…and you’re stuck inside during the storm, sometimes you get cabin fever.
That’s the only explanation I can give for the truly bizarre slate of Blackwater news this week. Last time I reported on how it looked like Blackwater was done in Iraq and waiting out the clock until May.
It may be sooner than that.
Iraq repeated a call for US firm Blackwater to leave on Saturday almost five weeks after its guards killed as many as 17 civilians, but said it had no problem with other companies that obeyed the law.
“The Iraqi government doesn’t want Blackwater to stay in Iraq,” said a statement from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. “There is popular anger against this company because of the crime they committed.”
You know Blackwater is in major trouble because the best defense the Neocon Street Journal can give is that it’s too tough to switch horses midstream.
U.S. officials face a blunt reality as they weigh whether to replace Blackwater USA as the prime protector of U.S. diplomats in Iraq: They have no easy alternative.
Mounting evidence suggesting Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square without provocation last month has sparked calls within the Iraqi government to throw the private-security company out of Iraq. Some critics in Congress say the State Department should replace the North Carolina-based contractor with government security, even with U.S. soldiers.
With several investigations under way, U.S. officials are considering whether to turn Blackwater’s work over to another contractor, while tightening the rules under which U.S. security contractors operate in Iraq. But finding a replacement could prove difficult.
Blackwater’s security work for the State Department in Baghdad is up for renewal in May, and U.S. officials say it would take at least that long to arrange for another private contractor to take over. Even a new company would have to rely heavily on hires from Blackwater’s employee base of about 1,000 in Iraq. Hiring and training new guards, all of whom must be Americans with classified-security clearance, would otherwise take months.
Blackwater, part of Prince Group LLC, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Blackwater and two other U.S. security companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy Inc., are working under a global contract with the State Department that gives them a total of $571 million a year to protect officials in countries like Israel, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq alone accounts for $520 million.
Kathleen Hicks, a former Defense Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said that while the State Department could break Blackwater’s contract before it runs out, it would be easier to see it through to the end.
“Regardless of who they pick, they’re going to have to have much better oversight,” she said.
That’s the best they can do, the argument that it’s easier making Blackwater finish out its contract than replacing them. Even though that argument is completely undone by the facts that 1) Iraq wants Blackwater out of their own country, 2) all investigations so far show that they massacred over a dozen civilians, and 3) there have been several other shooting incidents before this, we should allow them to stay apparently.
But the writing is on the wall for Blackwater.
Blackwater USA is likely to be eased out of its role of guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq after a shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead, U.S. officials said Friday.
Blackwater’s role in Baghdad will probably be assumed by one of two other contractors that provide security for the State Department in Iraq, the officials said. Those companies are Triple Canopy and DynCorp International.
Replacing one PMC with another is not a solution, it’s only a recipe for more abuse, bloodshed, and death. But at least it’s a start. Let’s keep in mind that these PMC companies are nothing more than armed killers, and armed killers like to exercise their power over others.
Blackwater USA tried to take at least two Iraqi military aircraft out of Iraq two years ago and refused to give the planes back when Iraqi officials sought to reclaim them, according to a congressional committee investigating the private security contractor.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wants the company to provide all documents related to the attempted shipment and to explain where the aircraft are now.
In a letter sent Friday to Erik Prince, Blackwater’s top executive, Waxman said he learned of the 2005 attempt from a military official who contacted the committee. That official is not identified in the letter, nor is the type of aircraft.
Waxman also is seeking a sweeping amount of information about Blackwater’s business, including its contracts with the federal government, profits made since the company was founded a decade ago, Prince’s personal earnings since 2001, and details about the payments to the families of Iraqis killed by Blackwater personnel.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company is cooperating with the committee but declined to comment further.
Waxman has the right idea. The PMC problem is about power without accountability and always has been. It’s a microcosm of what the Bush administration has done for six plus years now: doing everything possible to allow corporations to run unchecked over the world’s citizens. The administration itself is nothing more than the logical endpoint of Applied Thuggery 101. Gather power upwards, shift blame away.
When the U.S. military invaded and occupied Iraq in early 2003, there was no question who would be in charge of security for the official civilians pouring in to remake the country. Under an executive order signed by Bush, the Coalition Provisional Authority and its head, L. Paul Bremer, reported directly to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. But as U.S. troops became preoccupied with a growing insurgency, the Pentagon hired Blackwater to provide protection for Bremer and other civilians.
The next year, as the United States prepared to return sovereignty to the Iraqis and the State Department began planning an embassy in Baghdad, Rumsfeld lost a bid to retain control over the full U.S. effort, including billions of dollars in reconstruction funds. A new executive order, signed in January 2004, gave State authority over all but military operations. Rumsfeld’s revenge, at least in the view of many State officials, was to withdraw all but minimal assistance for diplomatic security.
