[NYTr] Murderous Mercs: Warnings about Blackwater Unheeded

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Washington Post via MSNBC - Dec 24, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22383265/

Warnings about Blackwater unheeded

Despite shootings, security companies expanded their presence in Iraq

By Steve Fainaru
The Washington Post

The U.S. government disregarded numerous warnings over the past two
years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private
security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of
shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little
regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private
security firms and documents.

The warnings were conveyed in letters and memorandums from defense and
legal experts and in high-level discussions between U.S. and Iraqi
officials. They reflected growing concern about the lack of control
over the tens of thousands of private guards in Iraq, the largest
private security force ever employed by the United States in wartime.

Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department took substantive action
to regulate private security companies until Blackwater guards opened
fire Sept. 16 at a Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 Iraqi civilians
and provoking protests over the role of security contractors in Iraq.

"Why is it they couldn't see this coming?" said Christopher Beese,
chief administrative officer for ArmorGroup International, a British
security firm with extensive operations in Iraq. "That amazes me.
Somebody -- it could have been military officers, it could have been
State -- anybody could have waved a flag and said, 'Stop, this is not
good news for us.' "

Filling a vacuum

Private security firms rushed into Iraq after the March 2003 invasion.
The U.S. military, which entered the country with 130,000 troops,
needed additional manpower to protect supply convoys, military
installations and diplomats. Private security companies appeared "like
mushrooms after a rainstorm," recalled Michael J. Arrighi, who has
worked in private security in Iraq since 2004.

Last year, the Pentagon estimated that 20,000 hired guns worked in
Iraq; the Government Accountability Office estimated 48,000.

On Feb. 7, 2006, Blackwater guards allegedly killed three Kurdish
civilians outside the northern city of Kirkuk. That incident triggered
demonstrations outside the U.S. Consulate and led Rizgar Ali, president
of the Kirkuk provincial council, to complain to U.S. authorities in
Kirkuk and Baghdad, Ali said in an interview. The incident was one of
several shootings that caused friction between the U.S. and Iraqi
governments..

On Christmas Eve 2006, a Blackwater employee killed the bodyguard of an
Iraqi vice president in the Green Zone. Six weeks later, a Blackwater
sniper killed three security guards for the state-run media network. On
May 24, a Blackwater team shot and killed a civilian driver outside the
Interior Ministry gates, sparking an armed standoff between the
Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces in downtown Baghdad.

By June 6, concerns about Blackwater had reached Iraq's National
Intelligence Committee, which included senior Iraqi and U.S.
intelligence officials, including Maj. Gen. David B. Lacquement, the
Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence. Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal,
who heads the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, called on
U.S. authorities to crack down on private security companies.

‘We set this thing up for failure’

U.S. military officials told Kamal that Blackwater was under State
Department authority and outside their control, according to notes of
the meeting. The matter was dropped.

"We set this thing up for failure from the beginning," said T.X.
Hammes, a retired Marine colonel who advised the new Iraqi army from
January to March 2004. He added that private security guards regularly
infuriated his Iraqi staff with their aggressive tactics and that he
reported the problems "up the chain of command."

"We're just sorting it out now," Hammes said. "I still think, from a
pure counterinsurgency standpoint, armed contractors are an inherently
bad idea, because you cannot control the quality, you cannot control
the action on the ground, but you're held responsible for everything
they do."

U.S. officials argue that security contractors save money and free up
troops for more urgent tasks, such as fighting insurgents. "Certainly
there have been moments of frustration where people here have said,
'Maybe we should just take over the whole operation, even if it
stretches our forces more,' " Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morell said.
"But the reality is that we think our resources are better utilized
taking it to the bad guys than guarding warehouses and escorting
convoys."

The State Department investigated previous Blackwater shootings and
found no indication of wrongdoing, according to a senior official
involved in security matters. He said the U.S. Embassy discussed any
concerns the Iraqi government had about the company's conduct. "I'm not
aware of the significant warnings," said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of ongoing investigations related to the
Sept. 16 shooting.

‘Much confusion’ over oversight

The Defense Department has paid $2.7 billion for private security since
2003, according to USA Spending, a government-funded project that
tracks contracting expenditures; the military said it currently employs
17 companies in Iraq under contracts worth $689.7 million. The State
Department has paid $2.4 billion for private security in Iraq --
including $1 billion to Blackwater -- since 2003, USA Spending figures
show.

On Dec. 5, the State and Defense departments signed a memorandum of
agreement designed to increase cooperation between the two and better
define their authority over private security contractors. The nine-page
agreement, which was approved by Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador
to Iraq, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces
there, for the first time set common guidelines for reporting serious
incidents, the use of deadly force, coordination on the battlefield and
possession of firearms.

But the laws governing security contractors still have not been
clarified. On Oct. 17, 2006, Congress passed a provision aimed at
giving the military authority over all contractors in Iraq, including
Blackwater. But the provision has not been implemented by the Pentagon.
The 14-month delay "has led to much confusion over who will be
covered . . . and has called into question whether the Department plans
to utilize this provision," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen.
John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who sponsored the provision, wrote in a letter
to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates shortly after the Sept. 16
incident.

