Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

by Jeremy Scahill

  Despite Maliki’s wavering, back in Baghdad there seemed to be great and genuine determination to bring the perpetrators of the Nisour Square slaughter to justice. An investigative team made up of officials from Iraq’s Interior, National Security, and Defense ministries said in a preliminary report that “the murder of citizens in cold blood in the Nisour area by Blackwater is considered a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operation.”85 But, as with other deadly incidents, Iraqi investigators claimed that they had received little or no information from the U.S. government and were being denied access to the Blackwater operatives involved in the shootings. A U.S. official appeared to dismiss the validity of the Iraqi investigation, telling the New York Times, “There is only the joint investigation that we have with the Iraqis.”86

  Still, Iraqi officials announced their intent to bring criminal charges against the Blackwater forces involved in the shooting, and the Iraqi ministries’ report stated, “The criminals will be referred to the Iraqi court system.”87 Abdul Sattar Ghafour Bairaqdar, a member of Iraq’s Supreme Judiciary Council, the country’s highest court, declared, “This company is subject to Iraqi law, and the crime committed was on Iraqi territory, and the Iraqi judiciary is responsible for tackling the case.”88

  Unfortunately, things were not quite so simple.

  On June 27, 2004, the day before Bremer skulked out of Baghdad, he issued a decree known as Order 17.89 This directive granted sweeping immunity to private contractors working for the United States in Iraq, effectively barring the Iraqi government from prosecuting contractor crimes in domestic courts. The timing was curious, given that Bremer was leaving after allegedly “handing over sovereignty” to the Iraqi government. The immunity conferred by Order 17 continues to this day and was firmly in effect at the time of Nisour Square. Industry representatives and U.S. officials have long argued that Iraq does not have a fair and stable judiciary system in place to handle prosecutions of foreign private contractors. Regardless of the legitimacy of that claim, if the United States took contractor crimes seriously, it would have pursued avenues of alternative prosecution or sanction of alleged killers—if for no other reason than to show the Iraqis that the United States would not simply shrug off their concern and outrage. But the fact is that not a single armed contractor, for Blackwater or any other firm, has ever been charged in any court anywhere with any crime against an Iraqi. As a result, these forces operate in a climate of total impunity, which some observers allege is deliberate and serves a larger purpose for the occupation. “The fact that they have immunity means that there is not even the possibility of them fearing any consequences for acts of killing and brutalization,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “None of this is by chance; their very purpose is to brutalize and strike fear into the people of Iraq.”90

  At the time of the Nisour Square shooting, Blackwater was one of more than 170 mercenary firms offering their services in Iraq. While it was viewed widely as the most elite of these companies, there were two U.S. competitors, DynCorp and Triple Canopy, that would gladly have stepped in to fill its shoes in one of the most lucrative private security contracts in modern history. But what happened behind the scenes in the days and weeks after September 16 spoke volumes as to how deeply embedded Blackwater was in the occupation apparatus and how important Erik Prince’s company had become to the White House. Blackwater “has a client who will support them no matter what they do,” H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the industry-funded Private Security Company Association of Iraq, told the Washington Post shortly after Nisour Square.91

  The dirty open secret in Washington was that Blackwater had done its job in Iraq: to keep the most hated U.S. occupation officials alive by any means necessary. “What they told me was, ‘Our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad,’” recalled former U.S. occupation adviser Ann Exline Starr, who was protected in Iraq by both Blackwater and DynCorp.92 This “mission” encouraged conduct that placed U.S. lives at an infinitely higher premium than those of Iraqi civilians, even in cases where the only Iraqi crime was driving too close to a VIP convoy protected by Blackwater guards. “Those guys guard my back,” Ambassador Ryan Crocker said shortly after Nisour Square. “And I have to say they do it extremely well. I continue to have high regard for the individuals who work for Blackwater.”93 He was hardly alone in coming to the company’s defense. “Zero individuals that Blackwater has protected have been killed” in Iraq, said Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry, who represents Blackwater’s home state of North Carolina. “That is, I think, the operable number here.”94 “That’s a perfect record,” said Connecticut Republican Chris Shays, asserting Blackwater didn’t “get any credit for it for some reason.”95

  As media scrutiny of the Nisour Square shootings intensified and Congressional Democrats woke up to the activities of Blackwater in Iraq, it appeared for a moment as though the company’s days in Iraq were numbered. Even on a practical level, U.S. officials had to be concerned at the prospect of Washington’s bodyguards becoming greater targets than the personnel they were tasked with keeping alive.

