Iraq plans raids on US backed 'beyond the law private security firms'

The Iraqi Interior Minister showing his resolve, will take risky actions against US sponsored terrorist also known as `beyond the law private security firms'.

His plan is to `raid' these firms to see if they are complying with new gun registration laws. The operative word being `raid.' The question of how many American lives will be lost, might be the point the the Interior Minister wants to get across to the American public - for undoubtedly the confrontations will pit American soldiers against American contractors.

The US leadership in Iraq blundered when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the American commander in Iraq, was in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces and `lost' 190,000 fire arms. Maybe they ended up free of charge in the hands of the contractors? With the missing millions?

The Iraqi leadership's goal of `gun control' through registration seems a smart move, but `raiding' the lawless Western contractors- or even just threatening to do so, is not. The contractors should be removed, and reparations should be made for their bad behavior.




November 8, 2007
Iraq Plans to Confront Security Firms on Guns
By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — The Iraqi interior minister said Wednesday that he would authorize raids by his security forces on Western security firms to ensure that they were complying with tightened licensing requirements on guns and other weaponry, setting up the possibility of violent confrontations between the Iraqis and heavily armed Western guards.

The tightening of the requirements followed a shooting in September by one of those firms, Blackwater, that Iraqi authorities said left 17 Iraqis dead.

“Every company will be subject to such examination, and any company that does not follow the law will lose its license,” the minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said of the planned raids. “They are called security companies. They are not called violate-the-law companies.”

During a tour of the Interior Ministry compound in eastern Baghdad, Iraqi government officials also said for the first time that they accepted estimates by American oversight officials that some 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles supplied by the United States to Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005 were unaccounted for.

Iraqi officials have created an elaborate computerized database to help recover the weapons and ensure that no more are lost, and officials took great pains on Wednesday to show the system to this reporter and his interpreter.

“We have 190,000 lost weapons because they were not distributed properly,” said Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman. “So we built this database.”



Many of those weapons were distributed when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the American commander in Iraq, was in charge of training and equipping Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. General Petraeus has said that he decided to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as possible, before tracking systems were fully in place.

On Wednesday, Iraqi officials delicately placed blame for the loss of the weapons on the American military, saying that it had been impossible for the Iraqis to account for the weapons when they were not given necessary tracking information, such as serial numbers.

Within Baghdad’s relatively safe and heavily guarded Green Zone, there have been early indications of a battle over who controls Iraqi streets. Private security guards say that Iraqi police officers have already descended on Western compounds and stopped vehicles driven by Westerners to check for weapons violations in recent weeks.



Any extension of those measures into the rest of the country, known as the Red Zone, could quickly turn into armed confrontation. Westerners are wary of Interior Ministry checkpoints, some of which have been fake, as well as of ministry units, which are sometimes militia-controlled and have been implicated in sectarian killings. Western convoys routinely have to choose between the risk of stopping and the risk of accelerating past what appear to be official Iraqi forces.

And because Western convoys run by private security companies are often protecting senior American civilian and military officials, the Iraqi government’s struggle with the companies has in some cases become a sort of proxy tug-of-war with the United States.

That dynamic was laid bare in the weeks immediately after the shooting on Sept. 16 in Nisour Square in Baghdad. The Iraqi government at first suggested that it would ban Blackwater, which has a contract to protect American diplomats, from working in Iraq. But the government was embarrassed when it discovered that its legal options were limited, and the United States — after placing a few new restrictions on the company — quickly sent it back onto the streets.

Based on its own investigation, the Iraqi government has concluded that the Blackwater guards who opened fire committed murder. An American investigation led by the F.B.I. has not yet publicly announced any results.

The outlines of a struggle for primacy on the streets also seem apparent in what the Interior Ministry says is a decision to insist that weapons carried by members of Shiite-controlled militias that protect certain neighborhoods must also be registered. Asked about the vast areas of Baghdad patrolled by the powerful Mahdi Army, which was founded by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, General Khalaf said that it too would be challenged.




“In the near future there is a campaign that will happen,” General Khalaf said. “We are delaying this campaign until we finish this database.”

