Three weeks into the latest incident, the Blackwater story is still on America’s front page, and despite heavy pressure from the State Department, the Iraqis aren’t letting Blackwater go.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq said on Sunday security guards from the U.S. firm Blackwater “deliberately killed” 17 Iraqis in last month’s shooting incident in Baghdad and that it would take legal steps against them.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an investigation set up by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki found no evidence that the U.S. security firm had come under fire during the incident.
“What they committed is considered a crime of deliberate killing and they must be held accountable according to the law,” Dabbagh said, adding the company itself could face legal action.
Dabbagh’s toll from the shooting was higher than the 11 deaths previously reported by Iraqi officials and the tone of his statement suggested Iraqi anger over the September 16 still burns strongly.
The counterstrike against Blackwater has entered a new phase. The Iraqis are accusing the company of “deliberate killing” and saying they must be held accountable. The argument that Blackwater is immune to Iraqi prosecution and will be taken care of by US justice is clearly not good enough for the Iraqis anymore.
I really believe this incident holds the potential to unravel the entire Bush “imperialism by mercenary” plan that is key to the neocon perpetual war state, and that’s why the beltway cognoscenti allowed the Blackwater hearings and subsequent legislation to be passed with nary a peep out of the White House. Both the Republicans and Democrats realize that there cannot be a war in Iraq now without the PMCs, so the appearance of “being on top of things” is absolutely vital to convincing the American people that mercs aren’t so bad.
Because right now the American people are mad as hell at Blackwater.
Protesters targeted the site of a planned training facility for Blackwater USA, the private security contractor that is under fire for recent actions in Iraq.
Organizers said about 300 people gathered Sunday at the 824-acre site in Potrero, a rural area about 45 miles east of San Diego and just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
A dispatcher with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department did not know how many protesters showed up.
The training camp would include shooting ranges, a driving track and a helipad on a property formerly used as a chicken ranch.
The Potrero Planning Group has endorsed plans for the camp, but final approval may still be months way.
Planning Board Chairman Gordon Hammers has said the camp would provide an economic boost to the area.
The prospect of a training camp in the area has divided the community. Protesters want a recall vote against members of the planning group.
Citizens’ Oversight Projects member Raymond Lutz said the recall attempt was akin to a referendum on the project.
“If the recall is successful, the community has voted down the project,” Lutz said. “At that point, Blackwater should drop the project and spare the community any further agony.”
The Blackwater story is visceral and easy to understand on a basic, gut instinct level. These guys are getting paid more than our troops, are all over Iraq, and are committing war crimes in our name. It seems like Blackwater has been in the news almost daily, and just like the My Lai massacre turned the country solidly against the Vietnam War, Blackwater is becoming the seed of darkness that all the frustration, anger, and outrage about Iraq is metastasizing around.
Granted there’s a far difference between My Lai and Blackwater, one being US military, the other being mercenary, but as with My Lai, the additional scrutiny keeps revealing worse incidents, if not a pattern, if not an organized campaign of war crimes as the logical endpoint. That’s the real danger: the present privatized warfare issue reveals too much about its past (war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan) and its future (use as enforcement against US citizenry) for the White House to withstand.
That’s the long term effects of this. More in the short term, the PMC industry is in real trouble now.
Will Blackwater USA’s travails spread to the two Northern Virginia companies who share a controversial $3.6 billion contract to provide security services in Iraq?
Experts say DynCorp of Falls Church and Triple Canopy of Herndon have much to gain or lose depending on the outcome of investigations into Blackwater’s conduct in Iraq, where its employees allegedly fired on and killed Iraqi civilians.
“There’s going to be a continuing drumbeat of bad news for this company,” said Peter Singer, an expert on private security at the Brookings Institution who is critical of the industry. “As competitors, that’s good news for them. . . . Maybe it means [Blackwater] is less likely to win contracts the future.”
Any new business, however, could be lost in the damage to the industry’s reputation, some say. “If I were advising either of those companies, I would be worried about the Blackwater incident coming back to haunt the whole issue of private security and how it’s used in Iraq,” said Deborah Avant, a political science professor at the University of California at Irvine.
DynCorp is a 60-year-old company with $2 billion in annual revenue. Triple Canopy was born just four years ago and has ridden the recent boom in government contracting to collect hundreds of millions in revenue. Both will undoubtedly be subject to whatever measures are put in place to address the Blackwatersituation.
On Thursday, for instance, the House passed a bill to make all private contractors in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution in U.S. courts. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, ordered an overhaul of U.S. Embassy security practices in Iraq, tightening government oversight of diplomatic convoys escorted by private security contractors.
No doubt some enterprising journalists are going to realize that DynCorp and Triple Canopy have their own skeletons to hide. The real difference in the potential for war crimes among PMCs and the ones our military are capable of doing is that it’s much, much harder to drape the American flag around the shoulders of a PMC merc than an Army private in order to justify them. In the end, half a million dead Iraqis and millions more made refugees because of George W Bush is a pretty nasty legacy…and then there’s Iran.
Make no mistake: Blackwater in the news directly threatens the efforts to bomb Iran. The longer it stays news, the less chance Bush has of pulling the trigger.