The Blackwater Security story keeps getting worse for the Bushies. As I said in parts 1 and 2 of the story, Blackwater is turning into the volcanic vent that’s spewing out all the bad blood between the Iraqis and the US PMCs, and by proxy, the US.
Now it’s looking like there’s much, much more to this story after a few days. It’s not going to go away, and most importantly the story may allow for some serious debate about the war that finally includes the tens of thousands of PMC mercs America employs in Iraq, a virtual second army.
The question is now “How does having this private army on the front pages of the world press relate to Bush’s plans to hit Iran?”
Despite calls that Blackwater isn’t going anywhere due the pull they have with Bush, Maliki continues to play hardball.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on the U.S. to replace Blackwater, the security company that protects State Department staff in Iraq, after the firm was involved in a shooting incident he called a “criminal act”.
“The Americans should hire another company to protect their people,” al-Maliki said in a news conference aired today on state television. The “criminal act” wasn’t the first involving the company, he said.
If only the Dems had this level of spinal fitness. Sure, replacing Blackwater with yet another PMC won’t make too much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but getting them out would represent a major victory for Maliki as the leader of a strong central sovereign government…after all, that’s the job we put him in, even as ridiculous as the notion of a “strong central government” in Iraq is.
Wouldn’t that be something, the Iraqis from all political and sectarian walks of life banding together politically over kicking out American mercs preying on all of them?
Regardless of the political aspect, the situation in Iraq concerning reports coming out of the Sunday firefight is looking increasingly grim for Blackwater.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — 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.
A company like this really trades on its professional reputation, and the Iraqis are clearly saying that Blackwater’s reputation is mud.
“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.”
A State Department spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said he had not heard of the report and repeated that the department was conducting an investigation supported by the American military. A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
“Let these folks do the investigation and get all the facts,” Mr. Vasquez said, “and if department procedures were not followed, after the facts have been gathered we would decide what action to take.”
The shooting, which took place on Sunday, has angered Iraqi officials and touched off a harsh debate about private security companies, which operate outside Iraqi law, a privilege extended to them by Americans officials while Iraq’s government was still under American administration. Blackwater, which guards all top American officials here, had its work suspended, and Iraqi officials agreed to rewrite the rules to make the companies accountable.
“We do understand that the security companies are subject to high levels of threat and they do a good job at protection, but this does not entitle them to immunity from Iraqi laws,” Mr. Dabbagh said. “This is what the Iraqi government would like to review.”
This is almost too good, really. There’s literally nothing the Bushies can do at this point without making the situation worse, and I’m seriously wondering if there’s any way they can get out of this without having to throw Blackwater to the gators.
If there is a way out, it’s the US protesting that the Iraqis are making things worse.
The alleged killing of Iraqi civilians by guards from contractor Blackwater USA will make it harder for all private security companies to operate in the country, officials from other firms involved in the work said Wednesday.
But they welcomed the idea that the shooting could prompt greater regulation of security contractors in Iraq, who are widely used by foreign officials and companies for protection, but are viewed by many Iraqis as mercenaries.
Anger is rising in Iraq over the shooting by Blackwater security guards near a State Department motorcade in Baghdad over the weekend. Details have not been released, and unconfirmed reports vary from Blackwater guards opening fire on a car that failed to follow an order to stop, to a gunfight between Blackwater employees and militants.
The Iraqi Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis were killed.
Gosh, it’s hard out there for a merc. Those Raghead Sunzabitches keep trying to kill us, and we just don’t know why…
Well, the problem is if that doesn’t hold water for our troops, which really are an occupation force, then it holds even less for the army of PMC mercs in Iraq. The Iraqis are staking out their territory and clearly Maliki is making political hay at Bush’s expense. Indeed, the Bushies are walking on eggshells in Baghdad.
The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, amid mounting public outrage over the alleged killing of civilians by U.S. security provider Blackwater USA.
The move came even as the Iraqi government appeared to back down from statements Monday that it would order Blackwater’s 1,000 personnel to leave the country — depriving U.S. diplomats of security protection essential to working in Baghdad.
”We are not intending to stop them and revoke their license indefinitely, but we do need them to respect the law and the regulation here in Iraq,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told CNN.
The U.S. order confines most American officials to a 3.5-square-mile area in the center of the city, meaning they can’t visit U.S.-funded construction sites or Iraqi officials elsewhere in the country except by helicopter. The notice didn’t say when the suspension would expire.
Many Iraqis dismissed Blackwater’s contention that its guards were attacked by armed insurgents and returned fire only to protect State Department personnel.
”We see the security firms … doing whatever they want in the streets. They beat citizens and scorn them,” Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor said. ”If such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it?”