Privately, Interior Ministry officials say that they had been surprised that the Iraqi investigators’ findings of culpability by the Blackwater guards had found such a sympathetic hearing elsewhere in the world, where for years there had been questions about the loyalties and capability of Interior Ministry officials.

In one sense, by emphasizing the new steps it is taking to control weapons, the Interior Ministry seems determined to leverage the respect shown for its investigators in such a high-profile case into an improved image over all. The strategy appears to be to concede that both American and Iraqi security forces have made mistakes in the past but that both were taking steps to put those problems behind them.

During one remarkable session on Wednesday, an administrative official at the ministry said that it had had problems with “ghost payrollers,” or fictitious employees, and political pressure in the past. But the official, Maj. Gen. Jihan Hussein, said that the ministry was squarely facing those problems.

“If you knew the pressures we have from members of Parliament to have their relatives employed by the ministry, you wouldn’t believe it,” General Hussein said.

But he said the ministry would not bow to those pressures. In a similar vein, Mr. Bolani said that the ministry’s strict new approach to weapons licenses would try to redress past mistakes.

And Mr. Bolani said he believed that legal action against Blackwater in Iraq was still possible in spite of immunity given to Western security contractors under Iraqi law. He said that third parties like nongovernmental organizations or the Iraqi Bar Association could bring suits on behalf of the victims of the Sept. 16 shootings.

“We are fully aware that the people must be given their rights, and there are cases that will be brought against the criminals,” Mr. Bolani said.

Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting.

Iraq strikes back at US Merceneries- Blackwater

Iraq wants Blackwater out; may put men on trial

By STEVEN R. HURST and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

Iraq : US must stop ussing Blackwater

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month.

Iraqi Report

"The investigation committee appointed by [Mr Maliki] has finished its inquiry and has found that there was no evidence that the convoy of Blackwater came under fire directly or indirectly," a Government statement said, quoting the inquiry's findings. "Employees of the company violated the rules governing use of force by security companies. They have committed a deliberate crime and should be punished under the law."

The Iraqi Government would now take "judicial measures to punish the company", the statement said.

The demands — part of an Iraqi government report examined by The Associated Press — also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

The tone of the Iraqi report appears to signal further strains between the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the White House over the deaths in Nisoor Square — which have prompted a series of U.S. and Iraqi probes and raised questions over the use of private security contractors to guard U.S. diplomats and other officials.



Al-Maliki ordered the investigation by his defense minister and other top security and police officials on Sept. 22. The findings — which were translated from Arabic by AP — mark the most definitive Iraqi positions and contentions about the shootings last month.

The report also highlights the differences in death tolls and accounts that have complicated efforts to piece together the chain of events as one Blackwater-protected convoy raced back toward Baghdad's Green Zone after a nearby bombing, while a second back-up team in four gun trucks sped into the square as a back-up team.

The Iraqi investigation — first outlined Thursday by The Associated Press — charges the four Blackwater vehicles called to the square began shooting without provocation. Blackwater contends its employees came under fire first.

The government, at the conclusion of its investigation, said 17 Iraqis died. Initial reports put the toll at 11.

The report found that Blackwater guards also had killed 21 Iraqi civilians and wounded 27 in previous shootings since it took over security for US diplomats in Baghdad after the US invasion.

It said the compensation — totaling $136 million — was so high "because Blackwater uses employees who disrespect the rights of Iraqi citizens even though they are guests in this country."

The U.S. military pays compensation money to the families of civilians killed in battles or to cover property damage, but at far lower amounts.

The United States has not made conclusive findings about the shooting, though there are multiple investigations under way and Congress has opened inquiries into the role of private security contractors. Last week, the FBI took over a State Department investigation, raising the prospect that it could be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.

The Iraqi government report said its courts were to proper venue in which to bring charges.

It said Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq expired on June 2, 2006, meaning it had no immunity from prosecution under Iraqi laws set down after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The government report also challenged the claim that a decree in June 2004 by then-Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer granted Blackwater immunity from legal action in incidents such as the one in Nisoor Square. The report said the Blackwater guards could be charged under a criminal code from 1969.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the diplomatic mission would have no comment on the report. Iraq's Interior Ministry spokesman, Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the document was in American hands.