The Pentagon is studying whether the provision can withstand legal
scrutiny, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Contractors in combat

In previous wars, the Pentagon had prohibited contractors from
participating in combat. But in Iraq, military planners rewrote the
policy to match the reality on the ground. On Sept. 20, 2005, the
military issued an order authorizing contractors to use deadly force to
protect people and assets. In June 2006, the order was codified as an
"interim rule" in the Federal Register. It took effect immediately
without public debate.

Critics, including the American Bar Association and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, warned that the Pentagon had used an obscure defense
acquisition rule to push through a fundamental shift in American
war-fighting without fully considering the potential legal and
strategic ramifications.

The provision enabled the military to significantly raise troop levels
with contractors whose "combat roles now closely parallel those of
Constitutionally and Congressionally authorized forces," wrote Herbert
L. Fenster, a partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge, a Washington-based
international law firm that represents several major defense
contractors. Fenster questioned the provision's legality in a lengthy
comment he filed in opposition. The practice "smacks of a mercenary
approach," he wrote in an e-mail.

But neither the military nor the State Department set guidelines for
regulating tens of thousands of hired guns on the battlefield.
Oversight was left to overburdened government contracting officers or
the companies themselves, which conducted their own investigations when
a shooting incident occurred. Dozens of security companies operated
under layers of subcontracts that often made their activities all but
impossible to track. They were accountable to no one for violent
incidents, according to U.S. officials and security company
representatives familiar with the contracting arrangements.

Trade group wrote the rules

U.S. officials often turned to the Private Security Company Association
of Iraq, a trade group funded by the security companies. Lawrence T.
Peter, a retired Navy intelligence officer, served as the association's
director while also working as a consultant to the Pentagon's Defense
Reconstruction Support Office, which administers contracts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said Peter earned "a few
thousand dollars a year" as a consultant.

The association operated out of an office inside the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Logistics Directorate in the Green Zone. Jack Holly, a
retired Marine colonel who heads corps logistics in Iraq, said that
Peter and the association play "a critical role to help the private
security community improve and regulate itself," adding, "They tried to
fill a void that had been left by the U.S. government's failure to
recognize the problem."

"The department didn't see him as an advocate" for the security
industry, Whitman said, referring to Peter. "They saw him as a conduit
for information to understand the role of private security contractors
in the reconstruction process."

But others saw a conflict of interest. "It violates all the best
lessons of what goes into good policy and smart business," said Peter
W. Singer, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who has written a book
on private security. "You do not hand over these questions to parties
that are not merely mildly interested but they're the ones you are
seeking to regulate."

The association sometimes resisted regulation. Earlier this year, Peter
opposed the military's efforts to enforce orders requiring private
security firms to obtain formal weapons permits from the Iraqi
government, arguing that the authorization process was unworkable.
Peter did not return messages seeking comment. His deputy, H.C.
Lawrence Smith, said during an interview in Baghdad this year that the
association sometimes helped the military in "writing the language in
contracts relating to the role that private security companies play. We
don't care what the contract is about, as long as the companies are
treated fairly."

Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees Pentagon contracting in Iraq
and Afghanistan, said the association had never "provided any input on
contract language." He said he viewed it as a trade group that made
unsolicited comments on policy on behalf of its membership. To employ
Peter as a consultant, Scott said, "wouldn't be proper."

Fury and frustration

On June 27, 2004, one day before he left Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer,
administrator of the now-defunct U.S. occupation government, signed CPA
Order 17, a decree granting contractors immunity from Iraqi law.

Two years later, Matthew Degn, a then-36-year-old civilian contractor
from Seattle, arrived in Baghdad as a senior policy adviser to the
Interior Ministry. One of his assignments was to help the Iraqis
regulate private security. He started by reading CPA Order 17.

Degn, a no-nonsense Army veteran who had taught national security and
terrorism studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, offered a
blunt assessment of the document. "You have no power," he told Iraqi
officials.

Hostility toward Blackwater was already high in the Interior Ministry,
which was dominated by Shiite militias. The February 2006 shooting
incident in Kirkuk had damaged U.S.-Iraqi relations in the area,
leaving the Americans "hated and ostracized," according to Ali, the
provincial council president.

Ali said he "sent official letters to the American and the British
consulates and met them in my office to find out who the murderers
were. They didn't do anything or give me clear answers. They only said,
'The ones who did it were from the Blackwater company.' "

A Blackwater spokeswoman did not respond to e-mails or phone messages
seeking comment. U.S. officials said they could not recall the incident.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., was founded in 1996 by a former Navy
SEAL, Erik Prince. In Iraq, the company protects the U.S. ambassador
and other diplomats. Blackwater has lost 25 employees in Iraq,
according to Labor Department figures based on insurance claims. The
firm says no one under its protection has been killed.