  A few days after Nisour Square, another scandal involving Blackwater erupted, this one centered in Washington and highlighting the close relationship between the company and the Bush administration. Allegations surfaced that weapons brought into Iraq by Blackwater may have ended up in the hands of the Kurdish militant group the PKK, which is designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department.96 According to a September 18 letter sent by Representative Henry Waxman to State Department Inspector General Howard “Cookie” Krongard, a federal investigation into whether Blackwater “was illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq” was obstructed by Krongard, who, Waxman charged, was a “partisan” operative with close ties to the Bush administration.97

  Waxman cited a July 2007 e-mail from Krongard in which he ordered his staff to “stop IMMEDIATELY” cooperating with the federal prosecutor investigating Blackwater until Krongard himself could speak to him. Waxman said Krongard’s actions had caused “weeks of delay” and that by subsequently assigning a media relations staffer instead of an investigator to aid the prosecutor, Krongard had “impeded the investigation.”98 It was later revealed that Krongard’s brother, Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, had accepted a position as a paid adviser to Blackwater, a position from which he resigned after Waxman’s committee exposed it. 99 (As discussed in Chapter 3, Alvin Krongard, who served as the number-three man at the CIA, was a player in helping Blackwater win its first private security contract in Afghanistan in 2002.) Howard Krongard subsequently resigned from his State Department post in late 2007.100 Blackwater, for its part, denied that it was “in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities” and said it was cooperating in the federal investigation.101

  While Blackwater got hammered for these scandals in the media, behind the scenes, a series of events was unfolding that reeked of a major-league cover-up of the Nisour Square massacre, an effort that appeared to emanate from some of the highest levels of power in Washington. As Waxman prepared for Erik Prince’s October trip to Capitol Hill, he discovered that after the shooting, the State Department had ordered Blackwater “to make no disclosure of the documents or information” regarding its Iraq security contract without written authorization.102 Waxman protested to Rice, saying Congress had a “constitutional prerogative” to investigate Blackwater and telling her, “You are wrong to interfere with the committee’s inquiry.”103 Under fire, the State Department shifted its position the day Waxman wrote to Rice, saying that the restriction applied only to classified information.104

  Unlike many private companies working for the occupation in Iraq, Blackwater reported directly to the White House, not to the military. They “are really an arm of the administration and its policies,” charged Kucinich.105 Both Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker made clear that withou
t Blackwater and its ilk, the occupation would not be tenable. “I have a great deal of respect for their work,” said Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who was guarded by Blackwater during his time in Iraq. Blackwater, he said, “kept me safe—to get my job done.” Without them, he said, “the civilians of the Department of State would not be able to carry out our critical responsibilities in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.”106 Nicholas Burns, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said, “We have lots of people in Baghdad, it’s our largest embassy in the world, and they have to be well protected.”107

  While George W. Bush had, at times, displayed a willingness to throw his allies overboard when his own survival—or that of his pet policies—was on the line, Blackwater would not join Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet in the open waters of collateral damage. “Blackwater provides a valuable service,” Bush said after the Nisour Square massacre. “They protect people’s lives. And I appreciate the sacrifice and the service that the Blackwater employees have made.”108 What was probably dawning on members of the Bush administration at this point was that, like it or not, they needed Blackwater. Even if it was politically expedient to let them go, the occupation of Iraq would have been practically impossible to carry on without them. The company and its ilk had become that integral to the military operations of the United States.

  Prince of the Hill

  The first time Erik Prince was summoned to appear before Congress to answer questions about Blackwater’s activities, in February 2007, he sent his lawyer. That was before most people had ever heard of his company. After Nisour Square, he had no choice but to show up in person. On October 2, 2007, the world would meet Mr. Prince.109 Security was heavy inside the Committee room, and a line of would-be spectators and journalists stretched through the corridors of the Rayburn building. Many would be corralled into an overflow room, but most remained in the halls. Only a few dozen people were permitted to witness the event in person, among them the family members of Blackwater operatives killed in Fallujah, who were suing Blackwater for wrongful death. The entire seating section behind the leather chair where Prince would sit was blocked off with signs that read, “Reserved for Blackwater USA.” Several of those chairs would remain empty for the duration of the hearing.

  Prince arrived surrounded by lawyers and advisers, including Barbara Comstock, a veteran Republican operative and crisis communications expert, and a number of senior Blackwater executives, among them Prince’s right-hand men, vice president Bill Matthews and president Gary Jackson. Prince’s consigliere would repeatedly interrupt the proceedings to huddle the advisers around the Blackwater chief like a sports team plotting its next play. In preparation for his appearance that day, Prince’s lawyers had enlisted the services of BKSH, the political consulting arm of Burson-Marsteller, a PR giant controlled by one of the barons of spin, Mark Penn.110 It was an interesting choice, given that Penn was Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, a man some observers have called “Hillary’s Rove.” Perhaps more telling was the fact that BKSH was led by Charles Black Jr., an adviser to both presidents Bush.111

  What put Prince in the hot seat was undoubtedly Nisour Square. But amazingly, Prince would face no questions about that incident. On the eve of the hearing, Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department announced it had launched a criminal investigation into the incident. Waxman said the Justice Department had asked him not to take testimony on the shootings to avoid tainting the investigation. Although Waxman asserted Congress “has an independent right to this information,” he nonetheless agreed to keep it off the table. The timing of the Bush administration’s announcement to investigate—a full two weeks after the alleged crime was committed and on the eve of the appearance of the man in charge of the alleged perpetrators—was suspect, to say the least.