The report found that Blackwater guards also had killed 21 Iraqi civilians and wounded 27 in previous shootings since it took over security for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion. The Iraqi government did not say whether it would try to prosecute in those cases.


The State Department has counted 56 shooting incidents involving Blackwater guards in Iraq this year. All were being reviewed as part of the comprehensive inquiry ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The US has not made conclusive findings about the shooting, though there are multiple investigations under way and Congress has opened inquiries into the role of private security contractors.

President Bush on Blackwater (video)

A flashback of Bush dodging a college freshman's question about what laws govern our mercenaries (Blackwater).

The President admits to not knowing, but assures that someone else must know.

This administration has continually sought ways to go outside of the law in programs such as Secret Prisons, Torture, Prisoner Rights and even Domestic Spying,


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Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah July 9th 2007


US Private mercenaries Mutilated in Fallujia


Video :BLACKWATER the US Secretive Mercenary Firm

Video- Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 4 of 8)

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Bush's Private Millitia Blackwater management is to blame for 2004 massacre

Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah

Military contractors write that a site manager sent four Americans on an ill-advised, fatal mission

Joseph Neff, Staff Writer

When four Blackwater USA security guards were ambushed and massacred in Fallujah in 2004, graphic images showed the world exactly what happened: four men killed, their bodies burned and dragged through the streets. A chanting mob hung two mutilated corpses from a bridge.

Since then, Congress and the families of the murdered private security contractors have been demanding answers: Why did the lightly armed and undermanned team go through the heart of one of Iraq's most hostile cities? Why did the two teams sent out that day have four members, not the usual six?

Some answers can be found in memos from a second team for Blackwater operating around Fallujah on March 31, 2004.

Blackwater, based in North Carolina, sent two squads through Fallujah without maps, according to memos obtained by The News & Observer. Both of the six-man teams, named Bravo 2 and November 1, were sent out two men short, leaving them more vulnerable to ambush.

The Bravo 2 team members had protested that they were not ready for the mission and had not had time to prepare their weapons, but they were commanded to go, according to memos written by team members. The team disregarded directions to drive through Fallujah and instead drove around it and returned safely to Baghdad that evening.

The November 1 team went into Fallujah and was massacred.

The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.

"Why did we all want to kill him?" team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. "He had sent us on this [expletive] mission and over our protest. We weren't sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, he was taking 2 of our guys cutting off [our] field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut."

The memos surface amid heightened congressional scrutiny of Blackwater, a private security firm based in Moyock, and the private security industry, which grows ever more valuable to the Pentagon. Reports last week indicate that there are now more private contractors than troops operating in Iraq. Blackwater has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

The aftermath of the killings shows one difference between contractors and the military. Had an officer sent four lightly armed soldiers into Fallujah, he would likely have faced public scrutiny in the military justice system. In this case, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been trying to get documents such as these memos from Blackwater without success.

The families of the four men killed in the ambush -- Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague -- sued Blackwater in Wake County Superior Court in an effort to find out what happened. Blackwater countersued the estates of the four men in federal court, successfully arguing for arbitration, in which the proceedings are closed to the public and the investigation of the incident can be much more limited.

Powell, the site manager, left Blackwater shortly after the Fallujah incident. He will not discuss the event while litigation is pending, said his attorney, Clifford Higby of Panama City, Fla. Efforts to reach the other Blackwater contractors for comment were unsuccessful.



Blackwater, owned by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, did not respond to requests for comment starting in early June. A company lawyer, John W. Phillips of Seattle, sent a letter protesting the paper's possession of the memos and suggesting possible legal action if they were used in a news report.

Mission under protest

Team Bravo 2 arrived in Baghdad late on the night of March 30, 2004, according to the memo written by team leader Jason Shupe. The team members had just driven up from Kuwait after flying in from the United States.

At that point in the war, attacks on the U.S. military had been growing steadily. Still, aid workers and journalists could travel throughout Iraq. Today, by contrast, they are largely confined to safe zones in Baghdad.

Then, as now, the U.S. was leaning more heavily on private security contractors than in any previous war. Many of the contractors are paid far more than soldiers for their work guarding U.S. officials or, in the case of the four who were killed, empty flatbed trucks.