Reputation for aggressive tactics

The State Department's reliance on Blackwater expanded dramatically in
2006, when together with the U.S. firms DynCorp and Triple Canopy it
won a new, multiyear contract worth $3.6 billion. Blackwater's share
was $1.2 billion, up from $488 million, and the company more than
doubled its staff, from 482 to 1,082. From January 2006 to April 2007,
the State Department paid Blackwater at least $601 million in 38
transactions, according to government data.

The company developed a reputation for aggressive street tactics. Even
inside the fortified Green Zone, Blackwater guards were known for
running vehicles off the road and pointing their weapons at bystanders,
according to several security company representatives and U.S.
officials.

"They're universally despised in the" Green Zone, said Arrighi, who has
managed security for several companies since 2004. "That's not an
overstatement. 'Universally despised' is probably a kind way to put it."

The Iraqis' fury grew as they realized that Blackwater was untouchable,
Degn said. After the May 24 shooting of a civilian Iraqi driver outside
the Interior Ministry gates, Blackwater guards refused to divulge their
names or details of the incident to the Iraqi authorities. Degn, who
was working in the ministry at the time, recalled that the Iraqis were
outraged and the American advisers felt threatened.

"After that day, people looked at us a little different," Degn said.
"There was a palpable feeling. . . . We knew that something monumental
had happened, that we were in deep water. And we felt like we weren't
getting anything done. We were going up and coming down, but they
weren't listening to a darn thing we were saying."

The State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said
Blackwater became synonymous with private security, "like Kleenex or
Reynolds Wrap" being used to describe generic products, and was blamed
for incidents even when it wasn't involved. He said the shootings
should be viewed in the context of the several thousand missions that
Blackwater conducted safely on Baghdad's dangerous streets.

On June 6, Kamal, the deputy minister, brought up the issue of
Blackwater before the National Intelligence Committee. The committee's
weekly meetings at the Iraqi parliament were headed by Mowaffak
al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, and attended by several
U.S. officials, including Lacquement, the Army's deputy chief of staff
for intelligence.

Firm’s tactics at odds with U.S. mission?

A spokesman for Lacquement, who is now commander of the Army
Intelligence and Security Command, said that for "reasons of
classification and security," he could not address whether Blackwater
was discussed.

"Clearly the overall philosophy and tactics of Blackwater were not in
keeping with winning hearts and minds," said a senior defense official
involved in private security policy. The company's aggressive tactics
provoked widespread frustration among U.S. commanders in Iraq, but the
complaints "never got out of the brigade level" until after the Sept.
16 incident, he said.

Kamal's pleas to do something about the private security firms went
nowhere. "Kamal was ballistic," Degn said. The May 24 shooting "had
happened right on Interior Ministry grounds. That's what made it so
explosive. But once again, the Americans blew it off, so where are you
going to take it after that?"

Degn said he was also frustrated. "We sent many memos up the chain of
command," he said. "I thought it was a huge issue. The coalition knew
about it, but it was just another part of the war, so nothing was ever
done. I felt it was completely ignored."

"I mean, how many of these incidents does it take before you're finally
aware?" Degn added.

‘An interesting question’

In the spring of 2005, while on a one-year tour in Baghdad, Army Maj.
Robert Bateman watched a Blackwater convoy barrel through a congested
traffic circle, indiscriminately firing warning shots. Bateman, who
frequently writes and blogs on military issues, described what he saw
to his fiancee, Kate Turner, a first-year graduate student at Johns
Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies.

On Dec. 5 that year, Turner decided to ask Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, who was visiting Johns Hopkins, what laws governed security
contractors in Iraq.

"Iraq's a sovereign country. They have their laws, and they're going to
govern," Rumsfeld replied.

Four months later, Turner raised the issue with President Bush when he
visited the school.

"I asked your secretary of defense a couple months ago what law governs
their actions," Turner said, according to a transcript of the exchange.

"I was going to ask him," the president responded, drawing laughter as
he issued a mock entreaty. "Go ahead. Help."

"Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he
assumed applied to those private military contractors," Turner said.
"However, Iraq is clearly not capable of enforcing its laws. I would
submit to you that this is one case that privatization is not a
solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private
military contractors under a system of law?"

"I wasn't kidding. I was going to pick up the phone and say, 'Mr.
Secretary, I've got an interesting question,' " Bush replied. "I don't
mean to be dodging the questions, although it's kind of convenient in
this case."

Turner received a letter two weeks later from the Pentagon's Office of
General Counsel. It directly contradicted Rumsfeld: "Contractors
are . . . subject to oversight and accountability for their actions on
the basis of U.S. law and regulation."

To date, not a single case has been brought against a private security
contractor in Iraq. "The reality is the military has not had any
oversight on this issue until recently," Arrighi said. "We could hire
the Rockettes and give them guns, and they wouldn't know. It was a
total wasteland."


[Special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and staff researcher
Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.]

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