There’s your money quote right there. Even the most rabid winger has to honestly say “There’s no way I’d tolerate foreign mercenaries shooting up my country or messing with my family.” And I think this has the potential to really, really hurt the Bushies to the point where the dialogue on Iraq becomes based on the bad things we’ve accomplished in Iraq, not the good things.
If we need these mercs in there even with the surge, then the security situation in Iraq is not improving. In fact, the “real” surge has been in mercs over the last year. When you hear that the President escalated the conflict with another 30,000 troops, understand that the reason these troops were able to go out and do patrols is because the tens of thousands of mercs are holding the forts down.
And there’s virtually no oversight on the 150,000 mercs in the country. The Iraqis want this oversight now. Notice the only response from the Bushies so far has been through Condi Rice.
Condi Rice personally apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for the killing of 10 Iraqis by Blackwater guards and promised that steps would be taken to ensure the tragedy was not repeated. The Iraqis are from all accounts absolutely furious about the Blackwater cowboys running around their country armed and dangerous and acting with impunity. The State Department, which employs Blackwater, is highly embarrassed and has ordered State Dept. personnel in Iraq not to circulate for the time being. Debate is raging over whether Iraq has the right to try the apparently trigger-happy civilian security men of Blackwater.
Now here’s the thing. If the Bushies admit they need Blackwater and the PMCs in Iraq, that there’s a private army with no oversight in a foreign country killing foreign people with no consequences, then they are fucked. The more America reads in the press that there’s “Bush’s private army” killing people in Iraq with no honor or justice or discipline that our troops are supposed to be subjected to, the more people will start demanding we yank the plug on this whole deal.
It’s one thing to say “support the troops”. It’s entirely another thing to say “support Bush’s paid army of thugs”. Bush has got to make this story go away ASAP for him and he knows this. The fact you have yet to hear a White House response after 48+ hours should tell you everything you need to know: the White House doesn’t want to touch this one.
But here’s some very sobering thoughts on the whole issue. We’re already seeing some evidence today that Bush is still trying to hit Iran, the theory is an accidental war may pop up. What better source of an “accident” then 150,000 PMC mercs in Iraq, with no oversight?
The left — and much of the old-school, realist right — fears that Bush means to bomb Iran sometime between now and next spring. Both would like to rally public opinion against the strike before it happens. The neoconservative right, meanwhile, is asserting that we will bomb Iran but that we need to get to it posthaste.
But both sides are advancing scenarios that are politically useful to them, and both sides are wrong. Despite holding out a military option, ratcheting up tensions with Iran about meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan, and deploying carrier strike-force groups in the Persian Gulf, the president is not planning to bomb Iran. But there are several not-unrelated scenarios under which it might happen, if the neocon wing of the party, led by Vice President Cheney, succeeds in reasserting itself, or if there is some kind of “accidental,” perhaps contrived, confrontation.
One of the reasons so many believe action is near is the well-known neoconservative preference that it be so. There is still a strong neoconservative faction within the Bush team, and their movement allies outside the administration, such as Michael Ledeen, John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz, have openly advocated striking Iran before it can develop nuclear weapons. The neoconservatives believe that in the end, Bush’s team will indeed launch a military strike against Iran, or will nudge Israel to do so.
Attention Congressional Democrats: The time to strike on a withdrawal timetable is now. This is the most off-balance the Bushies have been in a very, very long time. They don’t know what to do. The concept of the Iraqis actually standing up to Bush on anything has knocked the pilings out from under the house of cards.
If we don’t convince the Democrats to act, well…
What we should worry about, however, is the continued effort by the neocons to shore up their sagging influence. They now fear that events and arguments could intervene to keep what once seemed like a “nearly inevitable” attack from happening. They know that they must keep up the pressure on Bush and maintain a drumbeat calling for war.
They are doing exactly this during September and October in a series of meetings organized by the American Enterprise Institute on Iran and Iraq designed to reemphasize the case for hawkish, interventionist deployments in Iraq and a military, regime-change-oriented strike against Iran. And through Op-Eds and the serious political media, the “bomb Iran now” crowd believes they must undermine those in and out of government proposing alternatives to bombing and keep the president and his people saturated with pro-war mantras.
We should also worry about the kind of scenario David Wurmser floated, meaning an engineered provocation. An “accidental war” would escalate quickly and “end run,” as Wurmser put it, the president’s diplomatic, intelligence and military decision-making apparatus. It would most likely be triggered by one or both of the two people who would see their political fortunes rise through a new conflict — Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
That kind of war is much more probable and very much worth worrying about.
The question is, what kind of monkey wrench is Maliki’s standing up to Blackwater truly going to turn out to be, the one that facilitates a true national effort towards getting us out, or being the catalyst that puts us on path to Tehran once and for all?