In a meeting held just before midnight, Powell -- the Blackwater site manager -- told Shupe that his team would likely go on a mission the next morning. Shupe protested; his team members were fighting jet lag and had not "sighted" their weapons, or adjusted the scopes so that the bullets would hit the targets sighted in the cross hairs.

The next morning, Powell said the mission was on, according to memos from three team members. Bravo 2 was ordered to go to the Jordanian border and pick up an executive for ESS, a food catering company, and escort him to Baghdad. The team would go in two vehicles, with two men in each vehicle. Two team members would stay in Baghdad.

Shupe protested, calling it "a bad idea" to send out the crew shorthanded: "Tom disregarded our concern and stated, 'The guys in Falluja only have four guys, you can do this mission with four guys.' " Shupe and the other team members were concerned that vehicles with a driver and one passenger could not protect themselves against attack from the rear.

Powell said he was keeping two men from the squad in Baghdad.

Shupe argued back, according to his memo: "I stated very sarcastically, 'you are going to split my team so you can have an admin guy and a phone watch. ... [M]y guys were fighting jet lag, we have not sighted our weapons in, we have no maps of the route, and no one is familiar with the route.' "

Powell responded: "The route is easy you just drive to Falluja, then through Fallujah to Al Ramiadia then to the boarder."

Do the job or go home

Shupe wrote that he continued to argue against the mission and noted that Blackwater's contract with ESS didn't start until April 3.

"Tom stated 'everything is not a debate you do your job and I will do mine,' " Shupe wrote. Powell gave him an ultimatum, Shupe wrote: Do the job, or go home.

Shupe briefed his team. Like Shupe, they thought the mission was a bad idea, according to the written accounts of two other team members.

Shupe and his three teammates left Baghdad in two vehicles, with four extra cans of fuel. Shupe wrote that he had no idea where or when he would be able to refuel.

As Bravo 2 drove into Fallujah on Highway 10, the team came to an interchange and passed a road sign that pointed to Fallujah. They made a U-turn to go back into Fallujah, as Powell had instructed. But Shupe then decided to pull off the highway. He wrote that he found a map with Highway 10 on it and consulted a global positioning system device.

"I made the call to stay on the highway," Shupe wrote. "The road that we would have got on would have taken us into downtown Falluja. This was at approx. 1000 hrs."

A deadly ambush

Unknown to Shupe, about a half-hour before, Blackwater's November 1 squad had driven into Fallujah, on its way to Camp Ridgeway, an American base west of town. Two team members had been kept behind in Baghdad.

Batalona and Zovko were in the front vehicle, followed by three empty flatbed trucks, followed by Helvenston and Teague in the rear vehicle. Gunmen approached the rear of the convoy and shot Helvenston and Teague. When the lead vehicle doubled back, the gunmen shot and killed Batalona and Zovko. A crowd gathered, set the cars on fire, pulled the men out and dragged their bodies through the street.

Oblivious of the massacre, Bravo 2 drove to the Jordanian border.

Back in Baghdad, Troy James Lewis, one of the Bravo 2 members kept behind, was handed several boxes of maps and told to sort them out, he wrote.

"I came across a small bundle of maps, approximately 5-6, that were listed at the tops as Al Falluja," Lewis wrote. "I thought this to be an important find as I remembered that my team had gone out without any maps of Al Falluja because they were told there were not any to be had."

Lewis finished his task and sat around drinking coffee. After lunch, Lewis wrote, the other Bravo 2 team member who stayed behind, Jay Suits, pounded on his door, visibly upset. He said a Blackwater team had been hit. The two men ran into Powell's office. Powell told them that a Blackwater team had been attacked and that Powell would lead a "quick reaction force" of five men to Fallujah.

"I immediately thought this to be a very bad idea as it sounded tactically unsound as we were obviously out numbered and out gunned," Lewis wrote. "The mission was later scrubbed."

Meanwhile, Bravo 2 arrived at the Jordanian border and picked up the ESS executive, who had been waiting for hours. While filling up the vehicles, Shupe got a phone call from Kuwait telling him that a Blackwater team had been ambushed. Shupe spoke with Powell: "The conversation was very vague and he was still trying to figure out what the situation was."