“It was the view of Donald Rumsfeld and [then-Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz that this wasn’t their problem,” said a former senior State Department official. Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats.
Despite the tension, many at State acknowledged the Pentagon’s point that soldiers were not trained as personal protectors. Others worried that surrounding civilian officials with helmets and Humvees would undermine the message of friendly democracy they were trying to instill in Iraq.
So really, all this was Rummy and Wolfowitz’s fault. They wouldn’t let our brave soldiers protect the State Department, so they just had to resort to using those PMC guys. How convenient for the current SecDef.
“It was a question of, ‘Do you want uniforms?’ ” the senior DS official said. ” ‘Should the military be doing that kind of work?’ “
It was clear that the mission was beyond DS capabilities, and as the mid-2004 embassy opening approached, “we had to decide what we were going to do,” the former State Department official said. “We had to get jobs done, and to do that we had to have some protection.”
State chose the most expedient solution: Take over the Pentagon’s personal security contract with Blackwater and extend it for a year. “Yes, it was a sole-source contract” justified by “urgent and compelling reasons,” said William Moser, the deputy assistant secretary of state for logistics management, in recent congressional testimony. Midway through the contract, Moser said, an independent audit forced Blackwater’s $140 million proposal down to $106 million.
The senior DS official rejected congressional suggestions that Blackwater’s Republican political contacts and campaign contributions influenced its selection. “I’ll stack our procurement office against anybody else’s,” he said. “Particularly DOD’s.” State officials “could care less whether [Blackwater head Erik] Prince gave money to anybody.” Blackwater was the only contractor in Iraq with helicopters, and it already had personnel and facilities in place.
When the sole-source contract expired in the summer of 2005, State invited bids on a massive “worldwide personal protection services” contract to put its operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere under one umbrella. Blackwater formed a consortium with U.S. firms DynCorp and Triple Canopy, and the group won a multiyear, $1.2 billion agreement.
Under the individual task orders that only the three are eligible to bid on, DynCorp provides personal security in northern Iraq, and Triple Canopy in the south. Blackwater covers Baghdad and Hilla, and has by far the largest share of the $520 million that State spends annually on contract security in Iraq.
And of course the State Department thought it worked so darn well that they just had to expand the contract into a billion dollar mercenary operation. Really…this is all Condi’s fault too.
Blame blame blame. Nobody wants it, everybody is throwing it around, and nobody wants to be sans chair when the music stops. The Pentagon blames State. State blames the Pentagon. Pentagon then blames Blackwater. Blackwater blames State. State blames the Pentagon again.
And in the meantime, Iraqis keep dying daily, some of course to make sure US government personnel are “protected”. We’ve ruined the entire country in order to “protect” the interests of the US.
And if you don’t think the plan is to eventually start protecting US government personnel from Americans in America and bring what’s worked so well in Iraq to here…think again.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI agree that the homemade explosive devices that have wreaked havoc in Iraq pose a rising threat to the United States. But lawmakers and first responders say the Bush administration has been slow to devise a strategy for countering the weapons and has not provided adequate money and training for a concerted national effort.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who told the Senate last month that such bombs are terrorists’ “weapon of choice,” said yesterday at a local meeting that President Bush will soon issue a blueprint for countering the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Chertoff’s department said in a draft report on IEDs earlier this year that national efforts “lack strategic guidance, are sometimes insufficiently coordinated . . . and lack essential resources.”
Among the shortcomings identified in the report: Explosives-sniffing dogs are trained differently by various federal agencies, making collaboration between squads “difficult if not impossible.” Federal agencies maintain separate databases on bomb incidents. Separately, bomb squad commanders have complained of inadequate training for responding to truck bombs.
Local officials say preparedness efforts around the country remain a patchwork. For instance, the Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb squad, which responds to about 1,000 calls a year, has 28 full-time explosives technicians and is about to move into a new, $8 million downtown headquarters. The squad has an explosives library, a research facility for testing and access to an explosives range for training.
In contrast, the D.C. police bomb squad’s 10 technicians handle about 700 calls a year, but they are housed in portable trailers and must also perform crime patrols. Among the six U.S. metropolitan regions considered top terrorist targets, only the Washington area has not earned the top rating of the DHS three-level scoring system for bomb squads. Regional officials recently decided to spend $7 million in federal grants to buy equipment to lift that rating.
Gosh, I wonder who the Federal government is going to turn to in order to “protect” America from all those IEDs that we’re all potentially capable of threatening the country with? I’m sure we’ll be protected from IEDs soon by companies like Blackwater, because of course our soldiers will be just too busy in Iraq (and Iran).
We’ll be protected from IEDs just like the Iraqis.
