…you have to worry about flooding. When the ground is already saturated with water, a hard rain can be the trigger that wipes you out. In Blackwater’s case, the ground is “saturated” in blood. Organizations and governments are beginning to ask questions not only about Blackwater, but PMCs in general.
Now, I’ve referred to Blackwater as a PMC…Private Mercenary Contractor…for quite some time now. They prefer to be called “security corporations” like they sell diapers or cars or managed on-line services. The product they sell is death for money, hence the term “Mercenary”. The UN seems to agree with the term.
Private contractors like those implicated in the shootings of civilians in Iraq are part of a global trend of hiring recruits from one country to perform military jobs in another, in what a UN expert called a growing new form of mercenary activity.
The independent human rights experts who wrote a UN report obtained by The Associated Press consider the slaying of 17 civilians in Baghdad by security guards working for Blackwater USA last month as underscoring the risk of using such contractors in a country where they have immunity, the chairman of the UN group said.
The report is to be presented to the UN General Assembly next month.
The UN Security Council and General Assembly have opposed the use of mercenaries, but the hiring of foreign soldiers by one country for use in a third is specifically illegal only for the 30 countries that ratified a 1989 treaty against their use. Those 30 do not include either the United States or Iraq.
“The trend toward outsourcing and privatizing various military functions by a number of member states in the past 10 years has resulted in the mushrooming of private military and security companies,” the panel’s 25-page report said.
Note the US never signed on to the “no mercs” treaty in 1989. I wonder why that was, eh? Surely the Bushies have been taking full advantage of it. But the problem with that is who is in charge of these mercs. Oversight means responsibility and culpability for their actions, and the actions of these companies are to kill people.
The military at least seems to think the PMC loose cannon arrangement isn’t working out. The Pentagon wants to be in control if you’ll excuse the pun, of the whole shootin’ match for various reasons.
The Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is now pushing for all armed security contractors in Iraq, including Blackwater, to come under a single authority, the Pentagon. The Defense Department first telegraphed that they might make a play for contractor control when the Army quickly leaked its initial report on the Nisour Square shootings. Ever since this, I’ve been waiting for the official turf grab and now, according to the New York Times, it’s here.
On the surface a single entity overseeing all contractors might seem like a good idea. [Sure does to me; and let’s put these guys under the UCMJ, while we’re at it — ed.] But, as they say in the spy business, nothing is what it seems. Department of Defense security contractors are already coordinated through a single, DoD entity, the US Regional Cooperation Offices, which are outsourced through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis which is run by the infamous mercenary, Tim Spicer. (It also includes intelligence services and security services for the Army Corps of Engineers.) So most contractors working for the US government in Iraq fall under DoD purview. The key here is most contractors. The ones working for the State Department do not participate in the program; but, despite their involvement in the Nisour Square incident, they may not be the contractors most affected. Of much greater interest is the other government agency not under the Regional Cooperation Offices’ oversight: the CIA.
Pentagon officials have long been unhappy about the Agency acting independently, running around war zones without coordinating their actions with local commanders. This is a longstanding turf issue between the CIA and Pentagon that predates the Iraq war or as one senior member of the Intelligence Community once told me, it’s been a problem “since Christ was a corporal.”
The Blackwater shooting incident has provided the Pentagon an opening in the turf wars because the CIA’s paramilitary arm, the Special Activities Division, is heavily outsourced — particularly in Iraq. If all security contractors fell under the DoD, the Pentagon could not only monitor the Agency, but could control their operations by denying them ground and particularly air assets. In one simple move, putting all security contracting under the control of the Department of Defense would effectively hand over control of most CIA paramilitary activities to the DoD, ending CIA unilateral offensive paramilitary capabilities in Iraq.
Now that’s a scary thought. The Pentagon clearly doesn’t like the idea of PMCs running around doing their job for the 21st century. They want to be running the show, and one unintended consequence from the Blackwater massacre is the crack in the door the Pentagon needs to dominate the industry.
That’s not a good thing. PMCs are a direct threat to the military-industrial complex as far as the power the Pentagon wields as king of the Bush budgetary scene. Robert Gates may not be as bad as Rummy overall, but in some ways he’s a lot worse of a warmonger.
And the company that started all this? It may get washed away in the flash flood.
WASHINGTON – A State Department review of private security guards for diplomats in Iraq is unlikely to recommend firing Blackwater USA over the deaths of 17 Iraqis last month, but the company probably is on the way out of that job, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Blackwater’s work escorting U.S. diplomats outside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad expires in May, one official said, and other officials told The Associated Press they expect the North Carolina company will not continue to work for the embassy after that.
It is likely that Blackwater does not compete to keep the job, one official said. Blackwater probably will not be fired outright or even “eased out,” the official added, but there is a mutual feeling that the Sept. 16 shooting deaths mean the company cannot continue in its current role.
State Department officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has not yet considered results of an internal review of Blackwater and the other two companies that protect diplomats in Iraq.
Department officials said no decisions have been made and that Rice has the final say.
They gave admiring appraisals of Blackwater’s work overall, noting that no diplomats have died while riding in Blackwater’s heavily armed convoys.
Down the drain, it seems. Surely they will be replaced by yet another group of paid killers, but it’s interesting to see that the darlings of the PMC circuit are getting the axe.
It seems like a pretty sure bet they won’t get that contract renewal, because for the first time, the Decider has spoken on the issue — after having a month to formulate the White House reponse, or whatever he deciderated to deciderate.
President Bush did not directly answer a question Wednesday about whether he was satisfied with the performance of security contractors.
“I will be anxious to see the analysis of their performance,” Bush said at a news conference. “There’s a lot of studying going on, both inside Iraq and out, as to whether or not people violated rules of engagement. I will tell you, though, that a firm like Blackwater provides a valuable service. They protect people’s lives, and I appreciate the sacrifice and the service that the Blackwater employees have made.”
Remember that in Dubya’s world, paid mercenaries who gun down innocent civilians of one country in order to “protect people’s lives” (specifically government officials of the USA) “provide a valuable service” to all of us.
Those raghead sunzabitches? He’s not so worried about protecting them from the PMCs.