After the call, Shupe decided he wasn't going to take any more information or orders from Powell. The team stopped at an American military base for information, then drove back safely to Baghdad, taking care to skirt Fallujah.

The next day, Browne typed up an angry report on the day: "If [Powell] had been right and by treating us like children had saved our lives I would be eternally grateful. As it is he [expletive] up and the mission that he sent them out on with no planning and preparation went bad and all aboard died."

Browne later wrote a second report in a more analytical tone. He did not, however, back away from his initial report: "While it is not cool, calm and collected it is accurate."


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US Private mercenaries Mutilated in Fallujia


Video :BLACKWATER the US Secretive Mercenary Firm

Video- Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 4 of 8)

Reference:
http://www.newsobserver.com/689/story/630475.html

Video :BLACKWATER the US Secretive Mercenary Firm

In this post:
1. a two part interview with Jeremy Scahill author of a book on Black Water
2. 'Iraq For Sale' bonus scene: Blackwater
3. A short bio of Blackwater's leader Erik Prince from Wikapedia
4. An interview with Erik Prince
5. Links to a couple of good books about Blackwater



Part Two




'Iraq For Sale' bonus scene: Blackwater



BLACKWATER USA, is the world's most secretive and powerful mercenary firm. Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the firm's quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US. Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes, including President Bush.

This civilian reserve force is used by the President without needing Congress' approval. Fred Fielding was Blackwater's lawyer is now Bush's lawyer replacing Harriett Myer. Ken Star the special prosecute in the Clinton's impeachment fiasco is now Blackwater's counsel.


Erik Prince, born in 1969 in Holland, Michigan, is the founder and owner of the military support contractor Blackwater USA. A millionaire and former US Navy SEAL, after high school he briefly enrolled in the Naval Academy before attending and graduating from Hillsdale College. After college, he earned a commission in the Navy and served as a Navy SEAL officer on deployments to Haiti, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, including Bosnia. When his father Edgar Prince unexpectedly died in 1995, he ended his Navy service prematurely. He sold his family's automobile parts company, Prince Corporation, for $1.4 billion and later moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater USA.

Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Michigan and wife of former Alticor (Amway) president and Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos. Prince's first wife died of cancer in 2003, and he has since remarried and has six children. He now runs Prince Group, Blackwater’s parent company, from an office in McLean, Virginia and also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group with a mission of helping "Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ".

Due to its controversial role as an independent, though US-supported, military entity, Erik Prince and Blackwater USA have been the target of several allegations, leading to at least one major court case. Among these allegations are claims of unethical hiring practices and war profiteering.

Q&A: Blackwater's founder on the record

Erik Prince
Erik Prince

The Virginian-Pilot
© July 24, 2006

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA, is famously media-shy. But the former Navy SEAL agreed to an e-mail interview with The Virginian-Pilot. Here’s the complete text:

Q. Can you tell me a little about your personal history? I know you were a SEAL. When was that? Is that what brought you to the Hampton Roads area? How long did you live in Virginia Beach?

A. I was raised in Holland, Mich. My dad was a very successful entrepreneur. From scratch he started a company that first produced high pressure die-cast machines and grew into a world-class automotive parts supplier in west Michigan. They developed and patented the first lighted car sun visor, developed the car digital compass/thermometer and the programmable garage door opener.

Inside America's
Private Army

Not all their ideas were winners. Things like a sock-drawer light, an automated ham de-boning machine and a propeller driven snowmobile didn’t work out so well for the company. My dad used them as examples of the need for perseverance and determination.

I earned my pilot’s license at 17 and entered the Naval Academy after high school intending to be a Navy pilot. I didn’t like the academy but loved the Navy. This is where I was first exposed to the SEAL teams. I resigned after three semesters at the academy and attended Hillsdale College in Michigan, where I graduated in 1992. I re-entered the Navy through Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a naval officer. I then joined the SEALs, where I served as an officer at SEAL Team 8. I deployed to Haiti, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, including Bosnia.

As I trained all over the world, I realized how difficult it was for units to get the cutting-edge training they needed to ensure success. In a letter home while I was deployed, I outlined the vision that is today Blackwater.