  Waxman banged his gavel and brought the meeting to order. “Over the past twenty-five years, a sophisticated campaign has been waged to privatize government services,” he declared. “The theory is that corporations can deliver government services better and at a lower cost than the government can. Over the last six years, this theory has been put into practice. The result is that privatization has exploded.”

  “There may be no federal contractor in America that has grown more rapidly than Blackwater over the last seven years,” Waxman said at the hearing’s onset. “In 2000, Blackwater had just $204,000 in government contracts. Since then, it has received over $1 billion in federal contracts. More than half of these contracts were awarded without full and open competition. Privatizing is working exceptionally well for Blackwater. The question for this hearing is whether outsourcing to Blackwater is a good deal for American taxpayers, the military, and our national interest in Iraq.”

  After opening statements, Erik Prince stood before the committee, raised his right hand, and vowed to tell the truth. Prince painted a picture of his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military whose men “play defense” in a dangerous war zone where they “bleed red, white, and blue” as they heroically protect “reconstruction officials” trying to “weave the fabric of Iraq back together, to get them away from that X, the place where the bad guys, the terrorists, have decided to kill them that day.” He used the phrase “bad guys” at least nine times during his testimony, at one point declaring, “The bad guys have figured out killing Americans is big media, I think. They are trying to drive us out. They try to drive to the heart of American resolve and will to stay there.”

  During nearly four hours of testimony and questioning, Prince boldly declared that in Iraq his men have acted “appropriately at all times” and denied the company had ever killed innocent civilians. His hand never trembled, and he showed no sign of breaking a sweat. To say he was cool under fire would be an understatement. Prince was defiant.

  “You do admit that Blackwater personnel have shot and killed innocent civilians, don’t you?” Illinois Democrat Danny Davis asked Prince.

  “No, sir. I disagree with that,” Prince shot back. “I think there’s been times when guys are using defensive force to protect themselves, to protect the packages, trying to get away from danger. There could be ricochets, there are traffic accidents, yes. This is war.”

  Prince added smugly, “We do not have the luxury of staying behind to do that terrorist crime-scene investigation to figure out what happened.”

  The assertion by Prince that no innocents had been killed by Blackwater was simply unbelievable. And not just according to the eyewitnesses and survivors of the Nisour Square shootings and other deadly Blackwater actions. According to a report prepared by Waxman’s staff, from 2005 to the time of the hearing, Blackwater operatives in Iraq opened fire on at least 195 occasions.112 In more than 80 percent of these instances, Blackwater fired first. These statistics were based on Blackwater’s own reporting. But some alleged the company was underreporting its statistics. A former Blackwater operative who spent nearly three years in Iraq told the Washington Post his twenty-man team averaged “four or five” shootings a week—several times the rate of 1.4 incidents per week that Blackwater claimed.113 Waxman’s report also described an incident in which “Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander.”114

  Not surprisingly, Prince said he supported the continuation of Order 17 in Iraq, the Bremer-era decree immunizing forces like Blackwater from prosecution in Iraqi courts. At one point, Prince was asked whether Blackwater operated under the same “rules of engagement” as the military. “Yes, they’re essentially the same,” Prince said—before fumbling for words and admitting, “Well, well, sorry, Department of Defense rules for contractors. We do not have the same as a U.S. soldier at all.”

  The truth is that while scores of U.S. soldiers had been court-martialed on murder-related charges in Iraq, not a single Blackwater contractor had ever been charged with a crime under any legal system—U.S. civilian l
aw, military law, or Iraqi law. Prince said that Blackwater operatives who “don’t hold to the standard, they have one decision to make: window or aisle” on their return flight home. Indeed, that and being fired seem to have been the only consequences faced by Prince’s men for their actions in Iraq. In all, Blackwater had terminated more than 120 of its operatives in Iraq—more than one-seventh of its deployment at the time of the hearing.115

  On this point, the committee focused on one incident at length: the Christmas Eve killing of the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice president. Prince confirmed that Blackwater had whisked him out of Iraq and fired him, and said the company had fined him and then billed the man for his return plane ticket. Prince said he did not know if the man had been charged with any crime (he hadn’t). “If he lived in America, he would have been arrested, and he would be facing criminal charges,” Democrat Carolyn Maloney told Prince. “If he was a member of our military, he would be under a court-martial. But it appears to me that Blackwater has special rules.” Prince said, “As a private organization, we can’t do any more. We can’t flog him, we can’t incarcerate him.” Maloney told Prince, “Well, in America, if you committed a crime, you don’t pack them up and ship them out of the country in two days.”