, said he's seen people killed by foreign security companies. He said Iraqi officials should have done something about this a long time ago.


"Why do they consider American blood first class, and ours a cheap commodity?" Muhammed said. "Are they better than us?"


And Samir Samir said he fears the private security companies far more than the U.S. military.


"The U.S. military is subject to its own laws and monitoring," Samir said. "Who monitors the security companies?"

[Sarajevo071]

Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First

A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant.

The report, by the Ministry of Interior, was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before.

In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the American Embassy here suspended diplomatic missions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on Tuesday.

“There was not shooting against the convoy,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government’s spokesman. “There was no fire from anyone in the square.”
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/wo...rssnyt&emc=rss

[Sarajevo071]

Where Military Rules Don't Apply
Blackwater's Security Force in Iraq Given Wide Latitude by State Dept.

Blackwater USA, the private security company involved in a Baghdad shootout last weekend, operated under State Department authority that exempted the company from U.S. military regulations governing other security firms, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives.

In recent months, the State Department's oversight of Blackwater became a central issue as Iraqi authorities repeatedly clashed with the company over its aggressive street tactics. Many U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives said they came to see Blackwater as untouchable, protected by State Department officials who defended the company at every turn. Blackwater employees protect the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Iraq.

Blackwater "has a client who will support them no matter what they do," said H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, an advocacy organization in Baghdad that is funded by security firms, including Blackwater.

The State Department allowed Blackwater's heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military's restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield.

"The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable," said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. "They were above the law." Degn said Blackwater's armed Little Bird helicopters often buzzed the Interior Ministry's roof, "almost like they were saying, 'Look, we can fly anywhere we want.' "

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...902503_pf.html

[Rob Thornton]

Today's SWJ OPED Round Up and Yesterday's OPED Roundup both had some of the recent commentary. The United States will have to grow (considerably - perhaps more then planned) its tools of foreign policy - the Military, the Foreign Service, CIA, Justice, and the Inter-Agency etc. if it wants the flexibility to meet its commitments without filling the holes and cracks with PMCs - the PMCs saw the hole we (America) created and filled it.

We created our reliance on PMCs - this is a self-inflicted GSW. There should be no surprises that contracting out the nation's interests can result in consequences other then we had intended. When you put on the uniform you are different, and when you take it off you are different. Being asked to employ violence while in uniform means excepting the responsibilities and the strengths of the convictions and values the uniform represents - the straight jacket is the UCMJ, and unit loyalty. Taking off the uniform and taking on personal risk and doing violence for a paycheck is different - I don't know if there is a better illustration then that.

To me, the question is where do we go from here? I'd also add that even if we decide to fill our own holes - a process that a few years at the very minimum to fix (in a perfect world), goes beyond recruiting - toward competition with the PMCs to retain some of our best trained mid level folks, and to some degree relies on the political leadership to authorize, fund and equip the increase in manpower, and relies on the American public to volunteer on a much larger scale for service.

Even so - PMCs will probably still be seen on the battlefield. They have made their value on the world market known - and there are others who will contract their services.

[sgmgrumpy]

I am not defended what happened, but when we talk about UCMJ and all the other DOD rules, you also have to find out or know what type of contract the individuals are operating under. DOS never has, and never will allow DOD to control what they do. It’s like a bad marriage.

Everyone is focused on this particular BW incident and forgetting or at least maybe not knowing that these particular BW folks are operating under a DOS WPPS Diplomatic Security which is NOT a DOD contract. They work for State Department, so labeling them as military contractors is not an accurate designation but of course the media seems to jump on that terminology. They are performing duties what normally would be filled by Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Special Agents.

It’s amazing what’s contracted now days. Just go to and look through some of the pre-solicitations for contracts. Don’t forget to browse by branch or agency

You don't even want to know the amount of a three year contract that was awarded to a Company to provide protection to a foreign dignitary and his family living in Calif., USA

[Steve Blair]

Then maybe someone should try nailing the accountability to DOS and see how fast they can scamper for the darkness....