I lived in Virginia Beach for about five years.

Q. Can you tell me a little about the genesis of Blackwater? What was your motivation in starting the company? Did you have any inkling that it would come so far so fast?

A. Just prior to a deployment, my dad unexpectedly died. My family’s business had grown to great success and I left the Navy earlier than I had intended to assist with family matters. I wanted to stay connected to the military so I built a facility to provide a world-class venue for U. S. and friendly foreign military, law enforcement, commercial, and government organizations to prepare to go into harm’s way. Many special operations guys I know had the same thoughts about the need for private advanced training facilities. A few of them joined me when I formed Blackwater. I was in the unusual position after the sale of the family business to self-fund this endeavor.

Q. How do you account for the phenomenal growth of Blackwater and the private security industry? Do you expect this growth to continue?

A. Blackwater's growth is due to a few simple, but important facts: We have always delivered our services complete, correct, and on time, and we continue to attract committed professionals who value service over self and who want to have an immediate positive impact for our customers.

Growth in this industry is not restricted to Iraq alone. Because of the demand, the companies who have continually invested for the long-term will be the companies who are looked at to provide services whenever they are needed. As I said before, when Blackwater got started there was little focus on training and readiness in individual skills.

We have a very long-term view to our work. We see ourselves assisting in the transformation of the DoD into a faster more nimble organization. The private sector has always led innovation in our country. If the government sees some of the things we are doing, and chooses to utilize us or to adopt and adapt some of our innovations in the defense of the nation, then all the better.

Q. Can you discuss the role played by Blackwater and other contractors in the Pentagon’s “total force,” as referenced in the latest Quadrennial Defense Review? What is its significance for Blackwater?

A. The "total force" refers to all resources available to be used in the nation's defense. Blackwater considers itself a partner to the DoD and all government agencies, and we stand ready to provide surge capacity, training, security and operational services in various areas at their request. We are honored to contribute in some small way.

American history details the contributions of private contractors in the development of our Nation. Examples include the Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay colonies; all started as private investment endeavors whose security was provided by PMCs. Across the street from the White House is Lafayette Park; on its four corners stand statues of Lafayette, Von Steuben, Rochambeau, and Kosciusko. All were foreign professional military officers that came here to help build and develop the capacity of the Continental Army. The base of one of the statues bears the inscription: “He gave military training and discipline to the citizen soldiers who achieved the independence of the United States.” Lewis and Clark’s expedition to explore the American West consisted of some active duty soldiers but their “Corps of Discovery” crew also consisted of what would now be considered contractors.

Q. What are the economics of this industry? How is it cost-effective for the government to outsource these functions?

A. Blackwater and the private sector are able rapidly to tailor a custom solution to solve the customer’s problem. Our ability to quickly react with a right-sized solution whose entire cost is only associated with the duration of the contract is cost-effective because there are no subsequent carrying costs like salary, medical care, retirement, etc.

My family’s business was automotive supply, one of the most efficient and globally competitive in the world. You wake up in the morning having to drive efficiency throughout the organization or you will be driven under. We strive for that level efficiency in what we do today. In very competitive industries, the purchasing/contract officers understand your business as well as you do. The government can ensure good value for the taxpayer by pushing that level of competence and accountability to its purchasing agents and contracting officers too.

Q. There have been calls for more regulation of this industry. Do you agree that any further regulation is needed? If so, what could you support?

A. Given the sensational tone of the media coverage our industry receives, it is understandable that there are calls for more regulation. We certainly agree that our industry should be accountable and transparent, but we should carefully analyze the domestic and international regulations that already exist so that further conversations can be had from a common foundation of accurate information. There are already many tools at the disposal of purchasing agents, government contracting officers and law enforcement officials to ensure proper behavior of PMC’s. For example, early privateers (the forbearers of the U.S. Navy) would post a significant performance bond to receive their Letter of Marque. We fully support high standards with high enforcement that drive unethical, immoral players from our industry.

Q. Some contractors have been involved in financial or abuse scandals. How can that kind of thing be avoided?

A. Those companies or individuals who disregard the moral, ethical, and legal high ground are not long for this industry. Closely working together with contracting agencies, contracting officers, and policy makers can only reduce the opportunities for financial and other abuses. The key to success is leadership and balance; strong corporate governance, and operational and "field” leadership at all levels carries the day always. We want to reduce opportunities for abuse without constraining the flexibility that makes our industry so valuable.

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 4 of 8)

Video: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 2 of 8)

US Private mercenaries Muttilated in Falluja

Images from Iraq haunt US
By Verity Murphy
BBC News Online

The gruesome images of the bodies of four US civilian contractors being mutilated and lynched in the Iraqi town of Falluja have caused outrage across the US.

Many attacking body in Falluja
Crowds used shovels to disfigure the bodies
All the main television stations began their evening news broadcasts with footage of the attacks in which the Americans were pulled from their burning vehicle, decapitated, and two of the bodies left hanging on a bridge.

And while the images of the corpses themselves were pixellated or blurred to tone down the graphic content, nothing was able to tone down the nationwide sense of shock.

Television commentators compared the violence in Falluja to the grisly scenes in Somalia a decade before; scenes immortalised in the book and film Black Hawk Down, in which a US soldier's body was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by a jubilant crowd.

That abuse hastened the US pullout from Somalia. While the White House insists it will not be deflected from its mission to bring democracy to Iraq, some analysts are saying Wednesday's events could be a turning point in how Americans view the occupation of Iraq.

Taste versus truth

Questions are being asked about why there was no attempt to rescue the contractors when they were attacked by masked gunmen as they drove through the town, a frequent scene of anti-coalition violence.

Burning car in Falluja
The vehicle the group were travelling in was set ablaze
And even it if was not possible to rescue them, why was nothing done to at least retrieve their bodies and spare them the humiliation of what followed?

In what ABC described as "desecration" the corpses were kicked, stamped on, dragged behind vehicles, hacked to pieces by adults and children, before two were finally lynched - their charred remains strung up on a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

The incident has also ignited a debate on taste and the audience's right to know. The images were graphic, of that there is no doubt, but should an audience be cosseted from the truth; should war be sanitised?

Every war has its iconic images - be it a naked young girl fleeing a napalm attack in Vietnam or a young soldier being dragged behind a vehicle in Somalia - and by their very nature they are disturbing.

Shifting position

The graphic content of the 80 seconds of video from Falluja had news editors struggling once more to balance the need to tell the story with taste and decency.

Both ABC and CBS news showed the abuse in their evening newscasts, but ensured that the corpses were electronically blurred in their footage. NBC went one step further, editing the pictures so that the bodies could not be easily seen.

Iraqis celebrate after hanging the corpses on a bridge
The victims' remains were hung from a bridge
CNN shifted its position through the course of the day. Initially, the news channel refused to show the bodies at all, focussing their report on shots of the burning vehicles and cheering mob.

But as the day wore on they showed increasingly graphic images, culminating with footage of the bodies hanging from a bridge - a decision that was defended by a correspondent saying: "Some images are necessary to fully show the extent of the violence."

Afterwards the channel's news anchor asked the audience "Does today change the way you look at the war?"

Surely this now is the question being asked by the Bush administration - will this change the way Americans view the occupation of Iraq?

The White House says no.

"There are some who want to intimidate the Iraqi people, who want to intimidate the coalition, they want to intimidate the international community and they cannot," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We will not turn back from our efforts."

Nonetheless, recognizing the effect that such images have had in the past, Mr McClellan also urged caution, telling reporters, "I hope everybody acts responsibly in their coverage."

But in a world used to frontline reporting and instant news, the public has become increasingly inured to violent, shocking images.

The real question is whether the shock of this incident will have worn off when the American people go to the polls in November.

Source: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39988000/jpg/_39988681_bridge_ap203body.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3589057.stm&h=152&w=203&sz=15&hl=en&start=4&sig2=0gc2bi0fd9lABo_iXZDpsw&tbnid=zOiIcK86Hjf2lM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=105&ei=Qa6SRo-mFLm6igGFo7iCBg&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBlackwater%2BMob%2Bmutilated%2Bcorpses%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX